AMBITIOUS plans to modernise Darlington's historic Victorian railway station have been unveiled - but what was the area like in days gone by?

Here we publish a series of photographs from The Northern Echo's archives showing a bygone era.

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Below we print an article by Chief Features Writer Chris Lloyd looking back at Bank Top Station's 125th anniversary.

The Northern Echo:

Locomotion No 1 at Bank Top Station in 1933 – a group of young boys investigate

WHILE Darlington can rightly be described as the birthplace of the railway, one of the first stations, Bank Top, spent far too long as a toddler . . .

Back-to-front Bank Top Station unceremoniously slipped into service 125 years ago tomorrow. "The new station at Bank Top, Darlington, was yesterday opened for traffic without any formal ceremony, " reported The Northern Echo the following day QUEEN VICTORIA would have been pleased, if not amused. On September 28, 1849, her Royal Train had come to rest in the temporary shed that passed as Darlington's first mainline station.

The townspeople had prettified it with evergreens, banners, platforms and terraces.

Thousands of them had turned out to cheer Her Majesty to its wooden roof supports - nothing as grand as rafters in a shed.

The Royal Train had moved off after 15 minutes, without the Queen setting foot on the shed floor - she accepted the townspeople's offerings and wishes as they were posted through an open carriage window.

As she left that first Bank Top station, Victoria wondered why the shed was so shabby as Darlington was, she said, "the place that gave birth to the railway station".

Part of Darlington's problem was that it was the birthplace of the railway - of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR), at least, which opened in 1825, travelling west to east and served by a station in North Road.

When the main line opened in 1841, going north to south, the railway companies couldn't justify giving Darlington a second station when most towns didn't even have one, and so a shed was temporarily plonked on Bank Top.

It lasted for 20 years until a single platform brick station was built. For passengers driving up to the new Bank Top station from the town centre, a wide street was created for passengers and, just to cheer up the Queen, it was called Victoria Road.

In the 1880s, new loop lines meant that the S&DR weaved its way past the station and so now there was a need for a bigger building at Bank Top.

The chief architect of the North Eastern Railway (NER), William Bell, started work with the company's engineerin-chief, Thomas Harrison, in early 1885. They enlarged the footprint of the old station, causing the demolition of 20 houses and three pubs in Station Street and of Bank Top School.

The foundations required the excavation of much clay and topsoil, which was dumped on nearby fields - terraces of houses were soon built on the dump, the first being Waverley Terrace, named after the Edinburgh connection.

But they kept the eastern wall of the old station. You can still see it when you are waiting for a train to London - it is the section of the outer wall which does not have oculi (rounded openings) in it, unlike the new train shed walls.

They also kept Victoria Road as the main entrance, but made it far more impressive, utilising the natural rise of the bank so that the imperious clocktower rises 80ft over the town. The tower has grand arches on either side of it through which horsedrawn cabs delivered their passengers.

The Northern Echo:

A nostalgic picture of Bank Top station

But Harrison in particular was a fan of island stations - stations that have their main waiting rooms and ticket offices centralised on an island, with up and down tracks flowing on either side of it. To allow passengers to reach the island, two subways were built from the Victoria Road entrance underneath the track, and shafts were dug for hydraulic lifts to help passengers up and down with heavy bags.

But, at the last moment, NER directors realised that if lifts were to be the main means of accessing the platforms, they would have to employ porters round-the-clock.

Although the Peases argued on behalf of Darlingtonians that this was a worthwhile cost, the other directors ruled that it was an expense too far.

And anyway, argued station general manager Henry Tennant, passengers would prefer to use the Parkgate entrance, which had been constructed as the goods entrance with its ramp running directly up to the central island.

It was, Mr Tennant concluded, "better to see your luggage taken to the train than use the subway or lift at the west entrance and lose sight of your luggage which might go astray".

Hewas right.

And so, to most passengers, the station is back-to-front.

They prefer to negotiate the decaying dead pigeons and the disgusting droppings of those who peck a meagre living beneath the rusty Parkgate bridges - surely one of themost unattractive railway gateways to any town in the kingdom - and then sidle up the tradesmen's ramp. Most passengers ignore the grand front door at the top of Victoria Road.

Even without the cost of a porter, Bank Top Station cost about £100,000 to build - a local councillor branded it a "gross extravagance" and a "white elephant", although it has stood the test of time pretty well and the town has seen much whiter elephants built in the past 125 years.

The directors toyed with calling it Jubilee Station, to mark Victoria's 50 years on the throne in 1887, or Central Station, tomark the joining of the S&DR with the main line. But they plumped to stay with the name of the 1841 shed on Bank Top. Construction took well over two years - it was delayed three months by the winter of 1885 and twomonths by that of 1886. On opening day, the Echo noted: "Even yet the finishing touches are to be given but the building is sufficiently near completion to show that it is among the largest and most notable of its kind in the country."

Perhaps the most notable of those finishing touches is architect Bell's heraldic spandrel panels - the coats of arms of Darlington, Durham, Newcastle and the NER cast into the metal roof supports.

It opened on July 1, 1887, and it looks like it will celebrate its 125th birthday tomorrow in the same style: without any ceremony.

With thanks to Archie Brown, British Rail Darlington area manager, 1968-1979.