Opened 125 years ago as the last main line to reach London, Andrew Britton considers
the terminus and its routes, both wholly GCR and joint, and particularly the post-nationalisation
steam era.
Built much later than the other London termini on the north side of Marylebone Road,
Britain had seen two ‘Railway Mania’ periods come and go by the time the London Extension
of the GCR was forging a path to Marylebone in the late 1890s and an era of the railways
making grandiose architectural statements through their London termini was gone. That
said, the shafts of sunlight penetrating the Marylebone trainshed in this March 1961
view, and the seemingly not so frantic activity in comparison to the likes of Paddington,
Euston, King’s Cross and Liverpool Street in particular, gave Marylebone a charm quite
unlike those relatively near neighbours, which is beautifully captured here by photographer
John Edgington. Advertising posters adorn the columns of the trainshed, station trolleys
are loaded with parcels traffic, and a London Midland Region ‘4MT’ 2-6-4T has terminated
with a suburban train from perhaps Aylesbury or High Wycombe, while the wooden-bodied
stock of a similar outgoing service is to the left. The nearside roadway – from Marylebone
Road, and then along the short Great Central Street and through an archway at the
front of the station – concludes at the platform side to offer direct interchange
with trains. John Edgington/Britton Collection
The Cinderella of London termini, Marylebone station stands on Melcombe Place, just
north of Marylebone Road, and opened to passenger traffic in 1899, 125 years ago this
month. However, the heady days of Great Central Railway (GCR) optimism in regard to
reaching London were long since a memory by late August and early September 1966 when
throngs of steam enthusiasts from all parts of the country flocked to the platforms
of Marylebone station to pay their last respects to steam on the Great Central lines
heading to Woodford Halse, Rugby, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and Sheffield
– I was one of them. At that time, it was not just the loss of steam-hauled trains
but actually the end of all but suburban services from Marylebone, and with it the
complete closure of the 34 miles of main line south of Rugby (Central) through to
Calvert, as well as the 11 miles of railway south from there to Aylesbury becoming
freight-only.
Years later I met up with distinguished railway photogr
