News & Updates
11/06/13 - Sorry folks, no content updates this time, just general maintenance in preparation for future site expansion: as browsers have developed over the last couple of years a lot of the pages had started to act a bit weird when viewed and some of the websites on the Links page no longer exist . . . all fixed now. There will be some actual railway updates coming soon!
08/12/11 - Added two newly published books to the Rail Around Birmingham Bookstore that will be of interest to local railway enthusiasts by Mike Hitches: Birmingham Railways Through Time and Wolverhampton Railways Through Time. To read more about them click HERE.
21/05/11 - Added background information and history to the Beeching Report page along with downloads for the entire Report including all appendices and maps.
31/05/10 - Website moved to new dedicated host.
20/12/09 - Due to a 6 month spell of divorce and redundancy, as regular readers will have noticed, Rail Around Birmingham hasn't been updated for a considerable period of time. However, I plan to rectify that by making several updates in the coming weeks. The first change I've made today is to add a Railway Bookstore to the site from where you can browse and purchase railway books directly via a link-up with online retailer Amazon.
28/06/09 - Rail Around Birmingham II - The Black Country & South Staffordshire Routes has finally been released and it available
from the publishers, Silver Link, or all good booksellers!
25/01/09 - More a technical note than an update but I've now transferred the website from its previous hosts to a dedicated hosting server
as it has got quite, well very, large and receives a considerable amount of traffic. Therefore, I would ask if anyone notices anything 'awry'
on the site to let me know as I think I've reconfigured everything correctly but it's quite easy to miss the odd thing!
To celebrate the new hosting of the website I've also added a nice postcard pic of the old Queen's Hotel that fronted New Street station to the
front page.
10/01/09 - First of all, Happy New Year to all readers of Rail Around Birmingham!
Secondly, for the first update of 2009, I've added a photo tour of the Network Rail Corporation Street Depot which closed at the end of 2008
and was poised for hand over to the demolition team as of 05/01/09 as part of a redevelopment of the area around the old Walsall Goods facilities
site. To skip straight to the photo tour of the ex-LNWR building, click HERE.
27/12/08 - Added details for the forthcoming 'Rail Around Birmingham: The Black Country & South Staffordshire Routes' book due for
publication 24/05/09.
16/11/08 - Just a small update, I've added two postcards to the Railway Postcards page showing Spring Road halt and Tyseley Junction.
15/11/08 - In an update to the Other Regions » Ambergate to Rowsley Line section, I've completed the stations on that Derbyshire Route adding:
- Ambergate station
- Cromford station
- Matlock Bath station
- Matlock station
I've also updated the Whatstandwell station entry and would particularly recommend taking a look at Cromford station and the goods shed at Matlock station even though they are out of the Rail Around Birmingham Region!
09/11/08 - As promised, now that the redesign of the site is out of the way - and thank you for all the comments I have received regarding the site's new structure and look - I can finally get on with adding new content. In the first of several updates I hope to make in the coming couple of weeks I've added some new stations and updated some old ones:
- New stations added:
- North Walsall station
- Portobello station
- Wood Green station
- Stations entries updated:
- Dudley Port (High Level)
station - new main and two new platform level photographs.
- Cradley Heath station - completely
new set of photographs.
- Old Hill station - completely
new set of photographs.
- Princes End station - 1981 photograph of
the signal box at Princes End level crossing.
I'm hoping to add more content in the next couple of days so please check back soon or sign-up for the Rail Around Birmingham
email Newsletter (on the left-hand side of the page) to be informed when new additions are made to the website.
02/11/08 - As you may have noticed, the Rail Around Birmingham website has had a complete redesign and change of
format. The site has been online since 2003 and this is the fourth, and by far most major, restructure/design the site has had
and is, in part, to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the site and the 300,000th online visitors to the website (since Jan 2005 when
I added a stats counter) . . . which is
quite staggering and thank you to everyone who has taken the time to view the website.
Hopefully, the new-look site will be an improvement on previous incarnations. The improvements and changes are too numerous to
mention but below is a brief outline:
- All colour pages - I've dispensed with the black and white photo approach where possible
- Enlarged photographs - all photographs now use a 'light box' effect when clicked on to open a larger version with
full captioning: no more pop-ups!
