General view of tracks by riverside looking towards station

Description General view of tracks by riverside looking towards station

Date 1890

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

Catalogue Number SC 730393

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of BL 10346/17

Scope and Content Railway Tracks, 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 and pier in 1890. This photograph shows the site still under construction. The standard gauge railway tracks (far left) were constructed on land between the town and the Firth of Clyde. The tracks nearest the pier (right) are the temporary tracks of the building contractors who used them to transport heavy construction materials to the site. The signal box (left) controlled the points and signals on a specific section (block) of track. Until the arrival of the Caledonian Railway in 1889, Gourock consisted of a line of houses clustered round a headland with a small stone pier. Miller's passenger pier, constructed with a rail link from Greenock, cost over £600,000 to build, but the advantages to the company were enormous, with express trains running from the heart of Glasgow right to the gangways of the steamers, and the emergence of an extremely profitable steam boat service. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/730393

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap