Interior-general view looking along platform

Description Interior-general view looking along platform

Date 1890

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number BL 10346/12

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 730411, B 64147

Scope and Content Station Platform, Gourock Pier Railway Station, Kempock Point, Gourock, Inverclyde (now demolished) Gourock Pier Railway Station, considered to be the most advanced railway pier of its time, was designed by the Glasgow architect, James Miller, and built in 1889 as a major railway steamer interchange for the Caledonian Railway Company. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the station in 1890. The platform had iron columns supporting arched iron girders which, in turn, supported a saw-tooth glass roof. Above the railway line (right) was a wooden valence designed to protect waiting passengers from the steam, smoke and dirt from engines entering the station. The broad platform, lined with Victorian gas lamps, had, unusual for Lemere's photographs, a row of waiting passengers and railway officials. A sign (left) advertises the company's Isle of Man Express Service. From the 1880s onward, the Caledonian Railway Company provided gleaming trains pulled by powerful blue locomotives. Passengers could travel in relative comfort, although the smoke, dirt, noise and sparks from the steam engine were a constant problem. Carriages were divided into categories called 'classes', with 'first-class' carriages being the most luxuriously appointed, with padded seats, foot-warmers and oil lamps. First-class passengers also had their own waiting and refreshment rooms. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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