A very good and cold morning stint at Carlisle on the West Coast Mainline where we see plenty of services from Avanti West Coast, Northern, Transpennine Express and freight from DRS.
Carlisle was opened by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway in 1847, several years after the first station in Carlisle was opened but had nothing to do with the company.
When the station was opened the construction work wasn't complete, there was only one full length platform finished with the others still receiving work done to them along with the station roof. The station was immediately served by two train companies and as a result of this it meant that things get very tricky in trying to maintain a good timetable, the two companies in question were the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway and the Caledonian Railways.
Because the route was vital to freight traffic as the years went by the various companies that sought to run passenger traffic into the station formed a new committee ontop the two others that were created throughout the early years and it was agreed that to minimise the risk to the passengers on the station a new avoidance line would be built that would take any and all freight trains around the station and not straight through it as they used to do before the station started getting busier.
As the passenger numbers started increasing and the Midland Railway opened their Settle-Carlisle route it meant that the station would need to go through a series of changes, along with the increased passenger traffic coming into the station as a result of the new route being opened it also meant that more freight was passing through the station. Expansion work was to take place in two phases during the early and mid 1870's, as to what this work was I'm not to sure.
In 1881 the improvement works were officially completed and the station was served a healthy amount of train operating companies, they were: London and Northwestern, London North Eastern, Midland, Caledonian, North British, Glasgow & South Western and the Maryport & Carlisle Railway. So yeah a decent amount to keep the station busy. Each company had its own parcel office and booking office. So the station was fairly packed at all times.
A new island platform was built making three long through platforms for the Anglo-Scottish services and five bay platforms for all of the terminating services. Below the station was a network of passageways which allowed station staff to get to the various area of the station, this included: Offices, service rooms and staff accommodation. More so for the long distance overnight trains because back then trains ran at the speed of a snail.
A large Iron and Glass roof was constructed which replaced the smaller canopies on the station, this would span an 85 metre width covering all of the platforms which would also shield the staff and passengers and everything else from the elements most commonly found with the northern English weather.
The next load of work came in the 1900's when the various companies serving the station became the London Midland & Scottish Railway, during WW2 the main station roof was painted black. This was done to ensure that the station wasn't easily visible to the Luftwaffe.
The station roof for a long time was in a sorry state and has been since the mid 1950's. Over the course of the last 70 years the station roof has been slowly getting into a case of disrepair, the iron beams were deteriorating and the glass was starting to brake away which actually resulted in parts of the station getting closed off at times because of the safety issue, the last thing they wanted to have happened was a large shard of glass falling onto someone down below, and yet nothing was done about it.
It was only from 2010/2011 that work was starting to take place on the now dilapidated roof which hadn't seen much attention since it was played with in the 1950's, the resulting work had meant that the roof has now been completed and it looks nothing short of fantastic, it really does capture the overall mood of the station.
My next station is Preston.
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