Memories of Victoria station

[Cliff Ton 10,457]

I'm just old enough to remember it, and as Bilbraborn says, it was the massive, smokey, sheer scale of the place which struck you.

Anyone who is too young to have been to it would never understand or comprehend the beauty and atmosphere of the place. It was huge but cosy.... In its later, quieter days, in between trains it was peaceful, the quiet only disturbed by the sound of luggage trollies being hauled along the platform (or maybe the porter snoring in the mess room).

These two photos might go some way to explaining the atmosphere there.

And from the outside........that's Glasshouse Street over in the right background.

[FLY2 10,108]

A B1 on what looks like one of the "Fast Fish" trains. Brilliant!

[Commo 1,292]

Re #11, love those photos Cliff, as you say they capture the atmosphere of the place, especially if like me you are old enough to have been there. The photo of the pedestrian bridge has caught the little lass on the right hand side heading off to catch the Hogwarts Express!

[mgread1200 141]

Great pictures! Strange how they never capture any train spotters in them there must have been thousands of us back then with our 10S/6d combinds.

[Chris in 1066Land 5]

I traveled many times on the Great Central from Loughborough to Notts Victoria in the 50's and 60's as a teenager - loved the smell and the grand buildings of the station, covered in soot, but most of all I loved the Tunnels along that route and travelling above the streets and the Old Midland Station

[firbeck 859]

The first two photo's you showed Clifton are awsome, where did they come from, did you take them?

[The Pianoman 1,532]

The first picture of the two that Cliffton has put on there is the only bit of Victoria Station I can actually remember.

[Bubblewrap 3,815]

The first two photo's you showed Clifton are awsome, where did they come from, did you take them?

I think you will find they are the work of Frank Stevenson ARPS

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Nottingham-in-Focus-The-Photos-of-Frank-Stevenson-by-Ralph-Gee-1989-/130959150089

[Cliff Ton 10,457]

I think you will find they are the work of Frank Stevenson ARPS

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Nottingham-in-Focus-The-Photos-of-Frank-Stevenson-by-Ralph-Gee-1989-/130959150089

That's what I've got! They also appear on Picture the Past.

[Bubblewrap 3,815]

Frank Stevenson's photographs appear in many books on Nottingham.

[Bubblewrap 3,815]

Another point on post 7 the east & west signal boxes Situated bet tween platforms 7&10(east box & platforms 1&4(west box)

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

I don't know if this is true but here is a tale I heard about Nottingham Victoria Station. A couple of years before final closure, the platform restaurants were closed. Apparently lots of china bearing the words Great Central Railway and Nottingham Victoria Station, and also cutlery (Sheffield steel of course) impressed with the same were locked up inside the boarded up rooms and forgotten until the ball and chain brigade arrived and smashed up the bloody lot. It would be so sad if this was true. Some of that fine china would look lovely on my dining room table.

[firbeck 859]

Bilbraborn, I have a professionally shot video/film of the last day of steam services out of Vic which features you, me, John Smith and my old man watching the last semi fast depart with that unexcusable,disgustingly filthy Class 5 with the tatty wreath on the front. As I recall there were very few people around on the day to witness this sad event, my own pics and colour slide show a virtually empty platform as it pulled out the station. You'll remember the hordes that were around to see the double headed B1 special at lunch time that day, but where did they all go to for the main event. When we came back from Sheffield late at night on the last ever timetabled passenger train to follow that route, you, me, John Smith and my old man were the only people on board the entire train. If you recall we took all the toilet rolls out of the bogs and hung them from the carriage door handles and lifted that brass metal drain off plug found in carriage toilets those days and hung toilet rolls out of those so they trailed along the tracks below the train, we made sure the train entered Vic in a blaze of toilet paper inspired glory. Remember the drunken ticket collector on duty, don't blame him, he was out of a job. He refused to let us keep our tickets as souvenirs, my old man threatened him, called him a drunken b#st#rd and that he would report him, he never did.

Happy Days?

[BulwellBrian 107]

The Great Central wanted the station to be called Nottingham Central, but of course the Great Northern would not agree, It was the then called Nottingham Joint Station. The then Lord Mayor suggested the name Victoria which the two companies accepted.

It was a fine station much more character than the Midland. The finger boards at the bottom of the stairs pointing the platforms for the trains.

I didn't do much train spotting at the Vic, I couldn't afford the bus or train fare, I went up the road to Bulwell Common where it didn't cost anything, I also walked to Basford North to see those trains.

I do remember catching the only train that ran to Kings Cross via Grantham, I think it went about 7:30am! It started from one of the south end bays like many Grantham trains behind I think an N2 tank and had additional coaches added at Grantham together with A4 60010 Dominion of Canada. It must have been about 1958 or1959.

Great memories.

[StephenFord 866]

BulwellBrian - I suspect that the 7.30ish to Kings Cross would be a subsidiary portion of "additional coaches", added at Grantham to an East Coast Main Line express from farther north, rather than the other way round.

