This post is dedicated to anyone who has arrived at King's Cross station in London on a cold winter's night at 5pm. on a Friday, having parted with an obscene amount of money for a ticket back to Newcastle, only to find that there has been a freight train derailment at Peterborough and your train will be delayed by two hours - and then realised, after looking around the station, that there are no seats - anywhere - to sit out your weary wait with 2000 other disgruntled passengers who are desperate to get home.
It wasn't always like that. There was a time when railway stations did have seating, and while it could never have been described as comfortable, it was sometimes rather distinctive.
This beautiful example, now in the National Railway Museum at York, once graced the platform at Yarmouth South Town (served by the Great Eastern Railway, I think). With a fitting sense of plaice, bearing in mind that Yarmouth has a fine trawling tradition, the cast iron bench ends are decorated with a trio of flatfish and a couple of scallops. Lovely.
Had you found yourself waiting on a platform 'Up North' during the heyday of the North Eastern Railway, then you would have been sharing your seat with a couple of sinuous serpents.
If your train was late in the Lake District, then the Furness Railway supplied you with these fine benches decorated with red squirrels nibbling bunches of grapes.
There are still red squirrels in the Lake District (though precious few grapes to sustain them), but the Furness Railway has long gone ..... but these benches still adorn the promenade near Grange-over-Sands railway station.
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