General view

Railway architecture began simultaneously in England and the USA, with the Liverpool-Manchester line and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, both established in 1830. The most creative period of the development of railway stations was between 1835 and 1914, when structural and functional possibilities were fully explored. There are three types of station: the through station, where the buildings lie parallel to the tracks; the island or connecting station, which is situated between the tracks; and the terminus, where the buildings enclose the ends of the tracks in an L or U shape.

Terminal buildings were in all tastes from Neo-classical to the Renaissance Revival, Romanesque Revival or Gothic Revival. A significant innovation for the building type was the integration of the fa�ade with the train-shed behind it, resulting in a wide arch over the centre of the fa�ade, as at Fran�ois Duquesney’s Gare de l’Est (1847-52) in Paris.