Manchester Victoria station passes by through the windows of a Metrolink tram. Why was I on a Metrolink tram going through Victoria, the place where I normally catch my train home? Because there weren’t any bloody trains from Victoria this afternoon, were there. Tram to Rochdale instead, three-hour journey home, welcome back to the 2015 commute indeed.
More a documentary photo today than any claims to artistic quality. This is where they’re currently at with the rebuilding of Manchester Victoria station. The tracks are the Metrolink (tram) line, still working (you can see a tram in the background) but the stop is closed. So the commuters can trundle through and watch lots and lots of men hanging about while dressed from head to toe in fluorescent orange.
Into Manchester for the first time in a few weeks. Victoria station’s redevelopment proceeds onwards: this is taken from platform 1, looking back towards the old building (listed, so they have to preserve it in the rebuild) and the new roof. It’s good to see.
OK, I am repeating a theme from three days ago, but there you go. I spend a lot of time on trains and railway platforms. This may be the right time to catch platform 1, anyway. As the renovations proceed, over the last couple of weeks it has lost its roof, allowing the continuing pleasant sunshine to fall on those waiting for their trains home. And the roof leaked anyway.
I continue to be in a long run of time spent at home and around familiar places. This mural, next to one of the entrances of Manchester Victoria station, has been here a very long time, since the services round here were run by the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, rather than Northern Rail. The red lines on this map were theirs. Some have now gone but quite a number remain actively operational.
Gosh, I made it into Manchester. But because this was a potentially traumatic experience, the wife came with me, and we didn’t stay for all that long.
The refurbishment continues of the building recently named as one of the 10 worst railway stations in Britain. A mundane shot to mark a day with a good number. As well as being day 777 of the blog it is also 22 years to the day since I moved to Yorkshire.
Manchester Victoria station is like the down-and-out elder sister (*) of the brash, terribly metropolitan and far better-off sibling, Piccadilly. A backwater in transport terms already, it was further whacked by the IRA bomb which went off nearby in June 1996, and the roof has leaked, as far as I know, ever since. A couple of years ago it appeared on the list of ’10 Worst Railway Stations in Britain’, an accolade that all of us who use it heartily endorsed, I am sure. Still, at least now they seem to be putting a bit of effort into it. It only took 17 years, but let’s hope it helps the old thing.
(*) Well, it does have a girl’s name.
I really like this shot, and its grid-like structure – I like it even more if I claim that the smudge on the lens is some kind of artistic statement on my part. This chap with his headphones on looked very chilled out this morning, good for him.
Early in the day, more importantly, early in the year. Even if they are pretty… too early 😦
Being 42 