VICTORIA STATION - NOTTINGHAM - Death of a Station - HD 

Bit like Preston Bus Station, also a concrete monstrosity that now can't be pulled down as it's listed would you believe!

But was crime and inequality as high then as it is now.

well said Rob - 100% agree spot on......!!! it was a fantastic Edwardian station smack bang in city centre...god knows what they were thinking - love to meet the twat who decided it had to go -

@@simonwolfe529 It was British Rail Management who decided that the station had to go, despite numerous and frequent objections. Just after the Marylebone to Manchester services was discontinued, at the beginning of 1960, and "replaced" by THREE "semi-fast" trains with a journey time of about three hours, often formed of non-corridor stock, especially in summer, there was a demonstration in Nottingham, objecting to the service cuts, and saying that this could lead to the closure of Victoria. Until then, the Great Central service to London, was faster than the Midland, although still below pre-war frequency. There would still have been a railway through the site, as there were vast amounts of freight passing through the station, so the line would have to remain open. About this time, the direct route to Colwick Yard was closed because of the poor state of Mapperley Tunnel. This closure brought even more freight traffic through Victoria Station. At the beginning of 1962, the Midland line from Rugby to Leicester was closed, and, for this reason, closure of the Great Central was refused. The East Midlands TUCC also made it clear that even if the Great Central was later closed, Victoria would remain open. Then came the Reshaping of British Railways the following year. There were numerous articles in both the National press and the Railway press, between 1963 and 1965 protesting against the closure, as Victoria was right in the centre of the city, with the Midland Station nearly a mile away. There were various proposals which showed that the Midland's traffic could be diverted to Victoria, but British Rail Management ignored everything. To add insult to injury, Nottingham Chamber of Commerce said that the city did not need a railway at all. The TUCC announced about this time that closure of Victoria would cause inconvenience, but not hardship. It is believed that British Rail sold the site for far less than its commercial value. Until early 1958, the Great Central was profitable; at this time, however, British Rail had the fixation that no town or city, except London, would be served by more than one region, so the Great Central was transferred from the Eastern to the London Midland Region, and this was why decline set in. The same is true of many other inter-regional transfers; the receiving region usually had no use for the acquired line. Incidentally, whatever people say, the Great Central was not a duplicate main line. For several towns, it was their only link to London. Two of these have a quadrupled population since closure of the line in 1966, and could easily do with a railway station. Another factor often overlooked is the vast amount of traffic the Great Central carried for sporting events at Wembley, as it was the nearest railway. Indeed, there were facilities for passengers to be picked up and set down next to the stadium. British Rail decided to ban all football specials to Wembley over the Great Central in 1965, another excuse for closing the line.

It was a travesty. Nottingham Victoria Station was a beautiful station. And when they decided to knock it down, and replace it with that glass and plastic monstrosity called the Victoria Centre, people in their droves complained. But such was the feeling in the UK at that time, to take the great legacy of the railways the Victorians had left us, and to systematically destroy it in favour of cars, trucks, and motorways, and thus the wishes of the people were ignored. In this day of choked up roads, and the very high costs of motorway maintenance, fuel, and bus fares, not to mention the exhorbitant costs of construction of the roads initially, we now see what stupidity this was. And Beeching....how much did his cuts save? £25 million. Not enough to build six miles of three lane motorway. And for that, the government who employed him, frittered away the countries legacy. Stupidity on stupidity. Ernest Marples and his crowd were well up the asses of the road hauliers, and considered that destroying the railways was the only way they could advance their own view that the railways were finished, and force transport onto the roads. Yeah, plenty of money to be made there, right? Short sighted idiots. Beeching was just a tool. And yes, the railways needed reforming, but this? This was lunacy on a monumental scale, and only now does it so clearly tell. I recall many in Worksop simply lost their jobs, for when Beeching axed the rail service to Nottingham they could no longer commute. Barbara Castle, as Transport Minister, closed the S&D Joint Railway. Public transport in the region this railway served is today an utter and complete nightmare. Bloody fools. It was the same with steam locomotives. Can you believe it was sane? Let's take all steam locomotives out of service, locomotives that run on a natural resource the country has 300 years reserves of, and replace them with diesels that run on oil, a resource the country does not have. Result? The OPEC oil crisis of 1970 where the price of diesel skyrocketed. Both my grandfathers, retired vetran steam locomotive drivers, laughed their heads off. It was a judgement on the fools, but it was the country that paid the price for their stupidity.

Maybe you could pass that forward you know to someone whos crazy enough - hint

And when Marples had got the freight off the railways onto the roads, and his wife, who was a consultant civil engineer with her fingers in all the new road building projects, had made millions, he was had up for tax evasion, and fled to France to avoid jail. Pretty clear which side Marples was batting for, and it was not the UK. The destruction of Nottingham Victoria Railway Station and the ripping up of the GCR mainline remain the greatest acts of industrial vandalism ever perpetrated in the UK.

