A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. It should not be confused with a carriage shed, whose primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train cars not in use.
The first train shed was built in 1830 at Liverpool's Crown Street station.
The biggest train sheds were often built as an arch of glass and iron, while the smaller were built as normal pitched roofs.
The train shed with the biggest single span ever built was that at the second Philadelphia Broad Street station, built in 1891.
Types of train shed
Early wooden train sheds
The earliest train sheds were wooden structures, often with unglazed openings to allow smoke and steam to escape. The oldest part of is a particularly fine – and large – example, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel with mock-hammerbeam roof.
Surviving examples include: Ashburton, Devon, England (station closed) Bo'ness, Falkirk, Scotland Frome, Somerset, England Kingswear, Devon, England Thurso, Highland, Scotland Wick, Highland, Scotland.
Classic metal and glass
The middle of the nineteenth century saw many large stations covered by iron, steel and glass train sheds, inspired by The Crystal Palace at The Great Exhibition in 1851. The best have been described as "like cathedrals" and feature curved roofs; other structures have pitched roofs.
Surviving examples of curved roof train sheds include: Amsterdam Centraal, Netherlands Antwerpen-Centraal, Belgium Bath Green Park railway station, Somerset, England (converted to covered market and car park)
Bangkok, Thailand Barcelona Estació de França, Catalonia, Spain Brighton, East Sussex, England Bristol Temple Meads, England Buenos Aires Retiro, Argentina Copenhagen Central Station, Denmark Darlington railway station, County Durham, England Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof, Germany Glasgow Queen Street, Scotland Hull Paragon, East Riding of Yorkshire, England Gare de Lille Flandres, France Köln Hauptbahnhof, Germany Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, Germany Liverpool Lime Street, Merseyside, England London Kings Cross, England London Paddington, England London St Pancras, England
Madrid Atocha, Spain (converted to station atrium) Manchester Central, Greater Manchester, England (converted to conference centre) Manchester Piccadilly, Greater Manchester, England Milano Centrale, Italy
Newcastle Central, Tyne & Wear, England Prague Main Station, Czech Republic Reading Terminal, Philadelphia, United States (converted to convention center) Tanjung Priok, Jakarta, Indonesia York, North Yorkshire, England Vitebsky railway station, Saint Petersburg, Russia Lviv railway station, Ukraine
Surviving examples of pitched roof train sheds include:
Ballarat, Geelong (and No 2 Goods Shed Melbourne), Australia
Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, England Bournemouth, Dorset, England Budapest Nyugati, Hungary Budapest Keleti, Hungary Carlisle Citadel, Cumbria, England Chester, Cheshire, England Crewe, Cheshire, England Edinburgh Waverley, Scotland Filey, East Riding of Yorkshire, England Frome, Somerset, England
Glasgow Central station, Strathclyde, Scotland Harrisburg Transportation Center, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia London Liverpool Street, England
Paris Gare du Nord, France Paris Gare de Lyon, France Preston, Lancashire, England Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England Wemyss Bay, Inverclyde, Scotland.
Surviving examples of Bush-type, developed by American civil engineer Lincoln Bush, and related train sheds include:
Hoboken Terminal, Hoboken, New Jersey, United States Union station, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Toronto Union Station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada - designed by A.R. Ketterson Communipaw Terminal, Jersey City, New Jersey, United States Mount Royal station used by Maryland Institute College of Art for its Sculpture program Baltimore, Maryland.
Surviving examples of other train sheds include:
Pennsylvania Station (Newark), Newark, New Jersey, United States The SEPTA platform area of 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, United States
Concrete
The middle of the twentieth century saw concrete used as a structural material.
Surviving examples include: Cockfosters tube station, London, England Uxbridge tube station, London, England Volksdorf U-Bahn station, Hamburg, Germany.
Modern steel and glass
After many years with few, if any, significant new train sheds, recent years have seen some major stations given graceful train sheds by using modern technology. Examples include:
Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin, Germany Longyang Road station on the Shanghai Maglev Train line Gwangmyeong Station, Seoul, South Korea Jefferson Station, Philadelphia, United States (the station is located underground but has above-ground structures to shelter the platforms and trains) Stillwell Avenue subway station, New York City, United States Waterloo International, London, England Southern Cross station, Melbourne, Australia Liège-Guillemins, Liège, Belgium Manchester Victoria station, Greater Manchester, England.
In the United States, the Walt Disney World Monorail System has some train sheds along its route, including the entrance-gate station and the main hall (or Grand Canyon Concourse) of the Contemporary Resort.
Open-air canopy
The Union Station (Denver, Colorado), Denver, Colorado, United States, features an open-air canopy structure covered with Teflon.
Car barn
In North America, tram cars are called streetcars or trolleys and are sometimes stored in structures called car barns or car houses. These buildings are usually enclosed and provide cover for trams from the elements.
List of car barns (all are in Canada or the United States):
Ashby Street Car Barn - Atlanta, Georgia East Capitol Street Car Barn - Washington DC Eglinton Maintenance and Storage Facility (Black Creek Carhouse) - Toronto Georgetown Car Barn - Washington DC North Cambridge Carhouse - Cambridge, Massachusetts Plaistow Carhouse - Plaistow, New Hampshire Leslie Barns - Toronto Luzerne Carhouse - Philadelphia Roncesvalles Carhouse - Toronto Russell Carhouse (Connaught Barns) - Toronto Watertown Yard - Watertown, Massachusetts Wychwood Barns (former St. Clair Carhouse) - now a community centre in Toronto.
See also Bus station
References Citations
Bibliography