Before it became a busy station on the Tyne and Wear Metro, for decades Pelaw operated as a railway station.
It was one of the many stops on the the old suburban rail lines, north and south of the Tyne, that Metro adapted for its new rapid transit system in the late 1970s and early '80s.
Pelaw railway station opened back in 1843. It underwent changes in 1850 and 1857 - and again in 1896 as Pelaw became home to the Co-operative Wholesale Society at the turn of the 20th century.
READ MORE: The lost railway stations of Gateshead town centre
The Co-op built an almost mile-long string of red-brick factories along Shields Road on what had been fields between Heworth and Bill Quay.
They included a drug and drysaltery works, as well as engineering, cabinet-making, printing, tailoring, shirt, clothing, quilt and bedding factories.
Many of the goods that filled the shelves of Co-op “stores” around the region were made here.
When all the factories were operating at their peak, they provided jobs for 3,000 local people, many of whom would have caught the train to and from Pelaw.
In 1979, the British Rail station closed, being replaced by Heworth Interchange as a rail stop, with Heworth also operating as a Metro station when the new system began running in 1981.
In 1984, the Metro line was extended down through Hebburn and Jarrow towards South Shields, but it wasn’t until the following year that Pelaw opened as a new Metro station.
In 2002, when the line to Sunderland opened, the new route branched off just east of Pelaw station.
Then, in May 2006, the Chronicle reported: “Revamped Pelaw Metro station, which has been hailed by bosses as a vision of the future, opened its doors after a £1.2m refit. With a large domed silver roof and a covered waiting area, it will give commuters more comfort and safety.”
Our two then-and-now images of the station were taken by Whitley Bay-based amateur photographer Trevor Ermel who has shared much of his superb work with us recent years.
The first photograph shows a South Shields -bound Metro at the station in 1994 - while the second photograph shows the revamped station in recent years.
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