York Railway Station

Normally I would drive but having been none too sure about the potential for disruption caused by the 'will they, won't they' fuel strike speculations, I took the train today from York to visit my brother and nieces in Dunfermline. And, given that I am on holiday rather than travelling on business and have picked up the hereditary habit of always being early ... I had plenty of time for a leisurely wander around the station before catching my train.

York is one of the most important railway junction stations on the British railway network, approximately halfway between London and Edinburgh. The first York railway station was a temporary wooden building on Queen Street, outside the walls of the city, opened in 1839 by the York and North Midland Railway. It was succeeded in 1841, inside the walls, by what is now the old railway station. In due course, the irksome requirement that through trains between London and Newcastle needed to reverse out of the old York station in order to continue their journey resulted in the construction, by the North Eastern Railway architects Thomas Prosser and William Peachey, of the present station in 1877, once again outside the walls. It had 13 platforms and was, at that time, the largest station in the world.

What I liked about this shot, apart from being incredibly lucky to have caught a moment when no-one was walking up or down the stairs (a rare moment in such a busy station!), was the structure of the image - the clean lines of the arches in juxtaposition to the flow of the steps and the curve of the railings only broken by the old clock hanging from the wall.

Once again, it's not an accomplished piece of photography but I'm comfortable with the composition all the same!