Trains at: Berkhamsted, WCML, 05/09/2020
175A rather mediocre afternoon spent at Berkhamsted railway station on the West Coast Mainline where we see plenty of services from London Northwestern Railway and Avanti West Coast, sadly nothing from Southern for today as they weren't operating on the West Coast Mainline. There isn't any freight to be seen.
Berkhamsted station can be dated back to 1875, well after the original station was constructed in 1838. The first station was located 100 metres southwest of the current station.
The reason why the station was rebuilt and relocated was simply because of the widening of the WCML, when the station was built it came along with a brand new section of sidings for the local goods trains to unload their loads of livestock for the local market. Interestingly though this station wasn't built without its difficulties, first off came when the line itself was being put under construction. The lead engineer for the job was none other than Robert Stephenson, but the planners came under stiff opposition from local landowners and trustees of the local area. But eventually things were put into agreement and work soon commenced. Because of the nature of the land it meant that the railway was always going to be running at a significant height to the town itself, so many workers were brought in from all over the country to work on this Herculean task, one of the biggest challenges facing them was to direct the railway away from the old castle located just to the south of the present station along the moat guarding its fortifications.
Over the years the station saw natural changes happening to it as was the same with most stations throughout the UK when the network was getting modernised with the different operators, the old sidings eventually became the car park.
The biggest change to come to the station was around 2015 when three lifts were installed into the platforms to make disabled access that much easier throughout the station.
My next station will be Kings Langley which I can assure you will not want to miss, it really is a cracker.
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