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Curzon Street Railway Station

Birmingham Hidden Spaces website is having a spring clean. How interesting to go into some of these places. I will have to see what is coming up.
 
An account of the station from 1979. It mentions the buildings that were demolished including the Queens Hotel. Viv.

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Interesting trackwork on the right-hand side! The 'six-foot', the space between adjacent lines, is considerably smaller than the 'four-foot', the space between a set of running rails. Either the artist has made a mistake or the two tracks serve different purposes. Perhaps the left-hand track is for 'end loading' coaches, as per the one at the end of the train on the far-left? With the release of the new Hornby 'Rocket' due this month this picture might form the basis of a neat period layout!
 
Think it was when they started to change over the gauges.
No, can't be because the track leaving the station is standard gauge. There would be no point in having a tiny bit of broad gauge in the station. Besides broad gauge was a Brunel idea used on the GWR, never on the L&BR.
 
It does look as if it is a mixed gauge layout, but as far as I can see, no Great Western trains ever went into Curzon St. The early GW terminus seems to have been at Bordesley
 
The plan was for GWR to run into Curzon Street but that never happened and in any event that would have been long after 1838. Remember this was a drawing and perspective is not easy.

For more about the GWR plans to run to Curzon Street see this thread

A little ironic that the HS2 station will be close to the GWR lines at Moor Street Station and the two stations will be connected by a footbridge.
 
Interesting trackwork on the right-hand side! The 'six-foot', the space between adjacent lines, is considerably smaller than the 'four-foot', the space between a set of running rails. Either the artist has made a mistake or the two tracks serve different purposes. Perhaps the left-hand track is for 'end loading' coaches, as per the one at the end of the train on the far-left? With the release of the new Hornby 'Rocket' due this month this picture might form the basis of a neat period layout!

Yes perspective is not good as that is the engine release line to allow the loco that brought the train into the station to run round its train.
 
The excellent warwickshirerailways.com website perhaps provides the answer (and some good contemporary descriptions of the station).

Here is the 1838 layout, consisting of six roads linked by 12' turntables. The roads must be sensibly placed if only to fit the turntables in. From a modeller's point of view the whole lot could be accomodated in the length of four modern coaches!

It would appear that right from the start central Birmingham has suffered from lack of railway capacity.
 
I think an important point which is often overlooked is that the building that we know as Curzon Street Station was not in fact the station but was the hotel named The Queen Victoria. The station offices including ticket offices were inside the gate to the left of the hotel alongside the departure platform.
 
I am interested in the buildings around (past and present) the railway station. I have seen the Woodman Pub mentioned, I am just off to have a search on BHF for the pub.
 
my son has just shown me some amazing photos of the old turntable at curzon st that has been uncovered...cant find anything online about it and i think the photos must have been on facebook...not a member of it

lyn
 
Here is a plan of the station on opening, and the position of the turntable approximately fits with the position in the photograph.

Plan of curzon st station on opening.jpg

However, it can be seen from the c1889 OS mapo that the turntable had gone by that time.

map c 1889 showing curzon st station area.jpg
 
i wonder if they will restore it? and move it to tyseley?

works

well pete if we had a council that cared about preserving the cities heritage then i would like to think so BUT knowing what we know and have seen over the years it will most likely be at best infilled ...at worst ripped up and chucked in the skip...if it did go to tysley then i for one would be absolutely delighted

lyn
 
well pete if we had a council that cared about preserving the cities heritage then i would like to think so BUT knowing what we know and have seen over the years it will most likely be at best infilled ...at worst ripped up and chucked in the skip...if it did go to tysley then i for one would be absolutely delighted

lyn
well said lyn.
never know someone might have it, fingers crossed.hey.
 
Lyn, that is a wagon turntable from the goods station. The one that has been discovered is for railway locos and would have been much larger in the centre of a circular building, actually in this case a 16 sided building
what ever its use i hope they dont skip it:worried:: unamused:
 
Lyn, those wagon turntables were rarely seen at a passenger stations so maybe that's why they are unfamiliar to you. Larger yards like the good yards - note plural - at Curzon Street (also Bordesley, Camp Hill and Hockley) had a few as various types of wagon were dealt with in different parts of the depot - e.g. fruits, fish, aggregates, coal and so on.
 
Also those old wagon turntables would never have had locos going over them. The wagons would have been much small than present railway wagons and would have been shunted either by a gang of men or by a horse.
 
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