Train shed

For other uses, see Motive power depot and Goods shed.

Inside Isambard Kingdom Brunel's wooden train shed at Bristol Temple Meads.

A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. The first train shed was built in 1830 at Liverpool's Crown Street Station.

The biggest train sheds were often built as an arch of glass and iron, while the smaller were built as normal pitched roofs.

The train shed with the biggest single span ever built was that at the second Philadelphia Broad Street Station, built in 1891.

Types of train shed

Early wooden train sheds

Ashburton

The earliest train sheds were wooden structures, often with unglazed openings to allow smoke and steam to escape. The oldest part of Bristol Temple Meads is a particularly fine – and large – example, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel with mock-hammerbeam roof.

Surviving examples include:

• Ashburton, Devon, England (station closed)
• Bo'ness, Falkirk, Scotland
• Frome, Somerset, England
• Kingswear, Devon, England
• Thurso, Highland, Scotland
• Wick, Highland, Scotland

Classic metal and glass

Frankfurt

The middle of the nineteenth century saw many large stations covered by iron, steel and glass train sheds, inspired by The Crystal Palace at The Great Exhibition in 1851. The best have been described as "like cathedrals" and feature curved roofs; other structures have pitched roofs.

Surviving examples of curved roof train sheds include:

• Amsterdam Centraal, Netherlands
• Antwerpen-Centraal, Belgium
• Bath Green Park railway station, England (converted to covered market and car park)

  

  Bangkok

• Bangkok, Thailand
• Barcelona Estació de França, Catalonia, Spain
• Brighton, UK
• Bristol Temple Meads, England
• Copenhagen Central Station, Denmark
• Darlington Bank Top, England
• Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof, Germany
• Glasgow Queen Street, Scotland
• Hull Paragon, England

Newcastle

• Gare de Lille Flandres, France
• Köln Hauptbahnhof, Germany
• Liverpool Lime Street, England
• London Kings Cross, England
• London Paddington, England
• London St Pancras, England

Ballarat

• Madrid Atocha, Spain (converted to station atrium)
• Manchester Central, England (converted to conference centre)
• Manchester Piccadilly, England
• Milano Centrale, Italy
• Newcastle Central, England
• Reading Terminal, Philadelphia, United States (converted to convention center)
• Tanjung Priok, Jakarta, Indonesia
• York, North Yorkshire, England
• Lviv Railway station, Ukraine

Surviving examples of pitched roof train sheds include:

• Ballarat, Geelong (and No 2 Goods Shed Melbourne), Australia

Beverley

• Beverley, England
• Bournemouth, England
• Budapest Nyugati, Hungary
• Budapest Keleti, Hungary
• Carlisle Citadel, England
• Chester, England
• Crewe, England
• Edinburgh, Scotland
• Frome, England
• Filey, England

Glasgow Central

• Glasgow Central station, Scotland
• Harrisburg Transportation Center, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• London Liverpool Street, England

Stoke-on-Trent

• Paris Gare du Nord, France
• Paris Gare du Lyon, France
• Preston, England
• Stoke-on-Trent, England
• Wemyss Bay, Scotland

Wemyss Bay

Surviving examples of Bush-type, developed by American civil engineer Lincoln Bush, and related train sheds include:

• Hoboken Terminal, Hoboken, New Jersey, United States
• Union Station, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
• Toronto Union Station, Toronto, Canada
• Communipaw Terminal, Jersey City, New Jersey, United States
• Pennsylvania Station (Baltimore)

Surviving examples of other train sheds include:

• Pennsylvania Station (Newark), Newark, New Jersey, United States
• The SEPTA platform area of 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, United States

Concrete

München Hauptbahnhof train shed, dating to the 1960s

The middle of the twentieth century saw concrete used as a structural material.

Surviving examples include:

• Cockfosters tube station, London, England
• Uxbridge tube station, London, England
• Volksdorf U-Bahn station, Hamburg, Germany

Modern steel and glass

Waterloo International (across the foreground) with the older Waterloo station beyond

After many years with few, if any, significant new train sheds, recent years have seen some major stations given graceful train sheds by using modern technology.

Examples include:

• Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin, Germany
• Longyang Road station on the Shanghai Maglev Train line
• Jefferson Station, Philadelphia, United States (while station is located underground, it has above-ground structures for the purpose of sheltering the platforms and trains)
• Stillwell Avenue subway station, New York City, United States
• Waterloo International, London, England
• Southern Cross station, Melbourne, Australia
• Liège-Guillemins, Liège, Belgium
• Manchester Victoria station, Manchester, England

In the United States, the Walt Disney World Monorail System has some trainsheds along its route, including the entrance-gate station and the main hall (or Grand Canyon Concourse) of the Contemporary Resort.

Open-air canopy

Looking through the open-air roof at which encircles the platform area at Denver Union Station.

• The Union Station (Denver, Colorado), Denver, Colorado, USA features an open-air canopy structure covered with Teflon.