In 1923 the British government's Railways Act came into effect, forcing the ‘Grouping’ of a myriad of competing mainline railway operators into four large regional firms. The following 25 years saw a brief but sweeping transformation in railway architecture, from ornate Neo-Classical designs to the bold new forms of Streamline Modernism.

The ‘Big Four' as they were known - the Great Western Railway, London Midland and Scottish Railway, London and North Eastern Railway, and Southern Railway - built a vast estate of new stations and supporting buildings, until post-war nationalisation brought their activities - and their existences - to an end in 1947.

While Charles Holden's London Underground stations of the inter-war period have been widely documented, including by myself in London Tube Stations 1923-1961, mainline stations from the same period have never been recognised in the same way. This photo project, completed between 2022 and 2025 for the sole purpose of publication in book form aims to redress the balance.

The book, Trackside Transformation - The Evolution of British Mainline Stations 1923 - 1947, brings together all the station architecture designed and built by the Big Four during this period. Compiled into four distinct aesthetic approaches, transport writer Daniel Wright catalogues each of the surviving stations alongside my contemporary images of the most significant examples.