Below is a picture of the old Victorian railway station building in Jarrow, Tyne & Wear. The view is from the corner of Railway Street and the building itself dates back to 1872. They were rather cold and draughty places lit by gas lamps.
In the picture, you can see parked outside the station a three-wheeled motor vehicle. British Rail used those vehicles throughout the country to deliver goods and rail freight within their neighborhood. They are known as a Scammel truck, produced by the truck manufacturer Scammell between 1948 and 1967. These vehicles were often referred to as Snub-nose Trucks.
The Old Revamped Station
The scene below shows further changes to Grant/Railway Street Station. gone are the old-style buildings to be replaced by poorly built shelters. With more and more businesses sending goods by road the passenger and freight trains that operated out of the old Jarrow station slowly became redundant, Passangers would purchase their ticket on the train reducing the need for manned stations. The view is taken from the old wooden railway bridge spanning the railway line leading to East Jarrow.
The station was on the Newcastle to South Shield line and lasted for almost a century before it was demolished in the 1980s, With tickets now being purchased on the trains, there was no longer a need for a manned ticket station. This sounded the death knell for staff, with a loss of probably all jobs.
As you can see from the photo above all the old-style buildings were demolished leaving the platforms bare apart from two simple structures. These simple buildings would be used to shelter passengers from the elements.
Today the old dark and dingy railway station has been replaced by an up-to-date one and is still used as a railway station and has changed completely. Gone are the old draughty Victorian buildings, to be replaced by a landscaped view with the entrance to a more up-to-date user-friendly station building, now being run by Nexus as a passenger link for the Tyneside Metro to Newcastle Upon Tyne, with links to Sunderland the airport and mainline stations on the route.
Although the Railway Station is situated on Grant Street it has always been known locally as Railway Street Station/Metro.
This photo was taken from the same position as the black and white photo above however the old wooden structure was replaced with concrete. Looking toward Caroline Steert shows yet another change to the station, gone are the poorly built shelters to be replaced by a modern brightly colored metro system with passenger platforms on either side of the railroad track and a train schedule that far outweighed the old train station timetable. To be precise metro trains run every 15 minutes compared to the old train timetable of one every 30 minutes. If you were feeling lucky.