Spot on Kali 1607 -well said agreed - am told as never saw it, was beautiful to look at and critical central location smack bang in city cetre ??why build it there in the first place 67 years earlier FFS !!! the midland one is a flat crap bungalow of a station compared to the late Victoria one....

And bloody great bottleneck tunnels at either end.

I wish you could get SteamlocoScrapper to agree this! You might be aware that there were several protests raised by Nottingham's citizens from c1960 onwards. Even in 1962, there were no plans to close the station, even if the Great Central Main Line closed. Once the Beeching Plan was announced, Nottingham's citizens complained that the wrong station was to be closed. Midland Line traffic could be switched to Victoria, though I have not worked out the finer points. One must also remember that in the late nineteenth century, the City magnates complained that their rail communications were hopelessly inadequate for a large city, so the City Council supported Victoria Station from the beginning, especially as it was built on the site of a slum, and there were major celebrations when the station was formally opened in 1900. It seems strange that their successors no longer wanted this station 60 years later. It is now pretty obvious that the citizens of Nottingham have no use for a railway in view of the sparseness of the train service they now have. Rail communications with the rest of Britain are mostly abysmal. Rather interestingly, Nottingham Chamber of Commerce in 1965 had no use for railways, and suggested that both Victoria and Midland should be closed. London Road would suffer the same fate, as it was only on a line to and from Victoria.

Except that you all speak bullshit. The Midland Station is Grade 2* listed and has great architectural features.

@@andrewtaylor5984 Maybe it could srill be done, they have the technology and equipment to do it, as it used to run from Victoria to Marylebone. Better yet what these schmuks should have done it built the new shopping centre over Vic Centre and then had the train run Underground instead they fuck it up by demolishing it, what a waste of a once amazing station, there is a way to contact HS2 if you need the link let me know.

A waste of time doing an analysis as the GC is on the wrong alignment and does not serve Birmingham.

At least Birmingham Snow Hill reopened, Nottingham Victoria never did did it?

Lewis72 Sadly the case at the time. I’m afraid. At least it didn’t succumb to the fate of Euston station. It was seen as not modern at the time and the government wanted a modern britain.

sighted even?

@@gillianlawlor868 Yes, sighted. My bad.

Victoria Station was totally unsuitable for conversion into shops. It needed to be completely demolished.

Good spot at 3.38, but think he's more Comrade Kalinin than Trotsky ??

Not really. It was a duplicate line and not needed. Passenger numbers were pitiful and that would be even truer today. Beeching was not anti railways but he was asked to show which lines were inefficient. It was just part of his brief. Don't blame the messenger. If you want to blame someone, blame all the people who decided they would prefer to travel by car.

please research first .Beeching had no power

labour closed the lines , 1965 1970 then gave beeching an award

British-mechanic yep they flipping well did

Yes Victoria flats are fucking horrible!

I dont understand it!!! Why not convert the old station building into flats or a hotel??!

A travesty indeed! My parents moved into one of the flats in 1972, so bitter sweet memories of that - I got to live on the site of the wonderful old station but only because it was gone. In later years many pointed out that the line running underneath Nottingham and out north and south was perfect for a rapid-transit system - now, of course, the new tram line uses part of that old route - but little forward thinking back then. Knock it down, stick up flats to make money...

yes they did....bloody joke !!!! can't believe it...

agreed and good central location - such a shame what were they on ?? to keep the midland one which is out of the way and shite....

Not only that but Midland station is a fair walk from the main shopping area! Victoria would be perfect!

I used to travel regularly from Boston, Grantham to Nottingham Victoria on trainspotting trips in the early 60's Nottingham Midland had more glamerous locos but Victoria had far more atmosphere

agree

no one was using it, it cost a fortune. the biggest disaster was allowing buildings to be put on the lines that were . they should have been mothballed ( the routes not the infrastructure) anyway it was not beechings doing. it was the labour party that slashed the lines , also all the 100's of pits closed in the 60's and saved none in the 90's . Careful who you vote for

loving that !!! ;-00))

and will still have its model railway shop in the city centre after the new year (Gee Dee models is closing in Nottingham before Christmas)!

Well it has done now, hence why Chiltern Railways have added 2 extra platforms to a station that in the 80s was going to close altogether would you believe!

A few years ago I visited a place in France. The station was closed to passengers, but the ticket office was open for part of the day, anyway, and all the track and infrastructure was still there, being used for freight traffic, which seemed to be quite substantial. This meant that passenger trains could be reinstated without too much trouble if demand arose. (I assume that SNCF ran a bus to the nearesr railhead.) I will keep the location secret.

@@andrewtaylor5984 The Grest Central line and all the viaducts and stations have been *smashed* to pieces and the rubble crushed to make hardcore base for roads and other buildings. The GCR will *never* be reopened. Good riddance to a useless duplicate railway with no passengers!

