LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Harborne
The Harborne Railway Company was authorised by an Act of
Parliament on 28 June 1866 to construct a single line railway, 2 miles and 35
chain in length, from Harborne to a junction with the LNWR near Monument Lane.
It was however another three years before construction commenced and another
five years of construction before the line opened to passenger traffic on 10th
August 1874 and goods the following October. Plans to extend the line to the
Halesowen and Bromsgrove Branch Railway at Lapal were opposed. Passengers would
have left Harborne over the railway bridge at Park Hill Road, and crossed the
Chad Valley on a high embankment, before passing under the Hagley Road, and
arriving at the first station. A little more than a mile further was Rotton
Park Road Station, where a spur was constructed to Mitchell and Butler's
Brewery. After another mile there was Icknield Port Road Station, and then the
line crossed the Birmingham and Wolverhampton Canal before reaching the
junction with the main line, one and a half miles from New Street Station.
The conventional view in many commentaries on the line
suggest that the service was too slow. Birmingham City Library's
Harborne Railway History web site records "Although fondly
remembered, the service did not have a reputation for speed, and 'Harborne
Express' might have an ironic ring to it! Increased competition from rapidly
improving bus services brought about such a decrease in demand that passenger
services ended in 1934. A goods service continued until the 1950s" (sic). This
view however is disputed by Colin Maggs in his book "Branch Lines of
Warwickshire" which records the growth of the railway from an initial six
trains each way per day with three on Sundays to twenty trains per weekday only
by August 1887. Most of the Down services from New Street were timetabled to
take thirteen minutes and Up trains to New Street were scheduled to take
sixteen minutes. The regularity of the service provided a very early
illustration of a regular interval service with most trains Up trains leaving
Harborne at forty-five minutes past the hour whilst Down trains left New Street
at fifteen minutes past the hour.
Colin Maggs notes that by the end of the Edwardian era the
service had grown to thirty Down services (from New Street) and thirty-one Up
services per week with some services missing out Monument Lane reducing the
Down time from sixteen minutes to thirteen. Such was the reliability and speed
of the service that office workers based in central Birmingham would return
home for lunch. The conventional view of the service was therefore incorrect
for all but the last sixteen years of the passenger service as it was the
growth of bus competition post-World War One that started to erode the
viability of the railway. This competition together with the practice of
holding trains at Icknield Port Road to accommodate late running main line
trains was the cause for a rapidly declining service which by July 1922 had
fallen to twenty-one Down and twenty Up trains per weekday.
Such was the pre-war success of the line that it was the
most successful of all the lines within the Birmingham area. The
Harborne Railway Company contracted the LNWR to operate the line on their
behalf in return for 50% of the gross receipts. Three times the LNWR offered to
buy out the company and three times they were rejected. It was only at grouping
in 1923 that both companies merged when the LMS was formed. Colin Maggs
comments "Despite competitive fares of 3d (1.25 new pence) for a day
return ticket and a weekly third class season ticket of 2s (two shillings/10
new pence) the decline in numbers compelled the LMS to close the line to
passengers on 26th November 1934". The last train was the 11.08 pm from New
Street hauled by ex-LNWR 2F 0-6-2T 'Coal Tank' No 7742. The last train to run
on the line was a special run by the Stephenson Locomotive Society in November
1963, leaving from New Street Station, Birmingham, crowded with 300 railway
enthusiasts. The Stephenson Locomotive Society marked the last Harborne train
with a special pamphlet detailing the history of train travel through
Harborne.
Select a station or subheading to view associated images.
Numbers in [brackets] specify the number of photos on each page.
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