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Lickey Incline

Loads more parking at Bromsgrove station now which has encouraged more to use it, a lot more than anticipated..quite obvious that if more cars are parked the fat controller needs more coaches attached to his engine.
 
Think how smoothly things would work on the railways if there were no passengers !. I think some of higher management believe that deep down, particularly down south where southern also apparently think the same with regard to guards.
 
Actually I understood the expansion of Bromsgrove station was so that some of the cross city trains could run to Bromsgrove (that's what I gathered from friends who live at lickey end). the station/s finished (?), so where are these extra trains going to it.
 
The new Bromsgrove station is, I understand, due to re-open on 12th. July this year.
There seems to be more than one cause to the issues for passengers at Bromsgrove. The ongoing housebuilding in the area is one, another is that when the trains arrive at Bromsgrove, headed for Birmingham in off-peak times particularly, the trains are already full and that is why the buses have been provided at Bromsgrove. At least the operating company is doing something to assist their travelling public.
Other issues are line capacity, you cannot run trains like motorways i.e. bumper to bumper, plus the trackwork at Worcester which, I gather, needs modifications to give smoother paths through the place. Bromsgrove is situated on a busy SouthWest to the North rail corridor.
 
Am not sure how far it has gone, but I think the supports for the electrification to Bromsgrove are already installed (together with heightened bridges). Google certainly shows then going up at Barnt Green
 
But not the line from Barnt green to Bromsgrove, which is what I was talking about. Actually I should have said from Streetview, which, as seen below seem to show the erection of a support pole on the Bromsgrove track, or at least that is what I take it to be

ScreenHunter_5153 Apr. 21 17.52.jpg
 
And I was thinking about Worcester as a possible place for the electrification to reach. The frequent crawl into New Street by Cross Country trains does need improvement.
 
I was at Barnt Green today and saw the new bridge on Hewell Lane and early signs of electrification there.



At least as far as the M42.



The track towards the Hewell Lane bridge



The track north of the new footbridge

 
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Heard announcements on the Cross City line today about the line being closed on Sunday 23rd April 2017



Noticed this sign on platform 2 at Barnt Green



I later saw some Colas Rail track replacement trains near Kings Norton



 
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dib44 said:
Thank you for the link to those evocative films, wonderful.

Brings back so many great memories, I was born and raised at the bottom end of George St West a couple of hundred feet or so from the Hockley goods yard and the GWR main line between London and Wolverhampton, many, many a hot sultry summers night I would lie in bed listening the the tank engines Marshalling the freight wagons and the express trains blowing the warning whistles as they came out of the tunnels heading towards Wolverhampton from Snow Hill.

Wonderful memories that will stay with me untill the end of my days.

Dibs
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Hi Dibs,
I was born in George St West 159 the house last one next to the bomb site and I lived there for 15 years, we then moved to number 130 it was a shop owned by Mrs Knight, my dad converted it to a cafe that my mum ran for about 3 years.
The way you have described the sounds is spot on, wagons banging together all night long.
 
I was a firman in the early sixties based at Saltley, the Gloucester run was a regular for us. On one of my first trips we had a large number of empty coal wagons and we stopped at the top of the Licky Imcline before the decent to allow the guard to fasten down some of the wagon brakes. About half way down we seemed to be going very fast, I was being thrown about and thinking this driver is in a big hurry, then he shouted 'PUT THE TENDER BRAKE ON', I started to wind it, but not fast enough, he pushed me out the way and wound it like crazy shouting at me 'WE'RE RUNNING AWAY ', the brake was now on but it made no difference, we we're still going very fast.
As we got close to the station at the bottom I could see the main line signal was on stop and the points were set to send us down the goods line to the left. We hit the point at one hell of a speed throwing the engine first to the left then the right, I don't know how we stayed on the track but we did and I lived to tell the tale.
We eventually came to a stop way past the station and the guard who was a coloured guy at top, was now white as a ghost.
He had not fixed enough brakes down, either by mistake or idleness, the driver had a nice quiet word with him, well sort of.
On the return trip to Brum the banking engine that would push us was called Big Berther, it would chase after us and you could feel the push.
When diesels started to be used they were so powerful often Big B couldn't catch us.
 
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Just came across these two interesting photographs of 'Big Bertha', taken at Derby Works on November 18th 1956, by Graham Badger, and as shown in the 2017 June issue of Steam Railway.
(Thank you Graham, and Steam Railway magazine)

The smoke box number and shed plate have already disappeared, and he headlamp has already been transferred to '9F' 2-10-0 No. 92079.

A bit sad for me, since I often saw this wonderful engine doing its duty on the Lickey Incline in the forties, when I was boarded at school in Blackwell, and it was a wonderful sight.

Eddie
 

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Pedrocut said:
As the last post is over a year old Here is a video posted 6 months ago.

Click to expand...
Faded memories but I do recall going on a train ride while spotting from Snow Hill (I think) to ? and back so that we could go down and up the Licky Bank. We loved to hear those steamers puffing very hard and then the change after the banker came on.
 
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