- Station lists are now available on every page so you don't have to go back to either the front page or Regional Map to
navigate from station to station.
- Numerous new period photographs, reworked entries, tweaks and re-jigs sitewide!
- New menu structure which will allow me to easily add new sections when time permits: including a Railway Video and
Beeching section which will, particularly the former, develop over time.
- Sitemap added if you're looking for anything specific and can't fathom where to find it.
- New period photographs added for:
- Tipton Five Ways station
- Kingsbury station
- Central Goods station
- Camp hill Goods station
- Tettenhall station
- Halesowen station
- Soho station
- Wednesfield station
- Completely re-written entry for Longbridge (Halesowen Railway) station including new photographs.
- Completely re-written entry for Lye station including new photographs.
- More to come in the coming weeks . . .
Also, please help me out - this was a mammoth task as every page had to be manually recoded (297 station pages alone!) and the majority of
images have been reprocessed and it has taken nearly a month so if you find any dead links or missing images etc . . . please let
me know. Any other feedback would be greatly appreciated too!
I've also got a stack of new material to add to the site, and some updates to existing entries, in the coming weeks so please check back soon or sign-up
for the free email Newsletter to be informed when new content comes online.
25/10/08 - Silver Link Publishing have given a provisional publishing date for the second in the Rail Around Birmingham series
of books. The second volume - Rail Around Birmingham: the Black Country & South Staffordshire Routes - has a provisional
publishing date of May 2009.
16/08/08 - I have added to, and expanded the 'Other Regions' section of the website (over 100 photographs), adding:
- Isle of Wight Steam Railway
- Peak Railway
- Isle of Wight Island Line
- National Railway Museum
- Midland Railway Centre
- Long Marston ex-MOD Base
- National Tramway Museum
- Ex-Midland Railway's Ambergate - Rowsley line
- Bennerley Viaduct & Screening Plant
- Ex-Midland Railway's Ripple Branch
I am also currently writing 'Rail Around Birmingham vol.2: The Black Country & South Staffordshire Routes' and, as such, have been out photographing more site's within the region and will be adding some new sites to the website soon and some updates to stations already covered.
The keen-eyed amongst you will have also noticed that i have removed both the 'Videos' and the 'Tram Galleries'
sections of the site. The latter has now been incorporated into the 'Other Regions' section of the site and the videos
section has been put on hold awaiting a revamp as the format of the videos presented was, I thought, poor and I have a lot
better material to edit and upload given time so until I have considerably reworked the section there will be no videos
available.
14/01/08 - Just added news of a seminar coming up that may be of interest to readers HERE
04/08/07 - I've been busy writing the first volume of a three book Rail Around Birmingham series and haven't had
much time for the website. However, that's now with the publishers so I thought it about time I produced an update to the
site. I've added:
- The under construction Coleshill Parkway station
- Bromford Bridge and
Castle Bromwich stations
- Willenhall,
Willenhall Stafford St,
Short Heath and
Bentley station sites
- Long Marston ex-MOD base to the Other Regions gallery
- Halesowen Railway crossing keepers houses and track remains at Frankley/Rubery to the
Miscellaneous pages
- Four train pics (mainly Class 66's) to the
Train Photos pages
For those of you who may be interested in the Rail Around Birmingham book, Volume 1 covers all the station sites within
the County Borough of Birmingham as of 1948 and is not, before you ask, a rehash of the website! I have obtained many previously
unpublished historical photographs that appear alongside my own (some of which you will not have seen) in addition to
new text and a foreword by Pete Waterman. The book should be published in November and can be pre-ordered from Silver
Link Publishing HERE following the 'Forthcoming Titles'
and 'Railway Heritage' links.
15/06/07 - Received the cover for the forthcoming Rail Around Birmingham book from the publishers, Silver Link. Added scan
to front page.
05/05/07 - Finally a new update for 2007! At present I am writing a Rail Around Birmingham book, the first in a series of
three, for Silver Link Publishing which will be out later this year and so the website has taken a bit of a backseat. However, I
have gone for variety with this update:
- Church Road and Chester Road stations added
- Somerset Road station updated with new photographs
- Reader Galleries updates with four excellent photos
- Other Regions updated with four new closed station covered
- Miscellaneous page updated with 6 photographs inside the Longbridge Works railway, including the signal box, and an oddity
from Pelsall!
