North Shields Railway Station

[Jonathan1973]

North Shields station was opened as a terminus (known as 'Shields'), by the Newcastle & North Shields Railway Company in June 1839. In 1847 the line was extended to Tynemouth and the station was re-named North Shields in 1874. The first station building was constructed around 1843. to the design of John and Benjamin Green. The booking office lay on an elevated site (and after 1847), over the tracks at the eastern end of the station. The station lay at the crossroads formed by what are now called; Nile Street, Little Bedford Street, Railway Terrace and Railway Street. There were buildings along each of the platforms, probably accommodating waiting rooms, toilets and goods facilities. In 1890 the booking office was rebuilt under the auspices of the NER, to a design possibly by Bell. I think that the buildings on each platform were retained. This arrangement survived essentially intact until the mid-1960's, when British Rail demolished the booking office (along with the overall roof), and replaced it with a pre-fabricated structure. During the 1970's, the buildings on the southern (Wallsend), platform were demolished. The station closed on 11/8/80 with the opening of the Metro (from Tynemouth), to Newcastle via Benton. Tyne & Wear PTE demolished the BR booking office and the original buildings on the northern platform. A new Metro booking hall, shop, travel centre and taxi office was built on the site of the booking office. Traces of all the earlier buildings were still visible throughout the 1990's. The Metro station opened in November 1982, and itself survived until the mid-1990's when the station was 'refreshed'. As of Easter 2011, the entire station is being demolished and rebuilt. The surviving traces of the 1843, 1890, 1960's and original Metro stations have mostly been cleared. When I visited, the booking hall was still extant but disused with a temporary entrance from Railway Terrace. The attached pictures show (1 & 2) the station in 1887, (3) the entrance in the early 1960's, and (4) the entrance in about 1975/76. They are mainly taken from Fawcett's books about NER architecture.

[Percy Main]

Some of my earliest memories feature North Shields station (in its third picture down incarnation).

I remember the taxis and taxi office inside the cobbled covered entrance, the Smith's bookstall on the north side of the booking hall, and particularly the bell that used to ring on the platform when a train was coming through the tunnel from Tynemouth and the sudden filling of the train shed with smoke when it was a steam-hauled goods train.

There was also a pub next to the station on the north side ('The Comet'?) which had etched glass windows of express steam engines resembling streamlined LMS Coronations more than LNER A4s.

[Jonathan1973]

I have a few more images for the North Shields thread. The first two are plans of the station; (1) is by Fawcett and shows the 1843 site, (2) is from a map of 1896 and shows the 1890 station. (3) is a picture of the 1890 entrance looking west, and (4) is a bit of a mystery. It is taken from a book about North Shields, and was described as the interior of the old ferry landing. I wonder if it is actually a picture of the interior of the 1890 station. Perhaps someone who remembers the building in the 1950's or 60's could help me out.

[Percy Main]

That's exactly how I remember the entrance to the ferry. I can still hear the rattle of the turnstile. There was also a huge sign giving the fares for alls sorts of strange combinations like 'a man and a cow', 'two men, a cow and a pig' etc.

[52D]

I dont know if you have seen the postings on the death of William Stephenson at Willington Viaduct in 1853 in here. The inquests asks questions about the turntable at North Shields. Have you got a map with the position of the table on? If you havent seen the thread send me a mail and i will forward the Article i wrote for The Link, the Aln Valley Railways magazine.

