Hull Paragon Interchange



Hull Paragon Interchange is a transport complex in the centre of the city of Hull, England, which opened in September 2007. It integrates the city's railway station with the formerly separate bus and coach station brought together under one roof so that passengers can move between the train platforms and the bus stands without going outside.

Rail
The railway station was historically called "Hull Paragon", and has always been referred to by locals as "Paragon station", but "Paragon" was dropped from the official name many years ago and railway timetables refer simply to "Hull" station. Currently it is operated by First TransPennine Express, which provides train services along with Northern Rail, First Hull Trains and East Coast.

The station was used as a location in the film Clockwise with John Cleese. 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.

History of the railway station
The original station at Manor House Street (closer to the Humber Estuary) opened in 1840. The current station of 2.5 acre was opened by the York and North Midland Railway as "Hull Paragon Street station" on 8 May 1848 (though not officially until 1851) as a centrally-located railway terminal for Hull, with a three-bay pitched-roof trainshed. The name Paragon Station derives from a nearby street name. The adjacent hotel, named the Royal Station Hotel after a stay by Queen Victoria in 1854, but later renamed the Royal Hotel was added in 1851. Both the station and the hotel were designed by George Townsend Andrews, who died in 1853, young and in poverty, four years after the decline in fortune and death of George Hudson, the 'Railway King'.

The Y&NMR became part of the North Eastern Railway, created in 1854 by merger with other railway companies. The NER changed the station name to "Hull Paragon". Half a century later the NER rebuilt and expanded the station, creating 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 four railway lines on the south side of the station and outside the canopy (see right-hand side of the top picture) were used by passengers transiting from Europe to the USA via Liverpool, often fleeing the pogroms of eastern Europe in the 19th century,. Because of the cholera outbreaks in Hull of 1832 and 1849 and the sensitivity of the city to the reintroduction of this disease many left from a quarantine building next to the southernmost of these four lines. This building still exists and fronts on to Anlaby Road. A small ticket office still exists on the platform next to the northernmost of these four lines.

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. 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 was demolished in 2007. The hotel was significantly damaged in a fire and then rebuilt in 1990.

On 14 February 1927 it was the site of a head-on train collision in which 12 passengers were killed and 24 seriously injured, caused by a signalling error.

The station has survived the bombing of two world wars and subsequent decades of redevelopment. The new transport interchange was officially opened by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh when they unveiled a plaque on 5 March 2009 after arriving at the station on the Royal Train.

First TransPennine Express was awarded Station Excellence of the Year at the HSBC Rail Business Awards 2007 for the interchange.

Bus and coach station
Hull Paragon Interchange's bus station opened on Sunday 16 September 2007 at the same site of the city's rail station situated beneath the roof of the grade II* listed building. The bus and coach station has 42 stands in total, 38 stands + 4 coach stands. This has made it easier to transfer between bus and train.

The interchange, developed through a partnership between Hull City Council, Yorkshire Forward and Network Rail, and delivered by executive architects Holder Mathias. This involved a complex reconfiguration of the station and the surrounding public space.

The former Hull Bus Station, which was only partly covered over, used to be shared by Hull Corporation Transport (later KHCT) and East Yorkshire Motor Services (EYMS). The site of the bus station has now been replaced by the St Stephen's shopping centre. Other, smaller operators include Alpha Bus and Coach and CT Plus.

Bus services
Buses go from the station all over the city of Hull. Most bus services that run within the city are operated by Stagecoach in Hull. East Yorkshire Motor Services is still the main bus company for routes throughout the East Riding of Yorkshire. There are services to North East Lincolnshire to and from the bus station mainly operated by Stagecoach in Lincolnshire and Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes.

Buses go from Hull Paragon Interchanges as far afield as Beverley, York, Scarborough, Withernsea, Humberside International Airport, Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Leeds.

Philip Larkin statue
A life-size bronze statue of Hull resident Philip Larkin was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Hull at a ceremony at Hull Paragon Interchange on 2 December 2010, marking the 25th anniversary of the poet's death.

The statue was designed by Martin Jennings and cost £100,000 which was raised at a number of local charity events and auctions held in Hull. It is located near the Royal Hotel, one of Larkin's favourite haunts. Visitors to Hull will now be greeted by the statue which has been installed to blend in with the historic station's fabric.

On 2 December 2011, a year since the original unveiling ceremony, five additional slate roundels containing inscriptions of Larkin's poems were installed in the floor space around the statue. The sculpture has become a popular subject for photography at the Interchange. In December 2012 a memorial bench was installed around a pillar near the statue.

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

Some evening and Sunday services start/terminate at Leeds.
 * East Coast
 * 1 train per day (the Hull Executive) to London King's Cross
 * First Hull Trains
 * 7 trains a day to London King's Cross
 * First TransPennine Express
 * 1 train per hour to Manchester Piccadilly
 * 1 train per day to Liverpool Lime Street
 * Northern Rail
 * 1 train per hour to Bridlington (slow)
 * 1 train per hour to Bridlington or Scarborough (fast)
 * 1 train per hour to Doncaster
 * 1 train per hour to Sheffield
 * 1 train per 2 hours to York