Beeching, Before and After
Sep. 29th, 2024 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmBack when your granny was a wee lass, there was a small railway station at Ashley Hill in Bristol, just where Ashley Down meets Purdown, and in the shadow of the Muller orphanages. It looked like this:
Later, Dr Beeching (or a similar functionary, but let him stand for all, a la Judge Jeffreys) closed the station, and so it remained for many a year. The orphanages were by this time part of Brunel College, and were then converted to flats, while in their grounds had little houses built on them, in one of which I lived from 2006 until 2020. For much of that time, there was talk of re-opening the station under the name Ashley Down, and whenever it came up we were a little excited and a little nervous, but only a little because we never thought it would actually happen.
It did happen, yesterday. To celebrate the event, I took a two-minute journey from Stapleton Rd to visit the new, clean, yet untagged station. Not railway station, as in old-fashioned British English, not train station, as in US English, but "rail station". This is the shining new world we live in.
I felt a little self-conscious, I admit, photographing train things like an otaku in an anorak, but I was far from alone. The only depressing bit was this bench-cum-misericord, presumably designed like this to deter homeless people (because if only we didn't encourage them they wouldn't insist on being homeless?), but equally deterrent of passengers, I imagine.
Later, Dr Beeching (or a similar functionary, but let him stand for all, a la Judge Jeffreys) closed the station, and so it remained for many a year. The orphanages were by this time part of Brunel College, and were then converted to flats, while in their grounds had little houses built on them, in one of which I lived from 2006 until 2020. For much of that time, there was talk of re-opening the station under the name Ashley Down, and whenever it came up we were a little excited and a little nervous, but only a little because we never thought it would actually happen.
It did happen, yesterday. To celebrate the event, I took a two-minute journey from Stapleton Rd to visit the new, clean, yet untagged station. Not railway station, as in old-fashioned British English, not train station, as in US English, but "rail station". This is the shining new world we live in.
I felt a little self-conscious, I admit, photographing train things like an otaku in an anorak, but I was far from alone. The only depressing bit was this bench-cum-misericord, presumably designed like this to deter homeless people (because if only we didn't encourage them they wouldn't insist on being homeless?), but equally deterrent of passengers, I imagine.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-29 11:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-29 12:25 pm (UTC)That said, Bow Street station's location seemed particularly frustrating because it's on one side of Penglais hill with Aberyswyth station on the other side. So which ever station you go to, there'll still be a steep climb to get to university/library. Perhaps Transport for Wales could have installed a ski lift instead...??
But I guess the new station was great news for people working in/around Bow Street or living in Bow Street and working around Borth or Aberystwyth town centre.