Bromford Bridge and Castle Bromwich coming soon!
14/12/06 - Congratulations to Geoff Stephenson who has won the Christmas competition by correctly identifying
that I was referring to the Harborne Railway: thank you to all those who entered.
November/Christmas 2006 Competition!
This month's question:
Which Birmingham Railway company had the LNWR providing all its trains and staff, had only
four stations, served a brewery, and earned the nickname 'express' for its passenger service due to the 30+ minutes it
frequently took to travel the 2.5-mile route?
To enter, simply answer the question using the 'Contact' form on this website and I'll randomly pick a correct answer by 10th December and contact the
winner for their address to post the prize: Cliff Edwards' excellent guide to UK railway research.
12/11/06 - A very small update this time I'm afraid! Firstly, I've started an online photo collection that
some of you may find interesting and added a link to it on the Links page. Secondly, congratulations to Ron Abbotts
for winning the September/October competition by correctly identifying that Sir Daniel Gooch was Chief Mechanical
Engineer for the Great Western Railway at the time of the opening of Wolverhampton Low Level station.
The Christmas competition will be online in the next week or so, as will another update, so keep checking back!
September/October 2006 Competition!
This month's question:
Which former MP was Chief Mechanical Engineer for the Great Western Railway, later to become chairman, at the
time of the opening of Wolverhampton Low Level Station?
To enter, simply answer the question using the 'Contact' form on this website and I'll randomly pick a correct answer by 31st October and contact the
winner for their address to post the prize: the December 1958 edition of Trains Illustrated featuring an interesting article
on the North Midland route through Derbyshire, including a great shot of Bennerley Viaduct.
27/09/06 - Update to the Railway News page: 10 new news stories added, including the latest installment of the
Birmingham New St redevelopment soap opera.
25/09/06 - For this second update in the space of a week, I have decided to add some new sections to the
site and to restructure an existing one:
- Reader Galleries - a new section showcasing some of the photographs sent to me by readers of the site
- Other Regions - On my travels around the country I sometimes take my camera just in case I come across
a site of interest. However, I don't really want to extend the parameters of this site to 'Rail Around England'
proportions so thought some readers may like to see them here.
- Tram Gallery - I have to confess to becoming increasingly interested in trams and thought some readers
may be too! In time this will cover many photographs and memorabilia I have of trams around the region and further afield.
- Miscellaneous - I've changed this section to remove photos sent in by readers: it will now just show photographs
I've taken that don't really fit anywhere else.
21/09/06 - As the last few visits I've made have concentrated on the South of the region covered by the site, and
as I have had a large number of emails concerning goings-on at Wolverhampton Low Level station, I felt it time to take a trip to the Wolverhampton
area. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to as many sites as I'd planned but I hope the update on developments at the High and
Low level sites, and the various other bits and pieces, will be of interest:
- Wolverhampton Low Level Update (follow the 'Page 2' link at the foot of the station page')
- Wolverhampton High Level Update (2 pics of the new platform and concourse)
- Wednesfield, Heath Town and Dunstall Park stations
- The Crescent and Wolverhampton St George's Metro Stops
- Chillington Wharf
- Misc Page 5 (now page 2, see 25/09/06 update above) - railway remains on Gorsebrook Road, Dunstall Park
Congratulations also to Ken Wright who won the July competition by correctly identifying that the LNWR was formed
by the amalgamation of the Grand Junction Railway, London and Birmingham Railway, and the Manchester and Birmingham
Railway (magazine is finally on its way!).
22/07/06 - I've received a lot of emails over the past few months asking why I removed the old site Guestbook and asking
if I was intending to replace it so I have decided to add another Guestbook and, to avoid all the irritating pop-up ads
etc associated with all the free offerings, I have finally got around to coding my own version from scratch. So please
feel free to leave a message, any recollections of railways and any questions - I will attempt to post answers to any
questions on the Guestbook and hopefully other readers will chip-in too if you include your email!
20/07/06 - Added a link to a new site I am developing: History Around Birmingham. I hope the site will be of interest
to some readers as it follows a similar format to this site but focuses on Birmingham as a whole (with a particular
bent for its industrial heritage however!).
