Railways of Birmingham

Wm. Murdoch's small locomotive 1786. Trevithick locomotives 1797 and (on rails) 1804. Wooden rails provided smooth road surface cheaply: George Stephenson first to use iron rails. Stockton & Darlington Railway 1825. Interest in horse railways, proposal for London to Birmingham line (William James), Stratford- Moreton stretch built 1829. Rainhill Trials proved potential of locomotives.

LONDON TO BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY, Robert Stephenson, 1838, terminus at Curzon Street in Rea valley: embankments over Platt and Yardley Brooks, River Cole, cuttings through Yardley and Saltley ridges. LIVERPOOL TO BIRMINGHAM (Grand Junction) RAILWAY 1837 to temporary terminus at Vauxhall, Curzon St. 1838. Used Tame and Rea valleys, 3 bridges. No connection between lines at terminus. Ionic portico, Queen Hotel beside. A mile from centre, difficult access: proposals for central termini carried out before Albert Street, new route to station, completed.

GLOUCESTER RAILWAY, first cutting at Moseley 1837, Lickey Incline and Camp Hill terminus '40. Moseley sand and gravel excavated for embankments, huge cutting, short tunnel. Extensions to Curzon St. and Bristol, 1842-4. MIDLAND RAILWAY, Derby and Leicester to Birmingham via Tame valley 1841, Lawley St. terminus in Rea valley '42. Within Parish, Streets Commissioners insisted on bridges over or under, no level-crossings. 13 railways projects to or from B. in 1840's, 3 carried out, B'HAM, WOLVERHAMPTON & STOUR VALLEY LINE, built in partnership with B.C.N. by L. to B. (later London North-Western Co.) 1852. New St. terminus, '54: tunnel through ridge, track beside Telford Cut, transhipping wharves. B'HAM, W'HAMPTON & DUDLEY LINE 1854, deep cuts, high banks, blue-brick viaduct over Newhall Brook to first Snow Hill Station, 1852 terminus of B'HAM & OXFORD JUNCTION RAILWAY: Acocks Green cutting, Cole embankment, blue-brick viaduct over Rea, tunnel and cut to Snow Hill. (Great Western Arcade later made over cut).

36.1. Map 24a

Suburban Lines, serving B'ham area. L.N.W. Co. built Sutton Coldfield Line 1862, from the Grand Junction line north of Aston Station, and Harbome Line 1871, from the Stour Valley line near Dudley Road to a terminus near High Street Harborne, with 3 stations across Rotton Park. The Midland Co., which included the Gloucester line, built the B'ham & South-West Suburban Line from the Glos. line at Kings Norton to a temporary terminus at Granville St., 1876, alongside the bankrupt Worcester Canal, with 3 stations in Edgbaston. By 1885 a new Midland Station had been built, separated from New St. Station by Queen's Drive, formerly Queen St., with a tunnel approach. The Midland Co. also built the Northfleld to Halesowen Line, a single track authorised 38 years earlier, in 1884. The Great Western Co., successor to the Oxford and B.W. & Dudley Cos., built the last local line, the B'ham, North Warwickshire & Stratford-on-Avon Line in 1907: it came via the Cole valley and Hall Green cutting to Tyseley Junction, a new viaduct and terminus were made, 1909-14, Moor Street Station occupying the site of the old Public Offices.

Early Stations: Perry Barr 1838, Castle Bromwich 1841, Kings Heath 1840, Stechford 1844, Kings Norton '49, Acocks Green '52, Saltley, Aston, Monument Lane, Hockley, Soho & Winson Green, Handsworth & Smethwick, all '54. Adderley Park '60, Gravelly Hill and Erdington '62, Small Heath '63, Moseley '67, Brighton Road '75, Winson Green '76.

Later Railway History, Having killed canal competition or tamed it, railways had a monopoly of long-distance freight and passenger traffic. From the '80s in and around B'ham they had to share commuter traffic with steam and later electric trams, but bicycles, petrol buses, and eventually cars were to end local train services on most lines: the railway suburbs - Gravelly Hill, Harborne, Stirchley, Kings Heath, Acocks Green, Stechford, Erdington - turned to road transport, as did the manufacturers. The change was already happening when the railway companies amalgamated in 1921, the L.N.W. and Midland becoming the L.M.S. Snow Hill Station had been twice rebuilt, the last work providing a new entrance hall beneath what had been the Great Western Hotel in Colmore Row (1912). Passenger traffic on the Harborne Line ended in 1934, though goods were still carried for nearly 30 years longer. The suburban stations on the lines to the south-west were closed in the '40s, and those on other lines are now few in number. The Midland Station, warehouses and sidings were all removed in the '60s. Steam locomotives had by then given way to diesels and electrification since has necessitated some bridge re-building. New Street Station has been rebuilt (late '60s with an enclosed shopping centre and a tower block above it. The North Warks. Line is threatened with closure, and Snow Hill Station is a partly-demolished ruin. Only on the Harborne Line have the rails been removed, though several stations have gone: plans for revitalising suburban routes to relieve road congestion still await implementation, while schemes for an underground rail network are canvassed. Curzon Street Station survives, unused, for the moment.