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Birmingham Snow Hill, one of Birmingham's three large central railway stations, has had a long history though the current station is very different to the original Great Western Railway station. |
| Chiltern 68 012 at the rear of a London bound train |
| Information | |
|---|---|
| Type: | National Rail (Snow Hill Lines) |
| Station code: | BSW |
| Opened: | 1852 (Closed 1972) |
| Re-Opened: | 1987 |
| Platforms: | 3 |
This station opened in 1852 on the London Paddington to Wolverhampton line with major rebuilding and enlarging in the early 1910s to compete with Birmingham New Street. The station had a huge roof and an ornate facade like many major rail stations of the time [1].
Snow Hill was a victim of the Beeching railway cuts of the 1960s with a gradual rundown including unstaffing in 1969 and final closure in 1972 [2]. The facade was demolished in the 1970s, the station area itself surviving as a car park for a time. It featured in the 1970s BBC TV series Gangsters which had a fight scene take place in its crumbling ruins.
The original station clock was bought by a commuter for £125 when the station was closed as he had met his future wife under the clock years before. He said he intended to put the clock up on his farm in Uttoxeter [3]. Some items from the original Snow Hill including the Booking Hall sign were later reused in the refurbishment of the nearby Birmingham Moor Street.
Snow Hill was reborn in the late 1980s as a very different station with modern architecture and a car park on top (though reusing the old lines) with services to London Marylebone, Stratford-upon-Avon and Worcester the main destinations. The new station is on a smaller scale than the original with two island platforms (the original had ten platforms!) The Midlands Metro, when built in the 1990s, had its Birmingham terminus located at Snow Hill though that has now moved to outside Birmingham New Street.
Birmingham Snow Hill is managed by West Midlands Railway, Snow Hill was used to launch the new branding and livery [4].
Current plans are for more trains at Snow Hill as part of the Midlands Rail Hub plans with the former Metro terminus platform being reused for heavy rail. Chiltern hopes to extend all of its London services to Snow Hill (presently many services terminate at Birmingham Moor Street [5]). The original Snow Hill may have died a long time ago but the current station seems to have a pretty bright future.
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| Main entrance |
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| WMR 172 220, the carpark can be seen in the background |
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| On the platforms under the carpark |
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| Alternative entrance on Livery Street |
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| Inside the Livery Street entrance |
[1] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Banbury to Birmingham (Middleton Press, 2015) map. XXXII
[2] The Guardian, 01 July 1966 p. 12
[3] Daily Mirror, Tue 1 Jul 1969 p. 2-3
[4] "West Midlands Trains launches", Modern Railways (January 2018) p. 12
[5] James Abbott, "West Midlands Railway", Modern Railways (December 2016) p. 51
