This series of photographs show Thornaby Station during the time it was being modernised. Courtesy of Gordon Armes. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
This series of photographs show Thornaby Station during the time it was being modernised. Courtesy of Gordon Armes.
I to was both surprised and disappointed when I last visited Stockton and made a journey from Thornaby to Darlington. The station looks just like an elaborate bus shelter and even then provides very little shelter when it rains. I limit my visits back to Stockton purely because I end up becoming depressed at what I see is the destruction of a once vibrant High Street.
I have been away from Thornaby a long time. Could someone please tell me where they put the railway station? The place I found near the Thornaby Town Hall [you walk down a bank to an allotment with ghost-benches] looked like the railway halt they had for years at Cargo Fleet?
Still in Thornaby and remember you and your family from the early fifties, Bob. Hadn’t been to the station for many years but recently dropped someone off there and it was so sad to see the demise – functional is all it is nowadays.
My brother, Richard and myself spent many a happy time down there spotting what seemed like the same three trains coming through daily – ‘Springbok, Ayala and Gnu’. If we could hear the train approaching as we ran over the bridge we could just about make it out by peering through a hole where a large rivet had fallen out. Outside the ticket office were three wooden structures ( two uprights with a crosspiece) which I loved to climb and sit on – perhaps someone could enlighten me as to their real purpose?
If we were really ‘flush’ and had a penny each we would buy platform tickets and wallow in the atmosphere that was Thornaby station in the 50’s.
We often went trainspotting to Darlington with packed lunch in our army surplus bags – and where we saw the splendid sights of ‘Sir Nigel Gresley’ and the ‘Mallard’. I have many happy memories of childhood in the fifties and Thornaby station plays a big part in that.
I was a HE student in the mid 70s and remember that the station was demolished about that time – a sad day.
The most remarkable feature about Thornaby station was its 104 different designs in the 550 ft of carved stonework impost mouldings (“string course”) running round the buildings, plus 36 differently carved stone corbels.
I wrote an article (“Branch line Marvels in Stone”) which was published in “Country Life” on 22 March 1984, as well as three railway periodicals. My plans and 35mm photogrphic negatives are deposited with Teesside Archives.
Contact me if you would like a reprint of this article.
At least there’s been some attempt lately with this interchange station. A pity the bus services don’t integrate better with it. The stonework at the top of the walls was notable. I remember there were discrete notices suggesting that travellers marooned at Thornaby waiting for connections could study them as they were so varied. Just as well, as there was nothing better to do. There was also a tea and coffee machine that dispensed piping hot coffee for me – but not a cup, sadly!
If the buildings had lasted just a few years longer they might have been prized, and the same could be said for Eaglescliffe. That Stockton station has been so comprehensively destroyed is nothing short of wanton vandalism.
Very evocative series of photos. Memories of RCAF doing a run over it on their way back to Canada at the end of the war, I believe they also did the same over Stockton. Lots of sad young ladies. Also very welcoming place to arrive at when coming home on leave.
You are so right Frank, when I submitted these photos I remarked that in my opinion it was not modernisation but vandalism.
Well said Frank, the same can be said about Stockton station.
It was not modernised, it was demolished and turned into a desolate empty space. With all that beautiful ironwork, it was a classic among British railway stations and it ought to have been restored.
Does anybody know what year this was?
I remember the station how it used to look , but can’t remember WHEN it was modernised.