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The Beauty of Transport

@thebeautyoftransport.com
901 followers 102 following 575 posts

Examples, opinions, thoughts, retweets of transport art/architecture/design/branding/logos/liveries/moquettes etc from The Beauty of Transport’s @danielhwright.bsky.social Long form articles at: www.thebeautyoftransport.com

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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 08/10/2026
When I say small heritage items at stations are good ways of telling railway history, this is what I mean. This is a BRB (Residuary) sign (with logo! who knew) at Leamington Spa. The company had a small but important role in the privatised railway, but has left very little physical evidence behind.
A BRB (Residuary) sign on a fence at Leamington Spa station. Photo © Paul Webster
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 07/10/2026
The LNER's Balgreen Halt (1934) had a surprisingly large station building for a halt. The LNER/Tyne Commissioners station at Tyne Commission Quay (1928) was rarely photographed in a way that showed much of the station. The aerial view gives that context.
Aerial view of Balgreen Halt, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/SPW056026Aerial view of Tyne Commission Quay station, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW005502
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 07/10/2026
Away from the Southern, here's the GWR's Cullompton (rebuilt in 1931-32, although in typical GWR manner the architecture looked rather pre-war) and Morris Cowley (1928).
Aerial view of Cullompton, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW033588Aerial view of Morris Cowley, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW029600
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 07/10/2026
My very own lost station, the Southern Railway's Hastings of 1931. And although Bromley North (1925) is still with us, this aerial shot shows the now-lost west wing of the station. Exmouth's delightful (and now lost) baroque station building of 1924 can be seen in the third image.
Aerial view of Hastings station, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW022976Aerial view of Bromley North, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW028349
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 07/10/2026
At St Mary Cray (Southern Railway, 1936), the aerial view helps visualise how the two lost station buildings related to the platforms and approach roads. You can do it with old maps, but it's so much more immediate as an image.
Aerial view of St Mary Cray, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW020721
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 07/10/2026
...let's have a tour. Here is the Southern Railway's Dumpton Park (1926) and its enormous forecourt, and you can also see the rarely photographed top station of the Ramsgate Tunnel Railway (1936) in the same image. (Links in alt text throughout)
Aerial view of Dumpton Park station, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW052878Aerial view of Ramsgate Tunnel Railway upper station, https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW052878
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 24/09/2026
The only image I have been able to find is this one on Facebook (www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...). The station building is lurking in the background but obscured, and the resolution is low. There must be at least one photo/postcard/local history book showing the front of the station, surely?
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 24/09/2026
Just on the off-chance... does anyone know of a picture of the front of the station building at Filey Holiday Camp? The National Transport Trust website has this good one of its rear elevation but the web seems to have no good ones of the front. And neither does any book I've ever found.
Station building at Filey Holiday Camp, rear elevation. From https://www.nationaltransporttrust.org.uk/heritage-sites/heritage-detail/filey-holiday-camp-station
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 17/09/2026
This is Trackside Transformation, a book which is the first attempt (as far as I can tell) to fully catalogue British mainline railway station architecture of the Grouping era (1923-47). It's written by me to accompany photographs by @artdecomagpie.bsky.social of all the significant survivors.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 13/09/2026
Further thanks to @rclongauthor.bsky.social for a name sign at Dawlish, Hazel Nicholson for splendid poetry roundels at Coseley (who knew?), and my Dad (won't read this, doesn't do social media) for a magnificent collection of Southern Railway benches at Rye. Photos © their submitters.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 11/09/2026
Ah - looks like we have an answer as to whether the GBR livery will include yellow ends on new trains, rather than just legacy yellow-end stock. I’ve never really understood why the default non-yellow option is black though. Feels like an all blue front would have been possible?
