Longbridge Station

Image: © Michael Westley Taken: Unknown

Pre-electrification and at the start of cross-city line services, many of the stations to south of New Street were not even built. Remember Five Ways, University and Longbridge were all new stations (though Five Ways was a rebuild). Looking at north platform from road, Longbridge station began services without any buildings. Longbridge was also the southern termination of the service at the time, extension to Redditch did not come until later. A 'siding' further south was used to hold trains awaiting next service north, so as not to block routes in either direction - there were other express services that did not always use the middle tracks. Notice the double set of DMUs awaiting to depart from north platform - sets were often of mixed origin, and due to poor maintenance and age, often 'failed' at inconvenient points on the route, particularly approaching New Street, and would often require railway staff to 'uncouple' manually failed sections. Ahhhh, passengers had much more fun in those days.....

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