09/07/06 - Courtesy of Rail Around Birmingham reader Stuart Lambeth, I have added a downloadable file which, for those of
you using Google Earth, will display a marker for the site of every station featured here overlaid onto
present-day aerial photographic 'maps'. To download the Google Earth place marker, click
HERE. For more on the free Google Earth programme which is needed to run this
file, go HERE.
02/07/06 - As it transpired, the house move, coupled with an abundance of work orders, has led to Rail Around Birmingham
taking a back seat for more weeks than I would have liked. That said, I have now revamped the whole site as I'd reached
the maximum file size for the server on which the site is hosted so have moved all the large photos to another server and thought whilst I
was at it, I'd spruce up the look and feel of the site too! I've also added the following content:
- Ripple and Upton-on-Severn stations
- Bridgnorth Station and Eardington Halt on the Severn Valley Railway
- Eight steam photos to the Train Photo pages (page 5)
- Two photos to the 'Misc' pages (page 4) including a particularly interesting shot of Alvechurch station in 1970
- Revamp of the Misc, Train Photos and Postcard pages so that you can now navigate to whichever page you desire without having
to go through each page.
- Added a link to Towcester's Railway History website to the Links page.
- Added the post-demolition shots to the Kings Norton page that I had forgotten to upload at the last update - sorry!
July 2006 Competition!
This month's question:
The LNWR was formed in 1846 by the amalgamation of three railway companies: what were they?
To enter, simply answer the question using the 'Contact' form on this website and I'll randomly pick a correct answer by 31st July and contact the
winner for their address to post the prize: the July 1954 edition of the Railway Magazine featuring a 10-page article
examining the LNWR and Midland Railway around Birmingham including photos, maps etc . . . by C.R.Clinker.
28/04/06 - Unfortunately, due to an imminent house move, I will be unable to update Rail Around Birmingham over the next couple
of weeks. I do have new material for the site but have packed all my stuff away but rest assured I will be out and about
again, and adding new content, as soon as I have settled into my new property.
However, I can announce the winner of the April competition as being Geoffrey Stephenson who correctly provided both
parts to the answer: Frankley Waterworks and Hollymoor Hospital.
I had a lot of correct answers to the competition so thank you to all those who entered! The May competition will be launched
post-house move so keep checking back or join the Mailing List to be informed as soon as new content comes online.
26/03/06 - I'm just recovering from a 130 mile round-trip over two days covering some of the newly added Rail Around Birmingham areas and
revisiting a couple of sites that yielded little the first time around. As a result of
this marathon, and a covert mission into the ex-Rover factory at Longbridge which yielded some very interesting results, I have added the
following:
- Wooton Wawen, Wilmcote, Bearley and Stratford upon Avon stations
- Studley & Astwood Bank, Coughton, Great Alne, Stratford upon Avon (Old Town) and Hunnington station sites
- The Halesowen Railway at Longbridge (added to the old Longbridge Station page)
- A couple of pics to the Train Photos page (page 4)
- Two links to two very good websites: one concerned with locos, the other with disused stations around England
- A photo of the site of Cofton Tunnel to the Misc pages (page 4)
- Another two photos to the Kings Norton station page showing what can be achieved in a week when the bulldozers move-in to
clear an old station building!
- A completely reworked entry for Rubery station on the old Halesowen Railway
- plus the . . .
April 2006 Competition!
I've decided to run a competition for the next few months (open to UK residents only I'm afraid) as I seem to have accumulated a few duplicate items in my collection over the
years and rather than 'eBay' them, I thought it would be a nice idea to offer them to readers of this site for free!
In order to win the competition each month (or so), I will set a railway-related question.
This month's question:
Other than a short spur to serve a sandstone quarry, the Halesowen Railway also had two temporary branches from Rubery
serving the construction of two sites: what were they building?
To enter, simply answer the question using the 'Contact' form on this website and I'll randomly pick a correct answer by 30th April and contact the
winner for their address to post the prize: a great 1-hour long VHS video looking at the railways around Birmingham during the 1950s and early 60s (see right).
It's quite a large update this time and I have a few other outings planned in the next few weeks so keep checking back for more or
join the Newsletter to be kept informed as updates come online and new competitions released.
10/03/06 - Just a short update covering the demise of Kings Norton's original station building (click
HERE) and 5 regional railway items added to the Railway News page.
