LMS Route: Grand Junction Railway
LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Lichfield
LMS Route: Birmingham-Soho-Perry Barr-Birmingham

Curzon Street Goods Station: lnwrcs2316b

Close up of image 'lnwrcs2116' showing Curzon Street No 1 signal cabin in company with two unidentified ex-LMS 2-6-0 'Stanier Crabs'. Aston shed had an allocation of ten Stanier moguls at one time and was the shed which serviced Curzon Street's with its locomotive power requirements. To the left of the former LNWR signal cabin are sidings Nos 1 to 15, whilst to its right and accessed by the single road the mogul is standing on, are sidings Nos 16 to 20. As is evident from the above photograph, all of the sidings were under the control of the signal cabin, which provided a challenge to the 'bobbies' in charge. The term 'bobby', as applied to signalmen, originates from the days when railways were manually controlled by railway policemen using flags etc. Members of the Metropolitan Police were also called 'bobbies or peelers after their founder Robert Peel, and this nickname was used to describe railway police and subsequently their successors the signalmen too. Stanier's 2-6-0 Moguls was his first design for the LMS and were primarily an application of Great Western Railway design practices to the Horwich Moguls designed by Hughes, the LMS' first Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME).

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