Birmingham Snow Hill station

Birmingham Snow Hill is a railway station and tram stop in the centre of Birmingham, England, on the site of an earlier, much larger station built by the former Great Western Railway (GWR). It is the second most important railway station in the city, after Birmingham New Street station. It is also the terminus of the Midland Metro light rail line from Wolverhampton (via Wednesbury and West Bromwich), pending the line's extension.

The present Snow Hill station has three platforms for National Rail trains. When it was originally reopened in 1987 it had four, but one was later converted for use by Midland Metro trams. The planned extension of the Midland Metro through Birmingham city centre includes a dedicated embankment for trams alongside the station, and this will allow the fourth platform to be returned to main-line use.

History

The site of the station was originally occupied by Oppenheims Glassworks. This was demolished, but many parts of the building and machinery are believed to be buried underneath the station and car park, and during recent development work alongside the station the area was designated as a site of archaeological importance by Birmingham City Council. The station was opened in 1852 on the Great Western Railway (GWR) line from London (Paddington) to Wolverhampton Low Level. It was originally called Livery Street Station and was a simple large wooden shed. It was renamed Snow Hill in 1858, and the Great Western Hotel was added in 1863. By 1859 it was possible to travel from Snow Hill to London in just under three hours.

Snow Hill had a new station which had a huge arched roof of iron and glass, with a simple wooden overhead bridge linking the two platforms. It was never intended to be the main station, but political gaming between the railway companies prevented the railway reaching its original intended terminus at Birmingham Curzon Street.

Trains from the south arrived through Snow Hill Tunnel, built by the cut-and-cover method, and in a cutting from Temple Row to Snow Hill. The cutting was roofed over in 1872 and the Great Western Arcade built on top.

In 1906 reconstruction of Snow Hill began, completed in 1912. The new station building was intended to compete with New Street, which at the time was a much grander building than it is today. The rebuilt station had a large booking hall with an arched glass roof. It contained lavish waiting rooms with oak bars. The bottom end of the station had fish platforms and goods storage. The station was twice as long as the current one, with eight through platforms and four bay platforms. Although the line through the tunnel has always been double-track, the line towards The Hawthorns was a four-track main line. Because of capacity problems towards London, Moor Street station was built at the opposite end of the tunnel to take local trains towards Leamington Spa and Stratford upon Avon.

At its height, many trains that now run into New Street station ran into Snow Hill, along with some that no longer run. Services included:

• Shrewsbury, Chester and Mid Wales – these trains now run into New Street (although it is now possible to join a train to Smethwick Galton Bridge and change onto an Arriva Trains Wales service to these destinations).
• Birkenhead – this was on the old GWR route from London Paddington. British Rail ended this service prior to Snow Hill closing in 1968.
• Cardiff Central via Hereford.
• Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth & Penzance via Stratford upon Avon – was the GWR trunk route. Dr Beeching closed the line between Stratford and Cheltenham Spa. All services now run through New Street and via Bromsgrove.
• Wolverhampton Low Level & Dudley – these services were cut entirely in 1972. The Midland Metro tram line now runs along the former route to Wolverhampton.
• London Paddington – service transferred to New Street in 1967, and later abandoned altogether. The London service was restored in the early 1990s, but now to London Marylebone - making this Snow Hill's only long-distance service.

Closure

During the electrification of the West Coast Main Line by British Railways, Birmingham Snow Hill handled most of the rail traffic through the city, but the subsequent Beeching closure programme in the 1960s took the view that Snow Hill station was unnecessary, and all services were switched to New Street and Moor Street.

Long-distance services through Snow Hill were diverted to New Street in 1967; this happened at the same time Snow Hill's tunnel was closed to all traffic. Local trains towards Leamington Spa and Stratford upon Avon were terminated at Moor Street. The services diverted to New Street took advantage of curves which had been built many years earlier, and which had mainly been used for freight trains - for instance, the curve near Bordesley, which connected to the Camp Hill Line and allowed trains from the Solihull direction to reach New Street, had opened in 1861.^[1] Services to and from the West Country were diverted via Bromsgrove, after the closure of the route via Stratford upon Avon to Cheltenham Spa. A shuttle service of four trains per day to Langley Green only was maintained along with a stopping service to Wolverhampton, Stourbridge services were diverted into New Street, and the route to Dudley was closed. In 1972 the lines were closed through to Smethwick and Wolverhampton, with the exception of a single line from Smethwick West for Coopers Scrap Metal Works in Handsworth (the works is still in operation to this day).