29/01/06 - I decided that it was time to expand the area covered by the website as I was running out of places to
visit so have therefore added 60 station sites to the Regional Map (from South East to South West) that I will be working
my way around over the coming months. In addition to the expanded Regional Map, I have added::
- Fernhill Heath and Worcester Shrub Hill stations
- A 1908 postcard of Moseley Station
- Four photos to the Train Photos section (on page 4)
- A new, Railway News section charting current local rail issues along with my thoughts
- A revamped 'Memorabilia' section and within it, a number of old tickets and an interesting LNWR item!
- Amendments to the Kingsbury and Water Orton station pages
- A photo of Soho Road station when in situ (see Soho Road station page)
- Norton Lakeside Halt on the Chasewater Railway
- Update and new photos to Chasewater Heaths on the Chasewater Railway
- Another entry on the Links page: Dudley Mall
Along with adding new content from explorations at the various sites to be covered, I aim to add new content to the Memorabilia
section soon from my collection, 'fill-in' the holes with photographs of long-gone stations that I hadn't got in my po session
when their pages were originally written and edit a large collection of video I have into useable chunks to upload to the site so check
back soon or joining the Mailing List to be informed as new content appears!
04/01/06 - Due to work commitments, the latter part of 2005 has been a quiet period for
Rail Around Birmingham - although I did find time to design a new website for the
Chasewater Railway!
However, over the next few weeks I am planning several trips to sites I have yet
to visit so there should be plenty of new content coming online soon. As a prelude to that, I have added
some new sites to the Links page that are well-worth visiting.
Unfortunately, I've also had to remove the Guestbook from the site - thank you to all those who contributed. Alas, the curse
of 'spam' entries became too much to administer and as I wish to have a site that everyone can enjoy I decided it best to
remove the Guestbook entirely to prevent the endless stream of unsavoury messages and ads from appearing.
15/05/05 - I thought it about time I got around to updating the site so have added some new
content to existing parts of the site and two new sections. I have added:
- a Research Tips page that may be of use/interest for anyone considering starting
their own website
- a Video section containing some short clips of steam at work on the Chasewater Railway that
will gradually be expanded to include many clips.
- two interesting railway tickets to Memorabilia Page 2
- a postcard showing Maglev at work at Birmingham International Airport
- completed pages covering Chasewater Heath station and Chasetown Church Street halt on the Chasewater Railway
- four great photos sent in by Ray Durrant showing Rushall Crossing and signal box in 1984
- six photographs to Train Photos Page 4: five from the Chasewater Railway and one from Stourbridge Town
before its rebuilding.
09/04/05 - Just a small, but timely, update covering the M&B Cape Hill brewery railway. Also
added four postcards (Dudley Port, Birmingham New Street, Cadbury No.1 loco and GWR 3434 City of
Birmingham), old photographs of Moor Street and Dudley to the 'Misc' pages and a couple of
items to the 'Memorabilia' pages: a leaflet extolling the virtues of the 'Jewellery Line' from 1995 and a
platform ticket from Birmingham Snow Hill.
08/02/05 - For the first full update of the new year I thought it time I visited the much-requested
Lichfield - Walsall line and whilst I was in that area visit a few other spots of interest. I have added
Lichfield Trent Valley, Hammerwich, Brownhills (LNWR), Brownhills (MR), Walsall Wood, Pelsall and Rushall.
In addition, I have included a section on the Chasewater Railway and a page on their Brownhills West station. Furthermore,
I decided to include a section on Cadbury's railway at Bournville (including their Waterside Wharf), a section
on Lifford Wharf, a total rework of the Lifford station page with all new photographs, a postcard of Snow Hill
station hotel, a rework of the Cutnall Green Halt page (after eventually tracking-down a photograph of it
during operation), and finally some assorted loco pix from the Chasewater Railway and a couple taken on
Lickey Incline.
02/01/05 - Rail Around Birmingham receives a Golden Web Award from the International Association
of Webmasters and Designers.
02/01/05 - As some of you may have noticed, the contact/email form has been out of action for a few
days. I have now added a new form that I have coded with a few built-in measures that will hopefully prevent the amount of
spam I receive (or at least reduce it). I will be adding more content soon so please keep checking the site or
join the Mailing List. Happy New Year!