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026
More Tube Trains in unusual places, this time Elstree, in By Tube Beyond Edgware (2002). Not the fault of a house move, just never quite got round to buying a copy until now. Fascinating diagrams and new artist’s impressions of the stations on the unbuilt Northern line beyond Elstree.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026
Hidden London (2019) completely passed me by. I knew the tours of course but seem to have overlooked that there was an accompanying book. It has really striking photographs of places on the Hidden London tours. A beautiful book.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026
A chance conversation with @rclongauthor.bsky.social reminded me that I had borrowed his fabulous Ryde Rail (2019) from a library while moving house. Now I have bought a copy at last! Definitive, copiously illustrated, highly recommended to anyone interested in the Isle of Wight’s Tube Trains.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/09/2026
From about 2017 I had a rather chaotic few years of house moves so my transport bookshelves were mostly in storage. Now I am settled again I am filling some gaps with books I would otherwise have bought at the time. Here then, are some (very) delayed book recommendations…
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 26/08/2026
...this plaque with cast Regional Railways and Centro logos, on an electrification mast at Lichfield City (submission by, and photo ©, Hazel Nicholson). Electrification, eh? Imagine that.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 21/08/2026
Feels like the bridge over Westcourt Drive in Bexhill is a good match but if it was a standard SR bridge abutment design it could have been replicated elsewhere I guess.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 19/08/2026
But the station signs in the Metro area display stripes of both red and orange to denote that the station is served by both heavy rail and the Metro, as seen at Cardiff Bay. (Image via commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20...)
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 19/08/2026
Originally, red covered all modes e.g. Fflecsi buses were delivered in red (image via commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dy... and the Metro tram-trains have been delivered in red livery too, rather than orange.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 19/08/2026
This is a minor point compared to the main thrust of the story, but you can see TfW’s developing modal colour branding here - the coach has a green T (for buses/coaches). Trains are red, Metro is orange. (Original story/image source: media.service.gov.wales/news/new-tai... )
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 06/08/2026
That’s interesting. There is a similar example at West St Leonards. (Photo (c) Paul Wright) stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/artefacts-re...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 04/08/2026
There are many British Rail-era plaques commemorating station openings/rebuilds, usually set in #RailAlphabet. But I think this is the first time I've seen their modern equivalent set in (I think) RA3. Photo by @watfordgap.bsky.social, featured on stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/artefacts-re...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 16/07/2026
EMR's Miles must be looking nervously over its shoulder.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 16/07/2026
I promise one day to stop going on about GBR branding, but this from today's GBR Anglia announcement is v funny. "The internationally recognised Stansted Express identity will be retained and will transition to GBR Stansted Express". Sure thing. It's all they talk about in Berlin, Madrid, Rome. 1/2
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 02/07/2026
Oooh, fun! Can I submit a Far North serif example (or from my POV a little bit further north than me)?
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 30/06/2026
Four contributors submitted artefacts records for four new stations, with three updated. Love this gate at Shrewsbury and SRA/Wales & Borders sign at Ludlow (both © Hazel Nicholson) and this plaque at Llandrindod Wells (© Brian Blackmore). stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/2026/06/30/l...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 18/06/2026
It is, I think, worth remembering that things could always be worse. Before the GBR livery was unveiled I took a look at the logo for Great British Energy to see if it could tell us anything about what the GBR logo might look like. If it had followed the same logic, here's what we could have had...
What the GBR logo could have looked like it if it had used the same logic as the Great British Energy logo - a negative space double arrow surrounded by red and blue blocksGreat British Energy logo, with a negative space sort-of-Union flag. From https://www.gbe.gov.uk/
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 10/06/2026
Although I agree the full height yellow nose/door does look nicer, Roundel’s original intention for both Railfreight and General (later adapted to Dutch/Civil Engineer) liveries was that the black should extend unbroken across the nose, as the Cl 26 pages in Roundel’s own BR Livery Handbook show.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/06/2026
You know all about those Art Deco London Underground stations from the 1920s/30s - but what was happening on the mainline railway? Let me tell you all about it... I'm giving a talk to @artdecosocuk.bsky.social on 28 July and it's open to everyone. Tickets at: www.artdecosociety.uk/events-2/
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 01/06/2026
More artefacts records added today to stationheritageartefacts.org.uk, thanks to two contributors. Can't decide between Pitlochry's drinking water fountain (© John Martin) or Church Stretton's weighbridge (© Hazel Nicholson) so here are both. stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/2026/06/01/l...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 31/05/2026
Stafford is very under-rated architecturally IMHO (the mileage of others might vary, I appreciate).
