GWR Route: Hatton to Bearley and Alcester Branch

Bearley Station: gwrb442b

Close up of image 'gwrb442' showing the down platform on the left with its original William Clarke designed main station building, and on the right, the passenger waiting room built when the station was remodeled to accommodate the Bearley to Alcester railway. Mike Young writes, 'William Clarke was an independent engineer who did much work for the GWR and specialised in building nominally independent railways which had run out of money, for the GWR. He designed his own standard range of buildings and besides the Alcester Railway branch lines he completed could be found in Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Somerset, Devon and Dorset.'.

To accommodate traffic from Hatton a trailing crossover has been installed. The canopy on the right is very short and would have only afforded the barest of protection. Its obvious inadequacies led to it being replaced by a canopy that reached out to the platform edge as can be seen in other later views. To enter the goods yard from Hatton a train would run past the crossing and stop with the guards van more or less opposite the platform building on the right. It would then reverse 'wrong road' on to the other line and then, when clear of the points, would then draw forward moving into the siding via the points just seen on the left.

Robert Ferris

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