[BulwellBrian 107]

Possibly Stephen, but the coaches were added to the Nottingham train in the southbound platform of Grantham station by the pacific.

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

Pete. If I had the chance I'd do it all again. None of todays young steam buffs will ever understand what it was like in the last days of steam. The whole atmosphere and the sight, sounds and smells of decay as closed stations were left to rot and become vandalised. The search for steam and my goodness! The state they were in!!! We made the most of it. We walked the barely closed lines. We were naughty and trespassed. Remember the day we went over the bridge at Brockenhurst on the tandem, Pete? And ended up riding on one of the last steam hauled trains to Lymington Pier instead of cycling there. Yes I'd certainly do it all again.

[Smiffy49 590]

A very nice article on Nottingham Victoria, with some good photographs, in one of the railway periodicals this month.

Flicked through it in WH Smith's, but can't remember the title.

Smiffy

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

If I remember I'll go and look.

[firbeck 859]

Bilbraborn, the thing about the last days of steam, sad though it was, you never knew what you might come across. There was no internet then and the only source of information was from the Railway Magazine which gave information on shed closures, withdrawals, areas banned to steam etc, etc, the only problem was that the information tended to be months out of date. When we cycled down to the Isle of White during Easter 1967, we knew that steam wasn't finishing on the Southern Region until the start of the Summer timetable, but we didn't know how much there was to see and where.

On the way down we called in at Banbury Station which had been a steam outpost, nothing, then Oxford, nothing, Newbury, just outside Didcot, we hung around the Southern Salisbury mainline at Whitchurch but in each case we saw nothing. By the time we got to Winchester we'd almost given up seeing any steam, even going straight to the station we only saw EMU's at first until a non stop London bound West Country Class came hurtling through. Then things improved, especially when we went round the steam filled Eastleigh sheds on the way to the ferry, I recall crossing the bridge over to the sheds and a boat train came sweeping round the bend with a Merchant Navy Pacific on the front, I couldn't get my camera out the saddle bags quick enough to get a photo. The Lymington branch surprised us, we didn't realise it was the last steam hauled branch in the country with a special nameplate to match. The there was the Isle of White trains, we knew they'd been electrified, but we didn't expect to find the last surviving two O2 tank engines still sitting in Ryde shed.

I remember the year before, we went on the tandem to Rowsley not expecting to see any steam as we thought it had been banned from Midland lines, but while having our butties in a field an 8F came rattling through on a freight, which I managed to photograph. Even better, while heading back down the A6 towards Derby, we saw what we thought was a Jubilee on a passenger train at Ambergate, heading south. We didn't think at that time that any Jubes remained in service, we went on to Belper station where a right thicko confirmed a steam loco had gone through but too fast for him to get the number. We had to go on the platform at Derby to get a confirmation that it was indeed a Jubilee, heading down to Birmingham. Don't forget that a few months previously we'd gone round York shed not expecting to see much but finding the roundhouse full of V2's and the last surviving A1 pacific out in the yard. We learnt to expect the unexpected in those days.

[Deeps 68]

Thanks Bilbraborn what a wonderful evocative picture you paint. My abiding memory of Victoria Station is from the early 60s when my ship was based in Rosyth I used to travel on leave from Edinburgh Waverley I had to change at York and had to wait a couple of hours for the connection to Nottingham (usually in one of the Hostelries close to the station) The train used to get into Nottingham about 0200 The station would be eerily quiet with nobody around the noises and smells were exactly as you describe them. In those days there would be a ticket collector on all night usually it would be Mr Edwards who lived on Brand Street the next street to where I lived (Michael Booth remember Dougy's dad) he would usually greet me with Hello there home again even though it had sometimes it had been 6 months since I had been home After a brief chat he would then ask when I was going back

[StephenFord 866]

According to September 1962 timetable, it was the 10.22pm York to Swindon, due into Nottingham Vic at 1.17. (See Timetable World).

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

Thanks for the memories Pete. That trip to the Isle of Wight Easter 1967 was brilliant. We travelled on the first generation of Isle of Wight electrics and as you said photographed the last steam at Ryde shed. Remember that young porters bloody hat at the youth hostel. I have hysterics when I think of stuff like that now. But Victoria station? Forget the cathedral on Derby Road. As far as I was concerned Victoria Station was Nottingham's real cathedral.

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

I may have mentioned this before. In the late 70s - early 80s I had a neighbour who retired as a shunter on the GCR. He worked a lot of his time at Bulwell Common, but started his railway career as a box lad at Victoria Station North signal box. Like us, he loved the station and often reminisced about his time there. He used to buy railway magazines at the paper shop near the station and send them away to be bound (as you did in those days) I used to sit in his house and look through them. He wanted me to have them but I insisted he gave them his son which he did.

[Michael Booth 7,364]

These two videos of Victoria Station were in the Nottingham Post today. They are from the late 60's, prior and during it's demolition in 1967.

The second video shows a selection of steam engines at the Victoria Station in 1964.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JBvPRfkpS1A