Over a span of three centuries Shrewsbury Railway Station has sent countless travellers on their way and welcomed untold numbers to the county town.
In popular imagination the golden era of rail travel was some time in the distant past and, whether or not that is true, it was certainly different with the huffing, puffing, snorting steam locomotives, the smell of smoke, the distinctive clickety-clack of trains moving over the tracks, platform tickets (remember those?), and plentiful staff.
Shrewsbury, it should be remembered, was a major railway town. Not so much now though. But it does have one of Britain’s most striking railway station buildings, dating back to 1848, its architecture meriting it Grade II listed status.
It’s all a fascinating past. Hop on, and let us take you there.
- Did you see our gallery of 49 pictures showing a very different Shropshire in 1978? Take a trip back in time and see the pictures here.
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29. Dig it
Here is the excavation work under way around 1900 or 1901. | Shropshire Archives
30. Levelling down
You get a good idea of how the work was done in this image. On the left is the creation of a lower level, and on the right is the original level. It meant a new entrance was created, in which passengers used a subway and then climbed stairs to get to the platforms, as of course they continue to do to this day. | Shrewsbury Chronicle
31. Buffet the hunger slayer
A clearout of a desk at Paddington station around the late 1980s uncovered two interesting pictures of the buffet at Shrewsbury station. After we published this in 1998 we were contacted by Shrewsbury-born Richard Griffiths, of Killay, Swansea. “I was amazed when I looked at the picture, because I am the young person at the counter by the door,” he told us. “I began my railway career in 1953 in the regional treasurer’s office on the then Platform 10, now little used but numbered 3. My first move for promotion was in 1958, to Westbury in Wiltshire, so the picture dates from between 1953 and 1958. The buffet, now Platform 4, was divided into two areas with the administration and stores between the two buffets. There were two other buffets at each end of Platform 10, one by the lift and the other by the two bay platforms, Hereford end. Also at the Chester end was the Coffee Tavern, managed by Mrs Birrell.” Mr Griffiths, whose parents lived at Racecourse Lane, Bicton Heath, added: “I have vivid memories of the buffet which we always knew as the refreshment rooms. The manageress and assistant were, I think, Miss Evans and Miss Griffiths and general assistants were Eileen, Kathie, Elsie and Flo who rotated their buffet duties in four locations. I immediately spotted myself on the picture. I used to work on the opposite platform to where the picture was taken. It was obviously during a lunch break. The RAF personnel would either have been going to Cosford or to Bridgnorth, as the Severn Valley line was open in those days.” | Shropshire Star archive
32. Back for seconds
Fast forward a few years and here are some of the displayed prices: tea is 6d, coffee 10d, rum is 2s 1d, brandy 2s 10d, and port is 2s. The newspaper being read by the man at the table is the Daily Mirror and includes the front page headline “Iron Curtain ‘Cilla Black’” or similar, and part of the cartoon may depict the politician George Brown, suggesting that this picture dates from the 1960s. | Shropshire Star archive