Botanic Gardens is the main focus of the East Yorkshire Area Group of the Scalefour Society. The layout is based on a former North Eastern Railway (NER) suburban station in west Hull that disappeared when the lines to Hornsea and Withernsea, and the low level line to Hull's Eastern Docks were closed in the 1960s. The track layout is relatively simple but the project combines plenty of buildings, varied traffic and a tramway. The layout is owned by Hull MRS and those working on the layout are members of both the Scalefour Society and the Hull MRS.

Monday, 28 January 2008

The Site Today


Where Botanic Gardens station once stood, there is very little left to indicate there was ever a railway. Little things may still be seen if one knows where to look.

At first glance this appears to be nothing other than an urban car park -


Looking closer though reveals this -


This is the boundary wall from the one of the platforms. It can clearly be seen in photographs of the station which appear at the rather absorbing Disused Stations site. The line cut neatly through what was (and still is) a densely populated area. In places it passed remarkedly close to domestic buildings too. In quick succession there were three level crossings. Hull had many of these, and they were a problem for many years. The Hull and Barnsley was built on an embankment around the city to avoid the need for level crossings. Ironically, one of the level crossings on the route, Park Road, is now permanently against road traffic -


The route of the line can clearly be seen. It must have been quite something to see an A7 on the chalk working from Hessle to Wilmington!

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