Hull Paragon Interchange

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Hull Paragon Interchange
Location
Place	Kingston upon Hull
Local authority	Kingston upon Hull
Coordinates	53°44′37″N 0°20′46″W / 53.743500, -0.34600Coordinates: 53°44′37″N 0°20′46″W / 53.743500, -0.34600
Grid reference	TA090287
Operations
Station code	HUL
Managed by	First TransPennine Express
Platforms in use	7
Live departures and station information from National Rail
Annual Rail Passenger Usage
2004/05 *	1.961 million
2005/06 *	1.970 million
History
Key dates	Opened 1840
National Rail - UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Annual passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Hull Paragon Interchange from Office of Rail Regulation statistics.
UK Railways Portal

Travel Centre at Hull Paragon

The Royal Station Hotel, Hull c 1880. The end of the original station building appear to the left of the hotel.

Hull Paragon Interchange is a major transportation complex in the city of Kingston upon Hull (usually known as Hull), England. This incorporates the city's railway station, which is operated by First TransPennine Express, who provide train services along with Northern Rail, First Hull Trains and National Express East Coast. The original station opened in 1840. The complex has undergone renovation in conjunction with the adjacent St Stephens commercial development to create an integrated transport hub that was opened on 16 September 2007.^[1] As part of this improvement Paragon House, a former area headquarters of British Rail's North-Eastern region, built across the front of the station in the early 1960s but empty and increasingly dilapidated since the 1980s, has been demolished.

The station was used as a location in the film Clockwise with John Cleese.^[2] It also featured heavily in an early episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot entitled 'The Plymouth Express' (from Poirot's Early Cases), made by LWT and starring David Suchet.^[3]

[edit] History

The station was originally opened by the York and North Midland Railway in 1848 as a new centrally-located terminal for Hull, with a three-bay pitched-roof trainshed, a hotel (named the Royal Station Hotel after a stay by Queen Victoria, but now renamed the Royal Hotel despite its continuing physical integration with the station) being added in 1851. The Y&NMR subsequently became part of the North Eastern Railway, created in 1854 by merger with other railway companies. Half a century later the NER rebuilt and greatly expanded the station to create the last of Britain's great barrel-vaulted glass-and-iron railway stations, being reopened in 1904 with a five-bay trainshed (see picture above right) and two additional barrel vault bays at right angles covering the concourse (see picture below right).

The Royal Station Hotel was subsequently enlarged in a style somewhat unsympathetic with the elegant and coherent appearance of the original 1851 building, this also necessitating some shortening of the adjacent main station entrance portico which had been part of the 1904 station rebuild and extension. The hotel was significantly damaged in a fire and then rebuilt in 1990. This portico was swept away completely in the early 1960s to be replaced by Paragon House, a typical 1960s concrete and glass structure, which in turn has been demolished in 2007, after years of dereliction, as part of the adaption of the station to provide an integrated public transport interchange (see below).

The station has survived the bombing of two world wars and subsequent decades of demolition and redevelopment which has swept away much of Hull's architectural heritage. It has recently been modified to provide a multimodal transport interchange incorporating a new central bus station, in conjunction with the new St Stephen's shopping and other development on adjacent land. The transport interchange was opened on 16 September 2007.^[1]

First TransPennine Express where awarded Station Excellence Of The Year at the HSBC Rail Business Awards 2007 for the interchange.^[4]

[edit] Services

The typical Monday-Friday off-peak service from Hull Paragon is:

First Hull Trains

• 7 trains per day (tpd) to London King's Cross, of which:
  • 1 calls at Brough, Howden, Selby, Doncaster and Grantham
  • 1 calls at Brough, Howden, Selby, Doncaster, Grantham and Stevenage (to set down only)
  • 3 call at Brough, Howden, Selby, Doncaster, Retford and Grantham
  • 2 call at Brough, Howden, Selby, Doncaster, Retford, Grantham and Stevenage (to set down only)

These journeys take between 2 hours 33 minutes and 2 hours 55 minutes.

First TransPennine Express

• 1 train per hour to Manchester Piccadilly, calling at Brough, Selby, Leeds City and Huddersfield. This journey takes 1 hour 58 minutes. This service also extends to Warrington and Liverpool once per weekday (0600 service).

National Express East Coast

• 1 train per day to London King's Cross, calling at Brough, Selby, Doncaster, Grantham and Peterborough. This journey is called The Hull Executive and takes 2 hours 45 minutes.

Northern Rail

• 1 train per hour (tph) to Sheffield Midland, calling at Brough, Goole, Doncaster and Meadowhall
• 1 tph to Doncaster, calling at Hessle, Ferriby, Brough, Gilberdyke, Goole, Thorne North, Hatfield and Stainforth and Kirk Sandall
• 2 tph to Bridlington, via Cottingham, Beverley and Driffield. This is extended approximately once every two hours to Scarborough via Hunmanby, Filey and Seamer.
• 1 train every two hours to York, mostly calling at Brough and Selby, but sometimes also serving other intermediate stations.

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} "City's new interchange is open", BBC News, 2007-09-16. Retrieved on 2007-09-19. 
2. ^ Clockwise film locations
3. ^ The LNER Encyclopedia
4. ^ HSBC Rail Business Awards 2007 - Winners 2007. Rail Business Awards (27 February 2008). Retrieved on 2008-03-04.

[edit] External links

• Train times and station information for Hull Paragon Interchange from National Rail
• Images of England — details from listed building database (387692)