Birmingham New Street Station: lnwrbns_str395

Looking towards Wolverhampton from above the carriage and parcels dock with a wagon turntable and shunting horse in the foreground. The turntable was provided to allow road vehicles to be loaded on to flat wagons which would be attached to the passenger service its owner was travelling on. The turntable allowed the wagon to be turned at 90° to the siding for ease of loading and unloading. The shunting horse would be used to marshal vans etc on to the trains and, according to Richard Foster, 'lived in a stable behind No 1 signal cabin'. The heavily retouched postcard shows a signal gantry on platform 2 controlling trains leaving New Street station by Worcester Street tunnel. All of the platforms at New Street station were designed for bidirectional running and had signals at both ends of the platforms. In the middle distance the ramps to the subway at the Eastern end of the station can be seen. Milk churns are evident on both Platform 3 and Platform 2. Richard notes, 'the person who retouched the photograph was not familiar with inside cylinder locomotives' as they have added cylinders and connecting rods to locomotives which were never so fitted.

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