TRU West Alliance’s Post

🚉 Protecting Community Heritage While Delivering Reliable, Accessible, and Greener Travel for the North of England 🌿 As part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade, essential station upgrades are underway at Huddersfield Station. These include the addition of two new platforms and extensive track enhancements, which will significantly increase the station's capacity. These improvements will reduce congestion and enable more reliable, smoother services for passengers traveling across the North of England. Huddersfield Station holds Grade I listed status, and a key focus of the upgrades is the preservation of its rich historical character. Special care is being taken to restore its architectural heritage, including the station’s historic roof and the much-loved timber-fronted tea rooms, which have been a central feature of Huddersfield Station for over 140 years. Despite their historical significance, the tea rooms have never undergone a full restoration. Time and usage have inevitably taken their toll, and now a comprehensive restoration is essential to ensure they remain a vibrant part of the station’s future. This meticulous process will not only return the tea rooms to their former glory but also integrate them seamlessly into the new platform layout, preserving their place in Huddersfield’s community heritage for generations to come. Due to the heritage listing, the tea rooms first needed to be carefully dismantled piece by piece. This presented a logistical challenge in a busy, operational station, and without the use of power tools to protect the building’s historic structure. Despite these challenges, the team successfully completed the dismantling on schedule, demonstrating both their dedication to preserving the station's history and ensuring that passengers experienced no disruption to their journeys. The tea room components have been safely transported to Shrewsbury, where they are now stored in a climatically controlled environment for a year-long restoration project. Experts will carefully assess the condition of the tea rooms, using historically appropriate techniques and materials for the repairs. This process includes peeling back up to 50 layers of paint, each layer revealing a piece of the tea room’s long history. This careful restoration will continue in tandem with the critical track and platform upgrades at Huddersfield Station. Once these improvements are completed, the fully restored tea rooms will be returned and reassembled piece by piece, ensuring this iconic landmark takes its place once again in the station. Not only will it serve as a historical gem for the community, but it will also function as an integral part of the newly modernized station. We are proud to play a role in preserving Huddersfield’s heritage while supporting the delivery of sustainable, reliable travel for the future of the North of England. 🚆

Gareth Williams (CEnv) (MIEMA)

Sustainability Director TRU West

5mo

Phenomenal achievement by the team 👏. Great work, and all within the constraints of an operational station.

Like
Reply

To view or add a comment, sign in

Explore topics