User:Swiveler/Crystal Palace (High Level) railway station

Crystal Palace (High Level) was a railway station in South London, one of two stations built to serve the new site of the Great Exhibition building, the Crystal Palace, when it was moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham Hill after 1851. It was the terminus of the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway (CPSLJR), which was later absorbed by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR).

Origins
In 1860 the LCDR had a route from Beckenham Junction to Victoria via the existing Crystal Palace station (later known as "Low Level"), but this was owned and operated by the rival London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR). To capture traffic from the LBSCR the LCDR promoted the CPSLJR to construct a branch from Peckham Rye on the South London Line via Nunhead to a new terminal station above the Crystal Palace park.

The line, and the terminus only, opened on 1 August 1865. It was on the southern boundary of the Hamlet of Dulwich division of the ancient Civil Parish of Camberwell St. Giles. Following the creation of the LCC it was in the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, and subsequently the London Borough of Southwark.

Decline and Closure
The line was one of the first of the former South Eastern and Chatham Railway to be electrified by Southern Railway, under "South Eastern Electrification – Stage 1" in July 1925.

After the Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire in 1936, traffic to the station declined. During World War II the line was closed after bomb damage. Temporary repairs were made and the line subsequently reopened, but the decline in traffic and a requirement for heavy reconstruction led to the decision to close the branch on 20 September 1954, although the station was not demolished until 1961.

Subsequent usage
The site of the station was developed for housing in the 1970s, but the retaining walls below Crystal Palace Parade and the ornamental portal of Paxton Tunnel to the north are still readily visible.

The subway and an adjacent courtyard survived the 1936 fire, and was used as an air raid shelter during World War II. It is now a Grade II* listed building. Although the subway is now sealed off, it is sometimes opened to allow organised visits by the "Friends of Crystal Palace Subway".

Features
The station was designed by Charles Barry Jr. as a lavish red brick and buff terra cotta building. It had Square towers at each corner, each topped with 4 short spires. The iron-roofed trainshed was divided lengthways into two cavernous spaces separated by a brick-arch arcade, each side having two tracks with wooden platforms. The inner track on each side had two platform faces to support mass arrivals. To speed train turnaround, the platform roads continued out the south end of the building to a roundabout.

The station was excavated into the ridge below Crystal Palace Parade requiring major engineering works, with subway exits leading under Crystal Palace Parade into Crystal Palace Park, linking the station directly with the Palace.. Nine sidings were provided to cater for goods traffic and to stable additional locomotives and carriages that could be used to move large crowds away from the station when required; the station could cater for 7000 – 8000 passengers an hour.

The station was an outstanding example of Victorian architecture with high red and terra cotta brick side and end walls and a glass and iron trainshed roof.

The station was divided longitudinally by a series of brick arches with a passenger concourse above the tracks at each end of the station incorporating a booking office, refreshment rooms and waiting rooms.

Four tracks entered the station through narrow openings at the London end serving two wooden platforms in each side of the station. The two inner lines had platform faces on both sides to speed the loading and unloading of the expected packed trains. At the far end of the station, the tracks passed through the end walls through a second series of narrow opening to a turntable beyond the bridge over Farquhar Road; this allowed trains to run round and avoid delays.

One half of the station was intended for first class passengers, who were given segregated access in the centre transept of the Palace. The subway consisted of a wide vaulted and tiled chamber resembling a Byzantine crypt; it was designed and built by cathedral craftsmen brought over from Italy. The roof was supported by a series of octagonal pillars of red and cream brick interlaced with stone ribs. Steps led down from the main floor of the Palace into a further circulating area, adjacent to the subway.

The "train entombed in the tunnel" myth
There is a rumour that, in one of the sealed tunnels in the area, an engine or carriage remains hidden collecting dust. Another version of the story, popular among local schoolchildren, claims that the High-Level station was closed because a commuter train was trapped by a tunnel collapse, entombing the passengers, who remain there to this day.

These stories are an example of the persistence of local urban legend. The story of the entombed train was apparently current in the 1930s. Back then it referred to the abandoned 1860s pneumatic railway on the north side of the grounds of Crystal Palace Park. See Crystal Palace pneumatic railway for more information.

Most traces of this had almost certainly been destroyed by the building works for the 1911 Festival of Empire, but there was an unsuccessful archaeological dig for the train sponsored by the BBC's Nationwide current-affairs programme in the 1970s.

"Amelia and The Angel"
The surviving retaining walls and tunnel portal appear in the 1958 Ken Russell film Amelia and the Angel. The brickwork fits exactly although the ground level is raised.

Model Railway
Southwark Model Railway Club have built a scale model of the station.