LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Tamworth

Tamworth High Level Station: mrthl1829

Looking along Tamworth High Level's up platform with the original Livock designed building (seen images 'mrthl448', 'lnwr_tam1255', and 'mrthl1830') on the left. The photographer would have been standing on the open area caused by the connection with the short siding which led on to the cattle dock (see image 'mrthl1829'). The original B&DJR station would have had its own main station building as the B&DJR preceded the Trent Valley line by just over eight years, the former opening on 12th August 1939 and the latter on 15th September 1847. The building of the Trent Valley line therefore offered the Midland Railway (following the amalgamation of the B&DJR, North Midland Railway and the Midland Counties Railway in 1846) to share facilities, albeit from separate offices with their own staff. Connecting the Livock building to the up platform was a timber 'covered walkway' which is of a different design to Edwardian image seen in 'lnwr_tam3131'. Behind the covered walkway is a two storey structure built from timber with a roof tiled with states which was the lift tower connecting the LNWR's Low Level down platform with the MR's High Level up platform. There were two other lifts from the Low Level platforms connecting to the MR's down platform, both sited to the east of the rail bridge carrying the MR over the LNWR. The pitched roof of one of these can be seen on the right. Whilst they would be used for any purpose, such as for moving luggage and parcels, they were primarily used to move mail bags between the two stations. Therefore the little boy seen on the left is standing at the start of the bridge carrying the Midland Railway over the London & North Western Railway's West Coast route. The locomotive is ex-LMS 8F 2-8-0 No 48176 on a southbound Class J empty wagon train probably en route to one of Birmingham's many goods and marshalling yards. Built as LMS No 8176 by the North British Locomotive Company in March 1942, this locomotive was not allocated locally being primarily from the Sheffield area, Nottingham and North-West from the mid-1950s onwards until it was withdrawn in August 1967 from 9F Heaton Mersey to be scrapped by J Cashmore's of Great Bridge.

back