@@PreservationEnthusiast It was not entirely a duplicate main line. You try to go to places like Rugby, Brackley, and Aylesbury by train from Nottingham. You cannot. I bet you would not be so anti-Great Central if the Channel Tunnel had been built, as part of a link from Manchester to Paris, presumably with links to London. For some reason you want the Great Central infrastructure to make roads which can only be duplicates of existing ones. The Great Central was profitable whilst administered by the Eastern Region. (Until the beginning of 1958.) During the Grouping era, the Great Central was not single-minded; there were plenty of joint workings with the Great Western and the Southern. Also the Victoria Centre must have duplicated Nottingham's existing shopping facilities, and the Broad Marsh Centre was already there. If you look at railway photographs of the city, you will find that photos of Victoria far and away outnumber those of Midland, even before Beeching. It is pretty obvious which station is missed. Victoria is not significantly east of the central area. I have seen maps of the City Centre, showing Victoria at the centre top. At least one map does not even show the Midland Station, just a pointer to it down Carrington Street. London Road Low Level is also not shown but the High Level is. (just). Victoria was built to give the city a central railway station which it lacked in the late nineteenth century. The city's magnates complained at the time of their inadequate rail facilities, compared to other cities at the time, and their remoteness from the Centre. If the Midland Station was badly sited then, it still is today.

@@andrewtaylor5984 The Midland Station is excellently sited. It is Grade 2* listed. It has been recently refurbished. It serves Nottingham well. Victoria station was an eyesore. It was little used. It was smashed to dust with a wrecking ball. Good riddance! If you like the GCR so much, go to Loughborough where you can trundle up and down few miles to the outskirts of Leicester and back. Go from nowhere to nowhere with a small number of travellers. Thats what the GCR is all about. Get a day ticket you will love it while the rest of us get on with high speed rail travel on modern stock with National and International connections.

@@PreservationEnthusiast LMAO

what rubbish 1st of all all the roads gave me . working class, the biggest freedoms we ever had, the road and the car. the wholesale railway closure was the labour party , 1965 to 1970 and than gave beeching an award

@@bobtudbury8505 *then

say it , go on @@Inkyminkyzizwoz

just say it @@Inkyminkyzizwoz

i love the tune, very regimental

Search google for Nottstalgia it is a great forum for all things Notts with some very knowledgable members.

The biggest loss is the Woodford Halse to Banbury link, and that link lost its trains because the different Regions could not get their heads together, and work out a regular network of cross-country trains. There was no other way of avoiding London. Woodford Halse and Quainton Road were less than 30 miles apart, so most of the line would have been worthwhile. One must also remember that the line was conceived as a direct route from Manchester to Paris, via a Channel Tunnel. The tunnel was probably abandoned with the threar of war. Incidentally, the line is not strictly built to Continental Loading Gauge, as those dimensions were not agreed until some ten years after the line was built.

If you read the description of the video you'll see that these are clips from a video that you can purchase. Cheers!

Ta for that. I'll look it out.

I usually turn the sound off for videos. They almost invariably have bad music. I wonder where they find it.

MyTeespoon nottinham the best

Nottingham was and still is a beautiful city. Not too big not too small. Just right. The people that inhabit it these days is a different story

Hopefully eventually, what would you predict would happen in future?

The Great Central main line was in a relatively healthy financial position until it was transferred from the Eastern Region to the London Midland Region early in 1958. It was BR thinking at the time that no town or city, with the obvious exception of London, should be served by more than one region. There were several other regional transfers over the years where one of the regions did its best to get rid of a line it inherited from another. When the line did survive, it more often than not had reduced facilities.

I believe that is incorrect. Beeching did recommend the closure of Manea. I would need to check, but I believe it was Barbara Castle who refused the closure of Manea. Strange, as she allowed the closure of many other stations (including some around Manea) and routes, including Cambridge - Bletchley and Bletchley - Oxford. I think it was 2015 that Manea saw a much enhanced timetable (roughly every two hours a train each way) and passenger usage has shot up. SEE orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates Third line.

I enjoyed the music, I think it was fitting as it was a triumph to smash up a redundant duplicate station and replace it with a useful shopping centre.

Yes, but it is a long way from the City Centre, and has very few trains.

...Because although it is annoying, remember that most of this footage was shot by dirt poor schoolboy enthusiasts on 16 and 8mm film, where there isn't a soundtrack. We'd just be sat in silence.

Ropponmatsu2 What is wrong with silence? I was always taught it was golden.

Yours would be.

You're just a miserable git. Go back to your corner.

Choo-choo noises, that'll do!

These are clips taken from a longer film - read the description for details- thanks

Nooby Gamer Demolish the stations and rip the steam locomotives apart with cutting torches. Melt down the scrap and recycle it for cans and cars.