ABSTRACT
My own interest in railways was fostered and encouraged by being a trustee of SAVE Britain’s Heritage. SAVE was established in European Architectural Heritage Year 1975 to campaign for threatened aspects of the built environment, and to promote study, research into and awareness of the nation’s built heritage. Our earliest major project, some 18 months after our establishment, was the organization of an exhibition to draw attention to the plight of one signally important aspect of railway culture, namely its buildings. The exhibition, which was held at the RIBA Heinz Gallery from January to March 1977, was called Off the Rails: Saving Railway Heritage. Looking back on it I realize that one of the reasons why the exhibition was such a landmark was that it examined railway buildings with the same seriousness with which other categories of buildings were already for the most part being treated, and it promoted an understanding of them that acknowledged their value in architectural, historical, technical and social contexts. Understandably enough, the exhibition and the publications that accompanied it aroused a good deal of ire in certain circles: that is to say, those more committed to an efficient running of the railway system than to maintaining structures that were perceived in a good many cases to have outrun their useful life. However, we also demonstrated the enormous potential of railway structures to be adapted for new uses, without necessarily losing thereby their associational or cultural values in the process.