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 03/05/2026
Absolutely splendid analogue-tech protection device for the overhead wires at Ingatestone station level crossing (I sort of want a too-high lorry to run into it just so I can hear it). Also a quite splendid concrete street light. Further artefacts at: stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/artefacts-re...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 23/04/2026
Large weighbridge by Pooley of Birmingham at Droitwich Spa - one of just a handful of survivors on the mainline railway network. To see Droitwich Spa's other heritage artefacts both old and modern, visit: stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/artefacts-re...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 22/04/2026
Very lovely L&NWR footbridge plaque surviving at Crewe. To see this and all the other artefacts at the station (at least, all the ones we've found so far), have a look at: stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/artefacts-re...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 15/04/2026
Many really interesting station artefacts in recent uploads to www.stationheritageartefacts.org.uk inc - Another Pooley weighbridge, at Driffield (photo © @watfordgap.bsky.social) - A rare surviving Midland Mainline v1 stag at Derby - An old station sign at new Kings Heath (photo © Hazel Nicholson)
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/04/2026
...that name isn't anywhere on the train exteriors, which just have "Metro" on them. So are they, erm, the Liverpool "Metro", as they appear to be to unknowing passengers? But also the new franchised buses will be "Metro" too. (bus image via www.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk/transport)
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 09/04/2026
It has been on the trains since the new ones arrived (this pic from 2023). I'm not sure about the logo either, but for a different reason: its introduction makes it very unclear what the local transport modes are actually called. I think the trains are *officially* still Merseyrail, but...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 04/04/2026
Ah, Gold Zone. From one of the railway industry's earlier attempts at platform zoning. Given up every time as being more trouble than it's worth.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 04/04/2026
PS - the overlay that had come off was one of those strange Transport typeface signs with turquoise strips. Turqouise was Anglia Railways' colour but I don't remember them using Transport, nor the layout with the strips. East Anglia has always been foreign lands for me though...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 04/04/2026
Hello @doublearrow64.bsky.social could I trouble you for an opinion on this? An overlaid sign at Thurston had come off (except for one corner) revealing the older sign underneath. It looked BR-era to me, but also it looked too fresh/dark, surely? Any insights much appreciated. Thanks!
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 30/03/2026
Today's unexpected #DoubleArrow inspired railway logo is that of community rail volunteers the Barrow Upon Soar Station Adoption Group. [source: barrowuponsoar.org.uk/leisure/barr...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 26/03/2026
I’ve been on tour of England for the last 10 days so no recent updates to the Station Heritage Artefacts Collection website (www.stationheritageartefacts.org.uk). Plenty of contributions to add in the next couple of weeks though and I’ve been finding some more of my own, too…
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 25/03/2026
I see the passenger assistance buggy at Euston is already in GBR livery.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 25/03/2026
I am low-key obsessed with Network Rail’s suite of standard station footbridge designs. So you will appreciate I was torn between being delighted to see the first AVA bridge undergoing final commissioning works at Stowmarket, and being annoyed at not being able to use it. Many nice design touches.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 25/03/2026
Always enjoy a station with two completely different styles of name signage on the same platform. They’re great worked examples of “I suppose that’ll do“ railway rebranding exercises.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 21/03/2026
I’m on one of my occasional trips to England. Today I’ve been with @artdecomagpie.bsky.social signing copies of Trackside Transformation for our pre-publication backers. If you are one, thank you and it’s coming soon! If you aren’t, you can buy a copy at: artdecomagpie.bigcartel.com/product/pre-...
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 18/03/2026
Crewe is in the middle of people changing its signage today (new on the left, old on the right - pic 1). I quite like the look of the old Intercity running-in boards (pic 2). Hopefully it will clear up the muddle of mixed Virgin Trains and Avanti signs (pic 3). cc @doublearrow64.bsky.social
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 03/03/2026
Loads of good stuff this time. Also including... Hoses for refilling steam-heated carriages at Nottingham (© @watfordgap.bsky.social) Some RCTS history at Cheltenham Spa (© @jdk653.bsky.social) This smashing surviving 1908 door at Hall Green (© Hazel Nicholson) Drinking fountain at Lancaster (me!)
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 26/02/2026
The Frame / The Beacon (Abergavenny) / The Ribbon (uncovered version built at Reston) / AVA (Stowmarket) - all easily adapted to a three-platform configuration. All better looking than the current A4A proposal for Luton. All from Network Rail's *existing* suite of standard footbridge models.
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The Beauty of Transport @thebeautyoftransport.com · 26/02/2026
Look it at now. Ghastly metal staircase and glass boxes plonked on the front, ridiculous Victorian-style clocks, Crittall windows boarded over or rusting away. The plaza in front is one of the most soul-sapping contexts for any railway station in the country...
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