AT first glance, it looks like a badly-bodged bit of brickwork beside the East Coast Mainline. And, if truth be told, such is its state that you would not go much beyond a first glance as you passed by.

But a concerned reader has alerted Echo Memories to the building's predicament, fearing a piece of railway history may be about to disappear.

Imagine we are standing on the Haughton Road bridge, on the periphery of Darlington town centre, looking north along the mainline.

To our left, the line to North Road and Bishop Auckland curves away gracefully westwards, along the path of the original Stockton and Darlington Railway.

To our right stands the badly-bodged bit of brickwork. Its doors appear to be permanently locked and, looking in through the bodgings, you can see daylight pouring through the holes in the roof. The wasteland around the building was once covered in lines and sidings as this was the level-crossing where the Stockton and Darlington Railway met the mainline belonging to the Great North of England Railway (GNER).

The GNER built its mainline in stages. The first was the stretch from York to Darlington, which opened to passengers on March 30, 1841.

This stretch stopped at the Albert Hill crossing, and our old building is believed to have been built to house those very first mainline engines.

Victorian maps of Darlington show that it had two tracks running into it, and it is big enough to have housed four locomotives.

In his excellent 2001 book First in the World, John Wall publishes a 1925 picture of the Albert Hill crossing.

It shows the GNER engine shed next to a signal box.

Mr Wall says: "A rebuilding of 1854 of the GNER engine shed can still be seen by the side of the east coast electrified line, but in a sadly derelict condition.

"All else, including two separate signal-boxes and redundant track, has been swept away."

Before anyone kicks up a fuss, and before the engine shed makes way for more houses on Albert Hill, is there anymore pertinent information that might make this a building worth saving?

ON a similar track, David Burdon, author of The Last Days of Steam Around Darlington, has been pondering about the photograph printed above right.

It is dated September 1955, and was taken outside the Stripping Shop, at the North Road Works, in Darlington.

The lads are sitting on the frame of a Class Q6 engine which they will just have dismantled.

Pictured front left in the photograph is Dave Allinson, on whose camera the snap was taken. Second from the right at the back is Keith Martin, who David has not heard from since 1963.

The rest are a mystery, and information on any of them will be gladly received.

ALL of which talk of trains gives an excuse to publish, for the first time, this fantastic - even beautiful - view of a snow-covered Darlington Bank Top station. It came to light, quite by chance during a clear-out, and comes with absolutely no information.

The Victoria Road clock tower is central in the picture, and the town centre is on the right as we are looking south. Was it taken in the 1940s?

Published: 07/07/2004

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.