15/12/04 - As I won't be exploring new sites over the festive period, I thought it time to add
some photographs sent to me by readers of Rail Around Birmingham to the 'Misc' pages. I have added some
very interesting shots of the Halesowen Railway taken by Dave Morrall, four recent shots of Wolverhampton
Low Level sent by Peter from the LEYTR and some 1993 shots of Langley Green station taken by Bernard Shaw. A big thank you
to Dave, Peter and Bernard for the photographs and for permitting their use here.
28/11/04 - Had a little spare time a couple of days ago so thought I'd visit Gravelly Hill,
Erdington and Aston. I've also added some more photographs around Gornal and a postcard of Erdington station
that is part of a large collection I have recently acquired: hopefully, I'll soon find the time to scan them all
onto this site!
21/11/04 - As it has been a while since my last full update, I thought I'd complete the study of two
lines about which I get the most correspondence: the Wombourne branch and the Bumble Hole line. I have
added Old Hill High Street halt, Darby End halt, Windmill End halt, Baptist End halt, Compton halt, Gornal
halt, the excellent Tettenhall station and Harts Hill. In addition to this, I have reworked the page for
Halesowen station with some new photographs, added two shots of the Wombourne branch's impressive girder bridge over the
Staffs & Worcs canal near Tettenhall and added some new sites to the Links page covering Brownhills, central Leicester and
East Yorkshire.
25/10/04 - Thought I'd celebrate getting the site back in full working order by sprucing it up a bit
with a new colour scheme and some graphics - I think it looks a lot better: hope you agree! I have also added
a link to the West Midlands Exploration web site and reorganised the Links page.
22/10/04 - Finally completed all the repairs on the site following the server crash. As far as I am aware,
all pop-up photographs have now been restored and there are no dead links on the site. However, should you come
across one I've missed, please use the contact form to let me know. Thanks!
30/09/04 - I thought it time for an update so have added a new section for the Severn Valley
Railway and completed the pages thus far for Kidderminster and Bewdley stations on that line. In
addition, I've added some postcards and a selection of images taken on the Severn Valley Railway to the 'Train Photos' pages. I hope you enjoy the
update and will endeavour to get more new content online soon. I've also become aware that some of the 'pop-up'
photographs no longer work since the site crashed and my having to re-upload it. I am slowly working my way through
the site rectifying this issue but should you come across any dead links - please let me know.
12/09/04 - As many of you will have noticed, the site disappeared from the web several
days ago. This was due to a server crash at the hosting company during which all my data, including back-ups,
was lost! After much debating with the company, the web space has been restored and I have had to
reload the whole site - which is annoying as several parts of the site were under development thus
have had to be recoded to the point they were at when the site went down. However, I have restored most
functionality and, with the exception of the Guestbook whose entries have all been lost (thanks to
all of you who contributed and it is unfortunate to have lost you contributions), the site is pretty much
back how it was.
07/08/04 - Due to work commitments I am unable to get out-and-about for updates to the site however,
I have just purchased a small postcard collection covering some stations in the region so I have added these
to a new 'Postcards' page and shuffled the 'Memorabilia' page around to tidy it up. I also should be adding
some timetables (old ones!) to the site imminently so please check-back soon.
20/07/04 - I have now rectified an error spotted by Paul Walker and Andrew Smith regarding
The Hawthorns and Jewellery Quarter stations. They are both now available via both the Metro and Regional
maps with information amended accordingly. Thanks chaps!
18/07/04 - Just returned from my holidays and thought I'd get stuck in to some more rail
exploration. I've added Smethwick Rolfe Street, Soho (LNWR), Handsworth, the Hawthorns Halt, Handsworth
Wood, Hamstead, Newton Road, Perry Barr and Witton plus Winson Green Outer Circle Metro stop (Handsworth and
the Hawthorns are also now Metro stops). I've also added two pages of books to the 'Useful Publications' pages
as I have had a lot of requests regarding sources for further reading and added (well, re-included as they
were offline for a while) a couple of sites by Steve Jones to the Links page that are well-worth
checking out (particularly for those of you interested in Sutton Park station). And finally, I've
added a Railway Clearing House junction diagram and an old photograph of Hereford (not yet within the area
of the site) to the 'Memorabilia' pages. Hope you enjoy the update!
