Manchester Victoria Station
 

Well, this is my most favourite station! I first remember visiting it in about 1985/6, still in its older form, but still at that time a hive of activity with freight, passenger, parcels trains aswell as other stock movements; there was also extensive carriage sidings at Red Bank just East of the station which used to house all the parcel vans, multiple units & carriage stock to operate Victoria's rail services. It also has a varied and fascinating history and for many years neighboured by Manchester Exchange, with whom it shared the longest platform in Europe - or probably the world! Recent times haven't been kind to it, but hopefully a recent change in attitudes will once again see it back where it belongs. Enjoy the links below for your persual!

Victoria - a Brief History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Victoria

Victoria - 1980's/90's pics
http://www.variousstuff.co.uk/rail_menu_stations.htm

Thanks for the links Duncan. I really enjoyed looking at the Victoria pictures. They brought back many happy memories of services that I had completely forgotten about.
I first visited Victoria nearly 50 years ago. Whenever we went to Manchester to visit relatives our train arrived at Exchange station but I always ran down that long platform to see what foreign locos were lurking at the other end:D

My pleasure, swisstrains, I'll see what else I can dig up! Enjoy this in the meantime!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/cont...aces_360.shtml

Oh, and you'll LOVE these - old pics of Manchester Exchange - theres more pics there to view there too - even after closure - remarkable that since it closed in 1969, the train shed wasn't demolished till 1982!

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/ (click on 'list' then Manchester Exchange)

I certainly did. Absolutely great!!
We always returned home on the North Wales train that was due to leave Exchange at about 7:30 pm and was usually hauled by a Black 5 or a Patricroft Standard 5. Departure was nearly always late because we had to wait for the new fangled "Trans-Pennine" Hull-Liverpool DMU to go in front of us as far as Earlestown:D

I enjoyed the panorama of Victoria also. Even today it is still a nice looking, bright station and I think the old buffet near to the ticket windows is beautiful. I really hope that they can make better use of Victoria in the future instead of routing virtually everything through Piccadilly.

Heres some more - some nice pics here!

http://www.geoffspages.co.uk/raildiary/1054/index.htm

http://neilharvey4789.fotopic.net/c736938.html

Thanks again Duncan.
I was able to extract some useful info from these sites. I have photos of my own taken at the same time as some of those shown but I had not noted the dates. Now I know on which date the Network North-West RailDay was in 1992 :D

Victoria and Exchange was my favourite of the Manchester Stations, I used to spend Saturday's there in the late fifties, the place was so busy, so platforms, so many trains, by the time I got home I was worn out but had lots of numbers and a few namers.

92212

Manc Vic was a great place. I've got fond memories of watching Class 40's and 25's there from the early 70's. And the Manchester-Bury EMUs as well!

plenty more old photos of Manchester stations if you search at http://www.images.manchester.gov.uk/

Thanks for the link "keir":)
A search brings up some interesting pics.

Again thanks for this link Keir, as a Mancunian now living in Warwickshire (on missionary work, they don't have Meat/tater pies down here:eek: ) I was able to expand from the Station, onto Withy Grove, Sugar Lane and finally White Hart Court, where I worked for 30 years. I left that site in 1972
So thanks again

Seth

I used to visit Manc Vic every now and again, mainly as for a change on my way to Crewe. We got the bus over to Piccadilly rather than getting off at Stalybridge (from Leeds).

It was in my opinion a cold, dark and dank station that was in a time warp of its own which actually gave the station great charisma.

If my memory serves me right did it not have one of the longest platforms in the UK?.

Just had a good look through the links Duncan and thoroughly enjoyed the photos of Crewe and Warrington, many tnx Chris.

Longest station platforms?

The longest railway platform in the world (1,072 metres, or 3,538 feet) is at Kharagpur, West Bengal (India).