This page has been created for all those who would like to recall their memories of the railway scene at Bromsgrove and the 2¼ mile 1:37.7 Lickey incline. This includes all the people who worked on, travelled on, or observed the operation of this unique stretch of railway and can include stories and/or pictures from as far back as the memory stretches. Please feel free to add any relevant pictures
, memories or snippets of film (but please respect copyright of anyone else's material that you may wish to post). This is a public site so, in line with facebook’s own policy and as advised on our own timeline, anyone posting Photos, Videos or other Material should use their own name. The use of a pseudonym is not allowed. Any posts not following this Policy will be blocked by the Administrators. WHAT'S NOT ON THIS PAGE: any advertising, commercial activities, spam, offensive remarks, breaches of personal privacy or unrelated content. This is a place for the good stuff relating to the railway at Bromsgrove. Non-relevant or inappropriate posts or comments will be deleted. Please respect copyright on any material you post. Thank you for your understanding and all your fantastic support. Now, a little bit of history:
Bromsgrove Motive Power, or Locomotive, Depot closed on 27 September 1964 after 124 years. Once home to the MR 0-10-0 “Big Bertha”, in the last few years its staple motive power had been seven or eight GWR designed 9400 Class 0-6-0PTs, a BR 9F 2-10-0, a MR 3F 0-6-0 and 2 LMS 3F “Jinty” 0-6-0Ts (for over 50 years, along with MR 0-6-0Ts, the mainstay of banking locomotives on the incline). This depot existed primarily to house, maintain and service the steam locomotives used to bank, or push, trains up the 2¼ mile 1:37.7 Lickey Incline, which was and is the steepest sustained main-line railway incline in the UK and something of an obstacle on the main line from Bristol to Birmingham. The depot was opened on 24 June 1840 (although the Lickey Incline itself was not opened to traffic until 17 September 1840). Company: Birmingham & Gloucester Railway. (Having merged with the Bristol & Gloucester Railway in 1845, to form the Birmingham and Bristol Railway, it became part of the ever-growing Midland Railway in 1846.) Location: Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. The locomotive depot could be found on the south-eastern side of Bromsgrove's MR built station at the foot of the Lickey Incline. (Originally built as the BGR locomotive works, which also included the principal BGR locomotive running shed for train locomotives, what became a much larger Wagon Works shared the same 16 acre site.) Map Ref:SO96846926
Construction: The original "bank-engine house" was a brick built 1 track straight dead-ended shed with a gable style slate roof. Facilities: Included a water tank fed from a bore hole through pipework inside the depot. In c1845 a brick built, gable style, slate roofed 2 track straight shed with 1 through road, plus office and other "facilities", was added along the southern wall. Sometime later a turntable was added on the shed's "south road". In 1892 the turntable was removed and a larger 46ft. one was subsequently constructed further south towards what was then known as Newton Farm bridge. At the same time, on the adjacent Up side, a siding with water crane, coaling stage and hut for the locomotive crews was put in for the bankers. Sometime between 1901 and c1910, Bromsgrove West signal cabin, located on the Up side immediately to the north of Newton Farm bridge, was closed and a new, larger one, now known as Bromsgrove South Junction, was opened on the Down side between the 46ft turntable and the running lines. (Originally known as Bromsgrove East, the 1869 built station signal cabin, sited on the Up platform, became Bromsgrove Station with the building of a larger signal box in 1883.) In 1914 Bromsgrove Station signal box was replaced with a larger (40 lever?) box and renamed, simply, Bromsgrove. In 1922 Bromsgrove South Junction box was also replaced and its named simplified to Bromsgrove South. In 1933 two additional tracks were laid south from Bromsgrove South, necessitating the building of a new Newton Farm bridge, so enabling the quadrupling of the line between Bromsgrove and Stoke Works junction (but not through the station as some authorities have written). Bromsgrove South became a 60 lever box at this time. c1942 a private siding for Deritend Stamping (later Garrington's) was added from the goods yard, which was located on the Up side between Bromsgrove South and the station. In 1951 the gable ends on the locomotive shed were rebuilt and the whole re-roofed. In MR days, the depot was coded 4A. It was recoded 21C in 1934, a number which it retained until 1958 when, following regional boundary changes, it was changed to 85F upon transfer from the London Midland Region of BR to the Western Region. It was again recoded, to 85D, in January 1961. After the depot and adjoining Wagon Works closed in September 1964, for a short time the area was used for wagon storage before all of the track-work was removed and the buildings allowed to decay. Demolition: 1982. The site was subsequently developed as a housing estate. The depot was responsible for maintaining and servicing the Stud of Banking Loco's. At one time this had included the unique Midland Railway Fowler (James Anderson designed) 0-10-0 banking locomotive “Big Bertha” (No. 58100 in BR days), which, except for a brief period of trial on the Midland Main Line in 1924, spent its whole life allocated to Bromsgrove from new in 1919 (when it was numbered 2290) until withdrawn from service in 1956. For a short time, Big Bertha was joined by another giant of steam, Nigel Gresley’s 2-8-0+0-8-2 Garratt No. 69999, rendered redundant from its banking duties on the Worsborough incline. This ex-LNER Garratt was at Bromsgrove from March 1949 until November 1950 and again briefly in 1955. Following Big Bertha’s withdrawal, the “big engine” at Bromsgrove was always a BR 9F 2-10-0; initially 92079, which, until its first overall at Swindon, carried the headlamp from 58100. In late 1964 the Steam depot closed after some 124 years of service and the steam bankers were replaced by several EE Type 3 Co-Co diesel-electric locomotives (Class 37); in turn these were replaced in 1967 by B-B Hymeks (Class 35) but these lasted just a few years until their withdrawal in 1972 (along with most of the other WR Hydraulics) and the Class 37s returned. BR-Sulzer Class 25s were also tried for some time in 1974/5, often paired with a 37, but with limited success. From 1964 onwards the bankers were serviced and maintained first at Worcester then later Gloucester. As well as the 37s, in the years before bankers were finally withdrawn from Bromsgrove, Class 56, 58, 60 and occasional 47s or 50s also made an appearance; rarely, even 31s were used. Final withdrawal of Footplate staff from Bromsgrove took place in September 1986 from when locomotives, when required for banking, were deployed and crewed first from Gloucester then eventually Saltley depot, only going to Bromsgrove upon request (as is still the practice today with Class 66s from Saltley/Bescot depot). Compiled: 2011-2014 E&OE
