RAILWAYS

There was at first no station in either manor: railways were intended for long-haul goods transport, and it was not until the demand for passenger services and facilities became pressing that intermediate stopping-places were provided. Stechford Station opened in the same year as the Junction Canal, 1844, and Adderley Park in 1860. Meanwhile in 1842 the Birmingham & Derby Junction Railway (part of the Midland Company two years later) had arrived by way of the Tame Valley, bridging the river four times, curving across north Saltley's terrace, skirting the canal reservoir, crossing the canal and then running close to the Rea on a long bank, reaching a terminus at Lawley Street. There was a cutting beneath Aston Church Road, and Saltley High Street was taken over the lines on a high viaduct as the railway had to cross over the canal at that place. Castle Bromwich and Bromford Forge Stations opened with the line, but the latter was closed after a year.

The Gloucester to Birmingham line opened to Camp Hill in 1840: the next year the Extension Line was made to join the London to Birmingham line into Curzon Street. In 1846 the Midland Company acquired the Gloucester, and two link lines were laid from a junction south of Duddeston Mill Road. One went south to join the Gloucester (Bristol) Line at Garrison Lane and so provide a north-east to south-west route which bypassed Birmingham. The other went beneath the London to Birmingham (London & North Western) line and then ran parallel to it into the new central station. New Street was opened in 1852, replacing the inconvenient Curzon Street. All these works were complete by 1854, when Saltley Station was opened. Thenceforward Lawley Street was a goods station only: there was no separate Midland terminus until 1885 when a station was built south of New Street and the Midland lines were diverted thither.

It was not until 1880 that the London & NorthWestern, formed from the London to Birmingham and Grand Junction (Liverpool to Birmingham) lines, provided a link line which permitted through traffic southeast to northwest to bypass Birmingham. This was the Aston to Stechford Line. For some reason it did not start west of Cole, but had its own banks and bridge over the river. Except for a bridge over Cotterills Lane and a bank over Wash Brook, it was in a cutting across Ward End and Washwood.

It crossed the Midland Line and the Rea north of Aston Church Road: a link line to the Midland was taken over that street. Re-alignment of the Rea, which involved land-drainage and infilling of some watercourses, made the valley floor available, and in the 1890s a large Midland marshalling yard was developed between the new channel and the link lines, in what had been Rotton and Adderleys Meadows.

Engine sheds and sidings were placed between the link lines and the canal, so that by the end of the century a hundred acres north of Garrison Street were wholly concerned with railway activities. Branch lines and sidings were constructed to and north of the Midland Railway Works (see below), to the Saltley (Metropolitan) Carriage & Wagon Works and Gas Works, and to the brickfields near Adderley Park Station.