Central Railway Station

Central Railway Station is a railway station built in 1885, designed by William Jacomb, who was the engineer for the London and South-Western Railway. The station features red brick walls and a partly covered shed that spans four tracks, supported by twelve large cross-braced riveted wrought-iron trusses with a criss-cross pattern of struts on open foliage brackets made of iron. The glazing covers only the platforms, with three shallow pitched roofs on each side. Originally, there was a glazed roof made up of nine longitudinal sections, but the center three sections have been removed.

The station has two storeys, and the glazed screens at either end have been dismantled. The southern elevation, which is the downside, has 22 bays and features very large buttresses shaped like brick consoles on 13 of these bays, while smaller buttresses are found elsewhere. The upper storey includes triplets of slender segmental-headed windows made of moulded brick, separated by brick buttress piers, each topped with a stucco cornice and pediment over two rows of brick dentils.

There is a projecting forebuilding with segmental-headed windows and a metal canopy, along with a single-storey annexe to the east. The northern elevation, or upside, mirrors this design and includes a two-storey projection for refreshment rooms and offices, featuring a Jacobethan-style pedimented entrance. An attached goods shed to the east is designed in a similar style, with semi-circular arches open to the platform side and a lattice-girder roof.

The elevations facing the platforms are adorned with brick pilasters on stucco fluted bases, with doorcases also made of stucco. Alternate pilasters are topped with miniature coupled pilasters and pediments. This station is noted as one of the most elaborate examples designed in the Queen Anne style for the London and South-Western Railway. Similar roofs supported by cross girders rather than trusses were constructed at Carlisle in 1847 by Sir William Tite and at Stoke-on-Trent in 1848 by H.A. Hunt.