You would think the driver of the engine could have got it a bit closer to the station.
I remember the goods sidings which was mainly a coal siding with various coal merchants loading up there in the fifties and sixties.
By the looks of it, the engine had to stop that short of the station so that the engine could un-couple, run through the points in the foreground then run around the carriages and re-couple to what would now be the front of the train. The drivers have it so easy now just getting out of the cab and changing ends to the other driving cab.
/Users/kenisherwood/Desktop/Percy with train at New Brighton station.jpg
I hope that you can open this file. It is a picture of my father beside his train at New Brighton Station it would be early 1950's. Alas you can't see very much of the station