16/06/04 - I braved the tropical heat last week to explore the following sites: Wednesbury
Town, Wednesbury Central, Pleck, Darlaston, Darlaston (not a typo, there were two), Tame Bridge Parkway,
Bescot Stadium, Hartlebury, Stourbridge Junction, Cutnall Green and the Midland Metro stop at Wednesbury
Parkway. I've also added a few of pics to the pages for Selly Oak station and Stourbridge Town with
additional info. There are also some new additions to the Memorabilia and Miscellaneous pages -
including some very interesting photos of Hockley Goods - plus a few shots on the Train Pics pages.
I hope you enjoy the update!
21/05/04 - Apologies for the delay between updates but I have been moving house. However,
I managed to get out for a while today and visited Water Orton, Kingsbury, Whitacre, Forge Mills and Coleshill.
I have also added a couple of photos to the Train Pics page and am working on the Members Area.
28/03/04 - Finally sorted-out the 'Memorabilia' pages and added content that I hope is of
interest.
27/03/04 - Following numerous requests I decided to
put aside my Black Country fixation and follow the old Midland Railway's Walsall & Water Orton Branch
so I have added Penns, Sutton Town, Sutton Park, Streetly and Aldridge from that line and spent some
time walking around the ex-GWR's Bordesley station and goods facilities.
19/03/04 - I thought I'd better make it a good update this time as I haven't been able to
get out and about for a month so I hope you appreciate these latest additions: Hagley Road, Rotton
Park Road, Icknield Port Road, Monument Lane, Winson Green, Hockley, Soho & Winson Green and Soho
Road stations. I've also added the Jewellery Quarter joint-light/heavy rail stop to the Metro pages. There
are also some pics added to the Miscellaneous page, Train Pics page and I have started the Memorabilia
page (long way to go yet though). In addition to all that, I have changed the individual page-mapping system by replacing
the old maps used (which weren't very clear) with a 1942 map which covers the Birmingham area which should
make it easier to pinpoint the position of each station discussed. Unfortunately, I don't have the same for
all the areas covered so please be patient while I arrange maps for every station. I hope you enjoy the
above and rest assured it won't be this long before the next update!
28/02/04 - I've just made a few changes to the structure of the site (no change to the content which
is why I haven't issued an email to our Mailing List subscribers). I got fed-up with the Bravenet guestbook
I was using - too many ads and irritating pop-ups, plus lack of customisation - so I have added a new
PHP guestbook. I have transferred the entries from the old guestbook to the new one if anyone was
wandering why all the entries appeared to be on the same day at around the same time! I've also changed
the navigation section slightly so as I can incorporate some new features: the 'Memorabilia' link
will, when I have completed the corresponding page, take you to a collection of railway-related materials
from my collection: postcards, railway company rule books etc . . .
10/02/04 - The site has now all been successfully moved to its new home from railaroundbirmingham.org.uk
as it quickly outgrew the webspace available there and, as the site still has much to be added and I have
several other developments in the pipeline (industrial rail around Birmingham and a memorabilia page, to name but two),
a lot more server space was needed. The old site will be left up for a short while for those who use it to 'catch up'
with the move (and for me to code some jump links from all of its pages to this site as it will take the
search engines a while to get around to indexing this one) but will not be updated as of now.
On the update front, I was planning to kick off the new site by adding some sites from the old 'Wombourne Branch' but bouts of torrential rain slowed my progress. However,
I have included the sites I managed to get around to: Brockmoor Halt, Bromley Halt, Pensnett Halt, Himley, Wombourne and
Penn Halt.
26/01/04 - During one day last week when it didn't rain and wasn't too dark I made a dash around as
many sites as possible. Thus I have added Swan Village, Spon Lane, Smethwick West, Sandwell & Dudley, Albion,
Oldbury, Rood End and West Bromwich stations. The following Metro stops have also been added: Black Lake, Dudley Street - Guns Village,
Dartmouth Street and Lodge Road - West Bromwich Town Hall. In addition to this I have added photos to
Langley Green station and a picture to the 'Miscellaneous' page.
