Agree with that! Was there any particular reason for choosing the white lettering rather than gold on the GNER-liveried powercar?

Very pretty! Excellent job.

Anyway, #TracksideTransformation features a full list of the GWR's new and rebuilt stations, including those lost. It also features Philip's beautiful photos of all significant survivors, far better than mine in the thread above. Pre-order for a discount: kck.st/3YjDPIO (did I mention that before?)

Post-war, and post-Culverhouse, Brian Lewis then Frederick Curtis took over as chief architects (Lewis had already been working on GWR stations destined to transfer to London Underground on the western extension of the Central line) but the Central line project represented most of the GWR's output.

Even then, some later stations like Haverfordwest eschewed the Modernist approach. Apart from the datestone and possibly the windows if you were really suspicious, you'd never really think it was built in 1939. That was a wasted opportunity (IMHO).

This is Leamington Spa, and the only picture in this thread from the book, as is obvious from the fact that it's the best image. If you want to see
@artdecomagpie.bsky.social's lovely photos of the other stations, I'm afraid you'll just have to buy the book.

But then occasionally, particularly towards the end of the 1930s, Culverhouse started turning out Modernist and Art Deco station buildings, e.g. at Paddington (1934), Leamington Spa (1939), and a sort of hybrid Neo-classical/Modernist extension at Exeter St Davids (1940).

Many of the small red-brick stations have been lost, including a whole string between Creech St Michael and Cullompton which have gone. Stoke Canon survives, somehow, although the station is closed. It is now a business premises, just visible from passing trains.

The GWR's smaller stations were usually (Parson Street in Bristol being a notable exception) Neo-classical or Domestic structures in red brick, and would have looked quite in-keeping had they been built in the 1900s. Solihull and Dorridge were actually built in 1933.

Inside was another story. Here is the fabulous Art Deco interior of Cardiff Central, and the distinctive lettering scheme Culverhouse developed. It was rendered in faience tiling at Cardiff and Bristol, but signage is cut-out metal at Exeter (though direction signs are in tile on the footbridge).

Unusually, all its large station projects survive. But really, do not ask me what was going on inside the head of P E Culverhouse, chief architect for most of the Grouping era. His big stations looked quite old-fashioned, at least on the outside... (Swansea pic commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sw...)

When we were researching the book, we found 51 stations the GWR either built new or rebuilt with new buildings.

Of those, 31 survive - that's a 61% survival rate. They're still being lost now, with North Acton (1923) and Solihull (1933) currently planned for replacement (smaller works, but still).

Yes, that feels right. This is effectively a "negative-space" (rather than just "negative") version of the symbol, and it looks like thought has been given to how it actually works, and whether it looks good (which I also think it does, in both cases).

Wow! Very impressive shots.

It is not even as if we haven't got multiple examples of previous stations rebuilt with station entrances as the ground floor of office/retail/residential blocks, which are always terrible.