restoration man - railway station

A man restores a victorian era railway station.
What surprised me was the amount of space under the station floor. I always assumed they were filled with earth, I guess by how solid they feel.

https://youtu.be/WR6xwvqzD7A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think it's possible I passed through this station in the 1940s.

Very good post, David. Here's a Wiki on it. http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north- ... an-4430108" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I wish that he had kept the engine house, and with a victorian engine in it.

Here's a description of Whittingham, possibly of interest to other foreigners like me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittin ... humberland" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's a Wiki on the North Eastern Railway: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Eastern_Railway_(United_Kingdom" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)


Here's a quote from that article illustrating the respect which company officials were held in: "As the heirs of the director of the North Eastern Railway, the Hugh Bells were transport royalty. At Middlesbrough the stationmaster doffed his hat to them and ushered them onto the train at Redcar. Many years later, Florence's daughter Lady Richmond was to remember an occasion when she was seeing her father off from King's Cross, and he had remained on the platform so that they could talk until the train left. The packed train failed to leave on time. Remarking on its lateness, they continued to talk until they were approached by a guard. 'If you would like to finish your conversation, Sir Hugh', he suggested, doffing his hat, 'we will then be ready to depart'."

— Georgina Howell[10]

george matthews wrote: I think it's possible I passed through this station in the 1940s.

George absolutely does get around!

I've been coast to coast of the US (1963) and from Nairobi to the Cape as well as Saudi Arabia and Australia and several other places.

The thing about the railway station is there is no likelihood of restoring the rail line.

george matthews wrote:I've been coast to coast of the US (1963) and from Nairobi to the Cape as well as Saudi Arabia and Australia and several other places.

That's great. I have to do most of my traveling via this website.

I've crossed the north American continent by train - New York to Toronto, then Toronto to Vancouver - in 1999. I've only done Nairobi to the Cape by road, unfortunately - well, the last stretch from Jo'burg to Cape Town I've done several times by train. Lots of other train journeys in the USA, Europe, South Africa, Kenya, and one in Australia.

They say that travel is broadening; we have some hefty posters. Not to mention David, and travel. It's great.

I am trying to go on a diet , really!

johnthefireman wrote:I've crossed the north American continent by train - New York to Toronto, then Toronto to Vancouver - in 1999. I've only done Nairobi to the Cape by road, unfortunately - well, the last stretch from Jo'burg to Cape Town I've done several times by train. Lots of other train journeys in the USA, Europe, South Africa, Kenya, and one in Australia.

Nairobi to Dar es Salaam by train. And also to Tabora, Lake Tanganyika and the Lake Victoria. Itigi to Lusaka by bus and hitching (before the railway was built). Lusaka to Botswana mostly by train. And Botswana to the Cape and Jo'burg, mostly by train, and Durban of course. And to Beira by train. Not all these journeys are still possible.

george matthews wrote: Itigi to Lusaka by bus and hitching (before the railway was built). Lusaka to Botswana mostly by train. And Botswana to the Cape and Jo'burg, mostly by train, and Durban of course. And to Beira by train. Not all these journeys are still possible.

A lot of experience. I hope that you kept a diary Geoorge.
T

philipmartin wrote:

george matthews wrote: Itigi to Lusaka by bus and hitching (before the railway was built). Lusaka to Botswana mostly by train. And Botswana to the Cape and Jo'burg, mostly by train, and Durban of course. And to Beira by train. Not all these journeys are still possible.

A lot of experience. I hope that you kept a diary Geoorge.
Here's the wiki description of Itigi for those of us who have never been there: "Kata ya Itigi
Nchi Tanzania
Mkoa Singida
Wilaya Manyoni
Idadi ya wakazi
- 5,590
Itigi ni jina la kata ya Wilaya ya Manyoni katika Mkoa wa Singida, Tanzania. Kwa mujibu wa sensa iliyofanyika mwaka wa 2012, kata ilikuwa na wakazi wapatao 5,590 waishio humo."[1]

I have no idea whether there is much of a town at Itigi. In the 1970s there was a bus connection operated by East African Railways, which led to the town of Mbeya, to the south of Tanzania. The bus came to the station and connected with the train, which I had boarded at the lake Victoria town of Mwanza. In Mbeya I had a shower at the East African Railways hotel (but there was no railway) and then took another EAR bus to the border with Zambia. (There is now a rail connection.) I stayed the night in a hotel there, once intended for European travellers in colonial days, but long since decayed. Then I crossed the frontier and got on a bus into Zambia along a road which was suddenly needing to take a lot more traffic than it was designed for. The bus broke down after various adventures and I got a lift with a European farmer in Zambia who was helping to trade with Tanzania to break the trade embargo with Rhodesia - as it then was. He took me (after various incidents including an attack of his Malaria, and a meeting with refugees from the then Congo and he got some Malaria medicine from one of the nuns, and also a bush fire which threatened the petrol he was carrying in the back of the landrover) to his farm situated on the "Line of Rail" the spine of Zambia. On that trip I continued only as far as the frontier with what was then Rhodesia. On another trip I got much further south via trains and buses to cape Town.

Such adventures, George. It sounds as though you were lucky to have gotten out alive.

I picked Itigi because it is a place I hadn't heard of before. Here's a (genuine) Wiki article on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itigi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's on the Central Line of Tanzanian Railways. So here's an article on that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Line_(Tanzania" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
And Tanzania Raailways Ltd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania_Railways_Limited" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here's a link to an article about the Igandu collision in 2002 in Tanzania that took about 281 lives.
Below is a photo of the Kigoma station on the Central Line in 2010. Kigoma is on Lake Tanganyika.
Below that is a photo of the station at Kidete, on the Central Line in German East Africa.
This was German colonial territory until after WWI.

philipmartin wrote:Such adventures, George. It sound as though you were lucky to have gotten out alive.

I picked Itigi because it is a place I hadn't heard of before. Here's a (genuine) Wiki article on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itigi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's on the Central Line of Tanzanian Railways. So here's an article on that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Line_(Tanzania" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
And Tanzania Railways Ltd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania_Railways_Limited" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here's a link to an article about the Igandu collision in 2002 in Tanzania that took about 281 lives.

I changed from the train to the bus there. I can't remember seeing any town at Itigi. There was an ordinary rail station - originally built by the Germans who occupied the country before the first world war. It was a quite ordinary place important to me merely because the bus was there for my journey south. I don't think there were real dangers in my journey. There was discomfort and I wouldn't like to do the journey now. Theroux talks up dangers in one of his books but frankly I think he is exaggerating - or even making things up. I have no idea whether the situation is different now. Quite possibly the new rail line will have made the bus unnecessary as the train, even for third class passengers, should be more convenient - though not at all more reliable. There have been some horrifying tv films about the reliability of the trains.

And I have been to Kigoma. I had hoped to take the steamer down the lake but found it was only once a week and I would have had to wait several days. So I took the train back, after visiting the Livingstone sites. I think that was the time I went to Itigi.