IT regularly wins awards for being the best kept station on the Tyne Valley railway line, and has been providing facilities for passengers for around 175 years.

But Hexham railway was not always the icon of excellence it has been in recent years.

For in an article in the Hexham Courant of January 17, 1866, editor and founder of the paper, Joseph Catherall, laid into the station and the company responsible for it in no uncertain terms.

Mr Catherall thundered: “We have at this town a railway station, which considering the amount of business there transacted, is a perfect disgrace to the company to whom it belongs, whether they choose to be known by the name the North-Eastern, or the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Company.

“The buildings, if they deserve so dignified an appellation, appear as though they have been brought some distant locality in trucks
in the lump, and carelessly rolled off, one to this side and another to that, and left to find their feet by happy chance, tumbling promiscuously head or tail.

“This done, suppose the steam turned suddenly on, the engine jerks itself from under a rickety shed which happens to fall on its feet , and there it stands, a monument to the stupidity of its designer, and a scandal to the company.

“But the mal-arrangement of its edifices is possibly exceeded by that of the rails.

“Suppose a number of persons be waiting for the train, and a goods truck is to be brought to the warehouse or the lading quay. There is no way thereto but through the midst of those passengers, to the jeopardy of many a life and limb.

“Take a look at those slight elevations intended to do duty as platforms; so narrow that scarcely two persons can stand or walk abreast, and so low that none except the most agile can step from them to the carriages, children and even middle aged matrons obliged to rely on the gallantry of the obliging stationmaster or some of the porters for assistance in either in ascending to or descending from those castles in the air, not as a matter of politeness, but of necessity.

“But what of the accommodations which a company which is netting seven or eight per cent dividends has provided for the public?

“We dare not describe them, or rather the want of them.

“We admit there is some slight attempt to provide conveniences in the ladies’ waiting room, but in the gentlemen’s there is none whatsoever.

“Will it be credited that at a station where upwards of 120,000 people are seated and unseated in the course of a year – in round figures 2,500 per week – has but one place of convenience for male passengers, and this solitary accommodation is without gates, and open to all comers?” asked Mr Catherall.

“We have no right perhaps to pry into the stationmaster’s department, but it is easy to see it provides a general office for book-keepers, ticket clerks, parcels and left luggage, and often no doubt to the annoyance of these officials, a waiting room for gentlemen.

“Only the inexhaustible good temper and obliging disposition of the stationmaster Mr Bulman should render such a state of things at all tolerable.

“We are not forgetful that the early years of this railway were both unfortunate and expensive.

“But the public have suffered for these early mistakes, and have had to pay for them. But now they are paid for, they ask proper accommodation for their money.

“It is needful for us to press the directors of this safe and lucrative line, whose dividends amount to nearly double the usual bank interest, to do themselves a favour by obliging their customers.

“Is it possible they cannot see, after so many years’ experience, that a parcels office, or left luggage office, would amply repay the necessary outlay, and that above all, a suite of commodious and substantial refreshment rooms would be more remunerative to themselves than cash at their bankers, and at the same time confer a boon on the community?

“Promises certainly have been as plentiful as blackberries – but only made to be broken – made it would appear to pacify the public, by endeavouring to persuade them that all the good things promised were to be performed for the especial benefit of its patrons, without the slightest reference to the ultimate gain for the company.

“Let them show they are willing to oblige the public by benefiting themselves and we shall give them full credit for sincerity.

“But if the directors of the Newcastle and Carlisle
Railway company are so blind as to be unable to perceive
that both objectives are attainable at one stroke, we must pay them the compliment that they are more obtuse of vision than those who will not see.”