East Yorkshire Railway Stations – From Airmyn to Yapham Gate
Peter Tuffrey
Amberley Books
Railways occupy a special place in the heart of many of us in Britain, and there are lots of reasons for this warm sentiment. In some cases it’s simply nostalgia for the days when going by train was the only practical way of travelling. Other people are fascinated by the scale and minutiae of the mechanical and civil engineering projects necessary to provide a nationwide rail network. Still others may be drawn to the railways because their greatest hours are associated with a glorious period of British history during the Victorian era.
The railways haven’t just been vital for passenger travel, British industry and the war effort in two World Wars, but they have led to the creation of its own media industry – spawning an endless train of images, magazines, books and films devoted to or starring the railways. Where would The 39 Steps, Brief Encounter, The Railway Children and, to bring things right up to date, the Harry Potter books and films be without the crucial role of the railways?
So, with this massive back catalogue of publications and other media, how much room is there for yet another book about the railways – especially one that is specific to the Railway Stations of East Yorkshire? Dare I say it, but some people carry their love affair with railways to extreme limits and even to the extent that obsession might be a better word to describe the phenomenon. “Normal people” might think they are slightly bonkers (or is the word ‘loco’), perhaps, but amongst themselves they are merely dedicated enthusiasts of all things rail-related.
Peter Tuffrey’s excellent book isn’t for the casual reader – it’s a specialist publication for the hard-core railway fans who want to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ and it does its job very well indeed. Peter has written four other definitive books about Yorkshire Railways published by Amberley Books – one a more general tome about Yorkshire People and Railways, the others on similar lines (no pun intended) to this one and covering the other regions of Yorkshire. So East Yorkshire Railway Stations completes Peter’s quartet of books about the county’s stations.
This book and the others in the series adopt the same approach: each station in the region is listed alphabetically along with details of when it came into service, which train company was running it at the time if and when it came out of service, and its current state of repair if no longer in use. Where known, Peter also adds the name of the architect who designed the station. The principal architect in the region was GT Andrews, and while many of his stations were similar in appearance, Tuffrey points out that the Stations at Stamford Bridge and Nafferton are examples of two of his more adventurous designs.
The short introduction (two pages) is followed by four pages of maps – the first showing the network for the whole region, and three more with close-up insets of several of the component lines within the region.
The book is illustrated with black and white photographs on almost every page and many of them are credited to the collections of railway stalwarts Nick Catford, Alan Young, and John Mann. I’m sure that the photographs will inspire others to take their own shots of the stations featured. A small proportion of the photos have people in them – and these serve to bring home the message that railway stations weren’t just about the buildings and the trains that stopped at them, but about the staff who worked (and in some cases lived) in them and the passengers who used them. My favourite photo is probably one of the station at Patringham – where three of the station staff (all with the regulation walrus moustache), a costermonger and half a dozen children (all girls) are spread in a line across the platform in front of the station – all of whom could have stepped right out of The Railway Children.
Peter Tuffrey has done these stations proud – East Yorkshire Railways Stations is superbly written in a clear and erudite style making it easy for even non-specialists like me to read and appreciate. Although this is always going to be of interest almost exclusively to railway buffs who will be familiar with the terminology, I have a suggestion for one small improvement, and that is a glossary of architectural terms to help the newbie get started.
You can buy East Yorkshire Railway Stations at a discounted price direct from the publisher by clicking this link.