Looking on now would it have been a better option to have retained this station ,thus not having to have a level crossing at all
With hindsight though, can you imagine the tourist draw to Barnsley if we had kept and maintained Courthouse station and the line across the buildings on Midland St, the canal and lock from Hoyle Mill to Harborough Hill, likewise the railway line that ran parallel to to the canal, barges and steam engines running and access to the Barnsley Brewery oatshouse and perhaps even tours of the Woods glasshouse. Plus if we could have kept Tommy Tayor!!!
The real point here I think is that short-termism, allied to a Tory Government in hoc to the road/motor industry (fancy that!), led to a butchering of the most extensive railway network in the world. Great pity.
Trouble was some councillors back in the day had the same thought as some posters on here . That Barnsley was stuck in a bygone era and needed modern buildings etc and bulldozed some of the most beautiful buildings to make way . A lot of Towns have managed to do it without the total destruction and still keep in the modern world .
We'd have still had a level crossing, it was a totaly different line. The level crossing was there when the courthouse was running.
Courthouse Station had a major issue in that it didn't have an exit towards the direction of Leeds. BR at the time wanted a Sheffield, Barnsley, Wakefield and Leeds through service. Courthouse was the right station in the wrong place.
Well I’m certainly not a fool (or if I am I’m an educated one). Simple fact is that Beeching was commissioned by a Tory government and his recommendations enacted by a Tory government.
Everyone loved the old old bus station didn't they? (Not the 80s one that I knew, but the old 60s one). Anyway, this thread reminds me of Ian Nairn, who probably died before I was born. I believe he once said something along the lines of "I like Barnsley, but I just wish it didn't look so much of a dump". Referring to all the old building being knocked down.
They are, for men at least. The barrier broke about a year ago and it's not been fixed. Free in the railway station too (The barrier is not so much broken, as missing there)
