Station Gallery

Perranporth Station, April 1960

Locomotive No 4593 stands at Perranporth Station on 23rd April 1960 while the driver chats to a member of station staff before continuing on its journey to Newquay. The island platform sits between two running lines on the Truro to Newquay railway. A glimpse of a train waiting on the opposite platform can be seen to the left of the photograph

© STEAM Museum of the GWR

Bristol Temple Meads Station, c.1843

Lithograph by John Cooke Bourne of Brunel's train shed at Bristol Temple Meads Station in c.1843, a few years after the station opened in 1840. Railway workers are dealing with the locomotives and wagons with some onlooking passengers watching from the platforms. The perspective of the print shows the massive scale of the 200ft (60m) long structure and its magnificent roof

© STEAM Museum of the GWR

Evacuees waiting outside the departure platform at Paddington in 1939

One of the very first war time roles that the GWR was engaged in was the evacuation of children from cities to the relative safety of the countryside. Even before war was declared, plans were drawn up for evacuation so the GWR and the other major railway companies were prepared and on standby to put these plans into action. On August 31st 1939, the day before Germany invaded Poland, the order to begin the evacuation was given. The very next day the mass movement of children began and continued until September 4th. The GWR was responsible for the majority of the children moved from North and East London and while most of the evacuation trains departed from Ealing Broadway, this image shows groups of children being off-loaded from a double decker bus outside the Departure Platform at Paddington Station during the four days of evacuation in September 1939