Bournville (BRV)

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Bournville, adjacent to the famous Cadbury factory, is a stop on the South half of the Cross-City Line in Birmingham between Kings Norton and Selly Oak.

WMR 323 208 arrives with a Birmingham bound service

Information
Type:	National Rail (Cross-City Line)
Station code:	BRV
Opened:	1876
Platforms:	2

The station was opened by the Birmingham West Suburban Railway in 1876 as Stirchley Street. The station was renamed Stirchley Street & Bournville in 1880 following the opening of the Cadbury factory the year before, the name was reversed in 1888. Finally, the station was renamed Bournville in 1904 [1]. The station originally just had a single platform with a second platform added when the line was doubled in the late 1880s. This second platform is narrow due to the Worcester & Birmingham Canal next to the line.

North of the station was the Bournville Works Railway and it's sidings, Bournville itself never had it's own goods yard. The station was rebuilt in 1978, the original buildings being demolished and replaced by metal canopies when the Cross-City Line was created [2]. The line was electrified in 1993. The platform canopies are painted purple to match the Cadbury brand. The station is managed by West Midlands Railway with a service at up to every ten minute intervals in each direction. Access between the platforms is via the road bridge which crosses the line at the Southern end of the station.

The metal canopies, used on a number of Cross-City Line stations

A WMR 323 stands at the station

Station view from the ramp up to the road bridge

View down the platform, note the Cadbury purple on the canopy posts

323 207 departs

[1] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Bromsgrove to Birmingham (Middleton Press, 2006) Map. XIX

[2] Ibid. Fig. 82

Eaton Hall Railway

The Eaton Hall Railway was a 381mm minimum gauge railway built for the Duke of Westminster at his Eaton Hall estate in Cheshire. 

Belgrave engine shed, all images [1]

Information
Type:	Private Railway (Eaton Hall Railway)
Opened:	1896
Closed:	1946

The railway was built by Sir Arthur Heywood, who had previously built his own minimum gauge railway at Duffield Bank. The railway was mainly used to transport fuel to Eaton Hall though there was also other goods carried and sometimes passengers too. The railway included a branch to the estate's brickworks and the estate workshop.

The railway operated three steam locomotives. Most of the rolling stock consisted of freight wagons though there were also a couple of passenger carriages and a parcel van for carrying game after a shoot. The line was closed in 1946. In 1994 a garden railway also to 381mm gauge was opened at Eaton Hall and is operated when the estate is open to the public.

Balderton Junction, the main yard

One of the goods trains, notice the ER on the front of the locomotive

Eaton terminus and carriage shed

Estate works sidings

The first locomotive, Katie

[1] Sir Arthur Heywood, Minimum Gauge Railways (1894)

Farringdon (ZFD)

Farringdon is a railway station in Central London with Thameslink services (between London St Pancras International and City Thameslink) and London Underground Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Line services (between Kings Cross St Pancras and Barbican). The station will also be a stop on the Elizabeth Line from 2022. 

LU on the right, National Rail on the left

Information
Type:	National Rail (Thameslink)  Transport for London (Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and Elizabeth Lines)
Station code:	ZFD
Opened:	1863
Platforms:	6

The station was opened by the Metropolitan Railway in 1863 as Farringdon Street and was the first Eastern terminus of the line, the world's first underground metro railway. The station was moved a short distance to it's current location in 1865 when the line was continued Eastwards to Moorgate. 

The station was renamed Farringdon & High Holborn [1] in 1922 when the current station building was built. The station was renamed to it's current name in 1936 (though still carries the previous name on the station building front (see below).

When the much delayed Elizabeth Line is opened in 2022, Farringdon will be one of the busiest stations in the country with up to two hundred trains per hour!

Station frontage

Thameslink 377 518 at Farringdon

View down the platform

Two Thameslink Class 700s at the station

Opposite the main entrance shown above is this alternative

[1] Jason Cross, London Underground Guide 2017 (Train Crazy, 2017) p. 123

New Brighton (NBN)

New Brighton is the terminus of a short branch of the Merseyrail Wirral Line from Birkenhead North. 

Merseyrail 508 130 at New Brighton

Information
Type:	National Rail (Merseyrail Wirral Line)
Station code:	NBN
Opened:	1888
Platforms:	2

The railway reached New Brighton in 1888, by then already a popular seaside resort on the Wirral, which until the First World War had a tower taller than Blackpool's [1]. The station was opened by the Wirral Railway and later passed to the London, Midland & Scottish Railway who electrified the route in 1938.

Once the station had a goods yard but now this is an industrial estate. The original Wirral Railway station building with its spacious booking hall remains.

New Brighton has services towards Liverpool Central at up to every 15 minute intervals.

507 005 at New Brighton

Station frontage

The station has a couple of stabling sidings

Under the concrete canopy

507 021 at New Brighton

[1] Jonathan Cadwallader & Martin Jenkins, Merseyside Electrics (Ian Allan, 2010) p. 66

Coseley (CSY)

Coseley is a stop on the West Coast Main Line in the West Midlands between Tipton and Wolverhampton. 

LNWR 350 242 departs bound for Wolverhampton

Information
Type:	National Rail (West Coast Main Line)
Station code:	CSY
Opened:	1902
Platforms:	2

The station was opened as Coseley (Deepfields) by the London North Western Railway in 1902, it kept this name until 1966 [1]. The station replaced an earlier station a few hundred metres along the track called Deepfields & Coseley. The new station had buildings with canopies on both platforms but one has now been replaced by a new build shelter. 

There is a ticket office at the road level which crosses the tracks with ramps down to platform level. The station is managed by West Midlands Railway with typically two trains an hour in each direction.

Ramp down to platform level

Modern waiting room

Original waiting room and canopy

Station view from the road bridge

Waiting to depart

[1] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Birmingham to Wolverhampton via Tipton (Middleton Press, 2008) Fig. 95