[woodpusher22]

Hi Jonathan,
Some memories of mine of North Shields 1955. As a 20 yr old railway clerk, fresh out of National Service, I worked for about six months in the booking office and parcels office there. On the early shift I started at 6am. The early morning passenger traffic (6am - 7am) was very busy, especially for the workmens' trains, then later in the morning came the commuter rush at (8am-9am). For me, I then spent the rest of my early shift in the parcels office. My late shift started at 1pm, finishing at 10pm, the whole shift spent in the parcels office. The intensity of 'passenger parcels' traffic was very high in those days; it was quite separate from Goods traffic which was dealt with at Tynemouth. We had 2 parcels motorvans which would collect daily from the factories on the Norham estate, the bulk of which were from 'Dukes & Markus' and 'Levines', 2 large clothing factories which supplied Woolworths, C&As, Paige, Etams, etc., all over the country. There would be 100 - 200 of these parcels despatched daily, plus numerous other small industrial parts from local firms, and also passengers' luggage sent in advance of their holidays. To send goods by 'Passenger Parcels' was much more expensive than sending by goods train, but it was much faster.
As the parcels office, like the booking office, was at street level, the porters had to take the barrows of parcels down the outside ramp to get to rail level. Even worse for them was the trip back up with parcels from the trains. One porter (who shall remain nameless) panting from his exertions up the ramp, would pop his head around the office door, and say, "I'm just going to change my breath," and stagger across to the 'Railway' for a quick'un. There were some great characters amongst the operating staff. One porter who had been a paratrooper during the war, put three youths in hospital who were trying to mug him when he was out with his girlfriend. Another porter when I visited him at his home, turned out to be an expert accordionist, He gave me a demonstration of accordion playing that would have graced any 'X Factor' show. There was a lad porter (nicknamed 'Hedgehog' because of his hairstyle) had a narrow escape one day when hurrying across the p-way at the end of the platform ramps with a 4 wheel barrow in front of an incoming train. The front of the EMU clipped the trailing corner of the barrow, sending it sideways, upsetting its contents at the side of the track. I wasn't on duty at the time that it happened, so I don't know whether the train was delayed for inspection. The lad wasn't sacked, and I don't think there was any sort of official inquiry about the incident. Talking of accidents, there were two fatalities while I worked at Jesmond. A porter fell between the train and the platform edge as the train was leaving the west platform. The other fatality was no accident - a boy porter hanged himself from one of the signal brackets.
Getting back to North Shields, from what I remember of the buildings at platform level, I don't think there were any on the south platform (to Percy Main). The opposite platform had the porters' room, stationmaster's office, lamp room, and I think there was a gents' toilet there too. On the approach to the north platform there was a short spur with loading bay and parcels shed. A single electric unit fitted out as a parcels van in its own right, used to go around the system (in anti-clockwise direction), dropping off and picking up the parcels traffic at each station. As the spur was not electrified, this used to load/unload at the open end of the north platform. At times when it was out of action a 0-6-0T would drop off a goods wagon at the spur. As the loading bay and shed were at the head shunt, once the 0-6-0T had dropped off the van, we (clerk, porters, stationmaster) would have to push it by hand along the old rusty track to the shed; once it had been unloaded/loaded we had to push it back over the points so that when the 0-6-0T returned, it could back up on to it to be coupled.
I quite enjoyed my time at North Shields, and made many friends there.

[Jonathan1973]

Thanks for the comments. I'm afraid that I don't have a map showing the turntable. I guess that it would have been to the north-west of the platforms, somewhere around the goods yard. With regard to the platform buildings, I may well be wrong. My witterings are based on map and photographic evidence, rather than firsthand experience. The map that I posted did seem to show waiting rooms running along Railway Terrace. They can also be seen on the photograph of the EMU, taken after the overall roof was demolished. Pictures taken during the '70's show that any buildings (which must have been at least two stories), on the Percy Main platform had been demolished and the area fenced off. Until recently, blocked windows could be seen in the brick wall running west from the station along Railway Terrace. The buildings on the Tynemouth platform survived, although the parcels office at least was disused. I can't remember where I got all of the pictures I'm posting - they have been acquired from various sources over about 25 years. If anyone objects to my using them, let me know and I'll remove them.
Incidentally, does anyone know of the Hylton Street Goods Station. It is just to the west of North Shields and last time I passed through, was used as a depot for some Metro track maintenance wagons. I can find nothing about its history, if indeed it existed.