Despite a public outcry, the Snow Hill building was not preserved. The Great Western Hotel was demolished in 1969 and the station largely demolished in 1977, when the dangerous state of the building was revealed. However, it enjoyed a brief moment of fame when it was the setting for a fight scene in the locally-set (and Play for Today-based) BBC TV drama series Gangsters. The ironwork of the station roof was badly corroded in several places, and the unstable ground and foundations on which the station had been built were causing it to slide downhill. A few items including the original gates and booking hall sign were saved and later used in the Moor Street restoration. The site was for many years a car park.

Rebirth

In the mid-1980s British Rail decided to re-open Snow Hill station as part of its cross-city transport plan for Birmingham.

In 1987 the newly rebuilt station opened for services to the south, some of the remaining parts of the original station being lost (the old parcels office, some platforms and the mosaic floor from former waiting rooms) and others incorporated (notably the now-sealed entrance, with GWR crest, in Livery Street). Initially only local stopping services to Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon used the new station. Services to London restarted in May 1993, routed to Marylebone instead of the pre-closure destination of Paddington. Services at Moor Street, at the southern end of Snow Hill tunnel, were switched from the former terminal platforms, which then closed, on to the two through platforms, making a through station adjacent to the tunnel mouth.

The new Snow Hill station has a multi-storey car park above it, designed by Seymour Harris Partnership.

On 24 September 1995, services north to Smethwick and onwards to Worcester resumed. On the first day there were steam-hauled special trains to Stourbridge Junction.

In 1999, the line to Wolverhampton was re-opened as a light-rail (tram) line, the Midland Metro.

Work began on a new entrance on Livery Street to give commuters access to the lower Snow Hill and Jewellery Quarter part of the city centre in 2005, but it did not open for business until March 2011.^[2] The work had a projected cost of £9.94 million, but due to Central Trains' failure to apply for planning permission, and severe technical difficulties, the cost rose to at least £17 million.^[3] Although construction and interior finishes works were largely complete by the December of 2010, legal disputes between London Midland, Network Rail and Centro caused delay to the opening of the entrance by over a year.^[3]

Future

New platforms for the Midland Metro are due to be built as part of its City Centre Extension to New Street Station,^[4] part-funding for which was confirmed in the October 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review.^[5] A new viaduct has been built alongside the station as part of the Snowhill development to carry the tram lines into the city centre.^[4] The project is scheduled for completion in 2015.^[6]

Services

Operations

The station is managed by London Midland, and services are provided by London Midland and Chiltern Railways. There is a small set of sidings at the Hockley end of the station, which can be reached from Platform 1 only. All platforms can be used in either direction; generally platforms 1 or 2 are used for trains heading towards Stourbridge Junction, platform 2 is used for trains terminating at the station (usually Chiltern services from London Marylebone) and platform 3 is used for trains towards Dorridge, London Marylebone or Whitlocks End. Midland Metro currently uses two small platforms numbered 4 and 5, which are terminating platforms.

Typical off-peak weekday service is as follows, in trains per hour (tph):^[7]

Long-distance services

Snow Hill is served by regular Chiltern services to and from London Marylebone. Some Chiltern services continue beyond Birmingham to Kidderminster. The Chiltern service is:

• 2 tph peak/1 tph off peak to London Marylebone via High Wycombe

Local services

Local services from Snow Hill, like most local services in the West Midlands, are supported by Centro, the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive. They are operated by London Midland. There are:

• 3 tph to Whitlocks End:

of which one continues to Stratford upon Avon

• 3 tph to Dorridge

the Chiltern services to London Marylebone call at Solihull and Dorridge, giving Snow Hill 5 tph in the peak and 4 tph in the off peak to these stations

• 6 tph to Stourbridge Junction:

of which four continue to Kidderminster:

of which two continue to Worcester

(services beyond Worcester, to Malvern and Hereford are irregular, generally about one per hour)

See also

• Transport in Birmingham
• Birmingham New Street station
• Birmingham International railway station
• Birmingham Moor Street railway station

Bibliography

• Boynton, John (2001). Main Line to Metro: Train and Tram on the Great Western Route: Birmingham Snow Hill — Wolverhampton. Kidderminster: Mid England Books. ISBN 9780952224891
• Harrison, Derek (1978). Salute to Snow Hill: The Rise and Fall of Birmingham's Snow Hill Railway Station 1852 - 1977. Birmingham: Barbryn Press. ISBN 9780906160008

References

External links

• Image of old station
• 1890 Ordnance Survey map of the station
• Article on this station from Rail Around Birmingham & the West Midlands
• Article on the Metro station from Rail Around Birmingham & the West Midlands
• A pictoral record of the station from 1871 to 1967 and the locomotives that used the station from Warwickshire's Railways
• The History of Birmingham Snow Hill Warwickshire Railways