17/01/04 - Thought I'd make up for time lost over the festive period so have added: Adderley Park, Birmingham
International, Hampton-in-Arden, Lea Hall, Marston Green, Tyseley, Shirley, Spring Road, Yardley Wood,
Whitlock's End, Olton, Solihull, Small Heath, Saltley, Stechford, Acocks Green, Hall Green, Lawley Street, Windsor Street
Goods, Banbury Wharf and Curzon Street. I've also added a handful of pics
to the 'Train Photos' page and a 'Miscellaneous' page for the odd photo that doesn't quite fit anywhere else.
And finally, I've rewritten the 'Regional Map' as the text was looking a bit scruffy in places since I changed
the colour scheme of the map so I've tidied it all up and rearranged a few station names to make it more
legible.
04/01/04 - Hope everyone has had a good Christmas and New Year: I've had a few quiet days with the weather too
bad for photography so I've come up with another redesign of the site to resolve certain issues with the previous version
such as it used frames which made for problems with search engine indexing amongst other things. Changed colour scheme,
layout and used PHP as opposed to straight HTML/CSS (largely for 'includes' which make maintenance easier). Hope you all
think the new version is ok and hope to add more content very soon.
07/12/03 - Added Warwick, Warwick Parkway, Claverdon, Hatton, Lapworth, Dorridge, Widney Manor,
Bilston Central, Bilston West, Daisy Bank, Great Bridge North, Great Bridge South, Priestfield and Tipton
Five Ways. Also added Loxdale Metro, Bilston Metro and added info to Henley-in-Arden, Danzey, Earlswood and
Wythall. Finally, added a Discussion Forum too - see how it goes, if no-one likes it then I'll remove it after
a month or so.
26/11/03 - Total redesign of the site featuring:
- New colour scheme
- New navigation system (java applets)
- Midland Metro section with clickable navigation map
- New map system whereby 19th Century maps and 1947 OS maps pop-up in there own window if the 'Maps'
link on each station page is clicked
- All photos taken by myself can now be clicked on to open up a full-colour version in a separate window
- Metro stops added: St Paul's, Bradley Lane, Priestfield and Snow Hill
- Stations added: Snow Hill, Bradley, Dudley Port Low Level, Bilston Central, Ocker Hill and
Moor Lane Goods
- Updates: pics/info to Selly Oak, New Street, Blackwell, Henley-in-Arden, Lye and Harborne
28/10/03 - Added
Round Oak, Brierley Hill, Brettell Lane, Blowers Green, Monmore Green, Ettingshall
Road, Bradley, Princes End and Princes End & Coseley stations plus added
a photograph of Parkhead Viaduct (between Blowers Green and Harts Hill stations)
to the 'Odds & Ends' page and a photograph of a T69 Tramcar to the Train
Photos page.
12/10/03 - Added
information to the Midland Metro page and added a good site to the Links page.
10/10/03 - Added
Granville Street, New Street, Moor Street, Duddeston, Selly Oak, Bournville,
University, Five Ways, amended Rowley Regis and Smethwick Galton Bridge, updated
Central Goods and added some more useful publications!
04/09/03 - Added
Coseley, Danzey, Earlswood, Henley-in-Arden, Smethwick Galton Bridge, The
Lakes, Tipton, Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Low Level, Wood End, Wythall and
added a page for the Midland Metro (map only at present).
30/08/03 - Added
Stoke Works, Barnt Green, Bromsgrove, Blackwell, Alvechurch, Redditch, Lichfield
City, Shenstone, Blake Street, Butlers Lane, Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield and
Wylde Green. Updated/amended the Regional Map, added a 'Train Photos' page
for shots of locos etc . . . that don't fit with the station pages and uploaded
all the station pages - most now have historic maps and all have opening/closing
dates (where known).
14/08/03 - 'Useful Publications' pages added showing
a selection of what I consider to be the best books for information on railways
around Birmingham.
13/08/03 - Added
Brighton Road, Camp Hill, Camp Hill Goods, Moseley, Lifford, Hazelwell and Somerset Road stations.
09/08/03 - 'Odds
& Ends' page added & regional map amended.
06/08/03 - Added
Coombes Holloway Halt, Halesowen Station, Old Hill Station, Withymoor Goods
and Cradley Heath Station.
04/08/03 - Links
page up and running.
03/08/03 - Fixed
'Operational Stations' drop-down list: Longbridge Station can now be accessed.
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