[barty4147]

Hi Jonathan,
Some memories of mine of North Shields 1955. As a 20 yr old railway clerk, fresh out of National Service, I worked for about six months in the booking office and parcels office there. On the early shift I started at 6am. The early morning passenger traffic (6am - 7am) was very busy, especially for the workmens' trains, then later in the morning came the commuter rush at (8am-9am). For me, I then spent the rest of my early shift in the parcels office. My late shift started at 1pm, finishing at 10pm, the whole shift spent in the parcels office. The intensity of 'passenger parcels' traffic was very high in those days; it was quite separate from Goods traffic which was dealt with at Tynemouth. We had 2 parcels motorvans which would collect daily from the factories on the Norham estate, the bulk of which were from 'Dukes & Markus' and 'Levines', 2 large clothing factories which supplied Woolworths, C&As, Paige, Etams, etc., all over the country. There would be 100 - 200 of these parcels despatched daily, plus numerous other small industrial parts from local firms, and also passengers' luggage sent in advance of their holidays. To send goods by 'Passenger Parcels' was much more expensive than sending by goods train, but it was much faster.
As the parcels office, like the booking office, was at street level, the porters had to take the barrows of parcels down the outside ramp to get to rail level. Even worse for them was the trip back up with parcels from the trains. One porter (who shall remain nameless) panting from his exertions up the ramp, would pop his head around the office door, and say, "I'm just going to change my breath," and stagger across to the 'Railway' for a quick'un. There were some great characters amongst the operating staff. One porter who had been a paratrooper during the war, put three youths in hospital who were trying to mug him when he was out with his girlfriend. Another porter when I visited him at his home, turned out to be an expert accordionist, He gave me a demonstration of accordion playing that would have graced any 'X Factor' show. There was a lad porter (nicknamed 'Hedgehog' because of his hairstyle) had a narrow escape one day when hurrying across the p-way at the end of the platform ramps with a 4 wheel barrow in front of an incoming train. The front of the EMU clipped the trailing corner of the barrow, sending it sideways, upsetting its contents at the side of the track. I wasn't on duty at the time that it happened, so I don't know whether the train was delayed for inspection. The lad wasn't sacked, and I don't think there was any sort of official inquiry about the incident. Talking of accidents, there were two fatalities while I worked at Jesmond. A porter fell between the train and the platform edge as the train was leaving the west platform. The other fatality was no accident - a boy porter hanged himself from one of the signal brackets.
Getting back to North Shields, from what I remember of the buildings at platform level, I don't think there were any on the south platform (to Percy Main). The opposite platform had the porters' room, stationmaster's office, lamp room, and I think there was a gents' toilet there too. On the approach to the north platform there was a short spur with loading bay and parcels shed. A single electric unit fitted out as a parcels van in its own right, used to go around the system (in anti-clockwise direction), dropping off and picking up the parcels traffic at each station. As the spur was not electrified, this used to load/unload at the open end of the north platform. At times when it was out of action a 0-6-0T would drop off a goods wagon at the spur. As the loading bay and shed were at the head shunt, once the 0-6-0T had dropped off the van, we (clerk, porters, stationmaster) would have to push it by hand along the old rusty track to the shed; once it had been unloaded/loaded we had to push it back over the points so that when the 0-6-0T returned, it could back up on to it to be coupled.
I quite enjoyed my time at North Shields, and made many friends there.

[barty4147]

i to worked at north shields I stared as a van boy in march 1956 george fairlamb was my driver.i will never foget him.after two years at shields I moved to newcastle central parcels office. after working in parcel office the as van boy again i then went to darlington driving school , after passing my driving test i then transfered to forth goods dep,t then onto tcfd felling .

[52A]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-15322176

Soon to be no more!

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

Were the old station to survive I'd say that it would be pity to flatten it.

As it is, possibly the kindest thing that could be done.