North Road Station, Circa 1960

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Featured in the Plymouth Extra in October 2007

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WMN/1/1/33 North Road Station, circa 1960

"It's a view you don't get today with the car park and the tower block in the way. Here we see Plymouth Station in the process of being 'modernised' at the beginning of the 1960s.

The two light-coloured taxis in the foreground were the latest, state-of-the-art Ford Anglias and the building-site-come-car park behind them was part of what would be a massive clearance operation, eventually making way for the new multi-storey car park and office block tower.

In the middle distance we clearly see the back of the old red-brick Pennycomequick Sorting Office, which appeared in Central Park Avenue in the late 1920s, and beyond that a part of Central Park that is much in the news today.

Meanwhile in foreground leaning back at a rakish angle, is the sign that tells us where we are - North Road. The railway station was built as North Road Station back in the 1870s (Brunel had suggested locating a station for the Three Towns here more than 25 years before that, but Millbay had won out); nowadays, it is known as Plymouth Station, North Road (there is another North Road Station… in Darlington).

Picture courtesy of the South West Image Bank (01752 665445) ref: WMN/1/1/33."

(Commentary by Chris Robinson)


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