Description: Railway staff posed for the camera in front of a Great Central Railway (GCR) train at Glossop station at some date between 1899 and 1912. The locomotive is GCR No 452, a Class 12AT double-framed 2-4-0T, designed for the GCR's predecessor, the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR) by its Locomotive Engineer Charle Sacre. A total of eight were constructed in 1880-81, their original purpose being to operate the intensive suburban service over the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham line (MSJA), today one of the tram routes run by Manchester Metrolink. All were constructed at the MSLR's Gorton Works in Manchester and No 452 was the final example, appearing in 1881. Until 1899 these small locomotives were the mainstay of MSJA services but in that year they were replaced by larger and more modern locos, then serving out the remainder of their lives on various branch lines. It would appear that all of the class were placed on the Duplicate List in 1912. This was a financial manoeuvre which allowed old locos that had in accounting terms been replaced by new ones to continue in service for a few (sometimes many) years longer. On the GCR this involved the addition to the number of the suffix 'B'; since No 452 does not carry this here, the picture must pre-date 1912. It was finally withdrawn and broken up for scrap as 452B in 1914. Two sister locomotives survived to be designated London and North Eastern Railway Class E8 in 1923, but the last was broken up two years later. The livery carried by the loco would have been dark green with black and white lining, while the double frames (not really visible here) would have been dark red-brown with vermilion lining.
The carriage nearest the engine is a MSLR Third Class vehicle with five compartments carried on a six-wheeled underframe of 31ft length. Such coaches were built in large numbers between 1879 and 1899 and trains on the Glossop branch at this time usually included three examples of this type. The vehicle behind this with the door open looks to be a Brake Third (i.e. a Third Class coach with a compartment for the guard and a hand brake) - indeed the door may well be open because the guard has left his van for the photographer and is probably the man standing third from the left. The livery carried by the carriage will be brown with French Grey or cream upper panels. This colour scheme was introduced in 1899 and lasted until 1908 when a decision was made for all GCR coaches to be turned out in teak. However, it took a number of years before the old livery disappeared completely.
Glossop station was opened in 1845 and this view shows its original form. The main building was (and still is) at right angles to the tracks and from this projected a single platform with a main face on the south side and a shorter bay on the north. An overall roof spanned the main face and that is what we can see here; the bay platform - out of view but immediately to the left - stopped short of the roof and had no cover for passengers. The roof also spanned two other tracks, obscured in this view by the train. One was the engine release road and the other a siding. The gable just visible on the extreme right is the goods shed, the wall of which also supported the overall roof. The latter was removed in 1912, which adds further confirmation of the date range for the photo. It was replaced by a gable-ended canopy supported on cast iron columns, just covering the main platform and not the tracks. The Glossop branch was electrified in 1954 using the overhead 1,500V DC system (since changed to 25kV AC) but the station remained much the same aside from track rationalisation until the 1980s when the former goods shed and the area once occupied by the overall roof were adapted to form a supermarket. The previously removed bay platform was then reinstated and slightly extended eastwards. The 1912 canopy was retained but what had been its back now became its front and vice versa, leaving the station looking rather different from its earlier appearance.