Bromsgrove railway station

Bromsgrove National Rail
Location
Place Bromsgrove
Local authority Bromsgrove
Grid reference SO968693
Operations
Station code BMV
Managed by West Midlands Railway
Number of platforms 4
DfT category F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2012/13 Increase 0.540 million
2013/14 Increase 0.571 million
2014/15 Decrease 0.569 million
2015/16 Increase 0.620 million
2016/17 Increase 0.644 million
History
24 June 1840 Opened
12 July 2016 Relocated
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Bromsgrove from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Bromsgrove railway station serves the town of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, England. It is located at the foot of the two-mile Lickey Incline which ascends at a gradient of 1-in-37.7 towards Barnt Green on the line between Birmingham and Worcester. Bromsgrove is managed by West Midlands Railway. The current station opened on 12 July 2016, replacing an older station located slightly to the north.[1]

History

The station opened as part of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (later part of the Midland Railway) on 24 June 1840.[2]

On 10 November of that year, an experimental steam locomotive named 'Surprise' burst its boiler at the station, killing the driver, Thomas Scaife, and fireman, Joseph Rutherford (some authorities say the incident happened on the Lickey Incline but this is due to an erroneous early report in the Worcestershire Chronicle which was later corrected.[3]). They are buried in Bromsgrove churchyard.[4]

In June 1969[5] the station was rebuilt with a single platform on the up (northbound) side, which required stopping down (southbound) trains to cross to the up line and back again after calling at Bromsgrove station. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the service frequency had decreased to a small number of trains in the peak hours. A new platform on the down side was opened in May 1990.[6]

On 4 May 2007, Network Rail announced that a new station will be built, to replace the existing structure. This was to be in a brownfield site adjacent to the current site, and would allow six car trains to stop at the station. The cost was projected to be in the region of £10-12 million,[7] and it was estimated that the station could be operational by Easter 2009.[8] However, by June 2009 the project was still only in the development stage[9] and the funding for it was subsequently frozen by the local authority in June 2010.[10]

Contamination of the land was a known factor by February 2013 and was included in the Consultation Report published on the Worcestershire County Council website.[11] Planning permission for the new station was eventually granted by Worcestershire County Council in September 2013, three years after the funding for it was previously withdrawn.[12] By this stage it had been decided that the station would have four platforms, able to accommodate nine car trains, and linked by a covered footbridge served by lifts and stairs. A ticket office, waiting room and toilets would also be provided.[13] Work began on the new station in March 2014.[14][15]

Even after construction started, the opening date for the station was delayed several times. It was first scheduled to open in May 2015[16] and then was postponed to November 2015.[13] It was later due for spring 2016.[17][18] However contamination on site and a previously undiscovered culvert resulted in the opening date being pushed back to Summer 2016.[19] The new £24 million station opened on 12 July 2016,[20] currently with two platforms in use for passengers[21] but platform three will be a turnback platform for services that terminate at Bromsgrove.[22] The old station platforms and associated structures were removed and demolished during track remodelling in November 2016.[23]

The station name signs on the platforms are on a gold background with white text instead of the usual white background with black text. This was unveiled by London Midland in honour of Lauren Rowles, a local woman who won gold at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.[24]

Services

The station and all trains serving it are operated by West Midlands Trains, who operate an hourly service from Birmingham New Street to Hereford; with additional services in the peak hours starting or terminating short at Great Malvern and Worcester Shrub Hill.[25]. Electric services on the Cross City Line began running to/from Birmingham New Street and Lichfield Trent Valley from 29 July 2018.[26] Three trains per hour operate each way on weekdays, one to Four Oaks, one to Lichfield City and the third to Lichfield Trent Valley. On Sundays, the frequency is half-hourly to and from New Street only. The limited Mon-Sat CrossCountry service from here was withdrawn from 30th July 2018.

Preceding station   National Rail   Following station
West Midlands Railway
Longbridge   West Midlands Railway
Cross-City Line		   Terminus
Disused railways
Blackwell
Station Closed and Line Open		   Great Western Railway
Stoke Branch		   Stoke Works
Station Closed and Line Open

Future

Phase two of the station redevelopment project has seen the electrification of the line from Bromsgrove to Barnt Green. This was originally planned to happen between 2011 and 2014, but this date has been amended in the wake of the delays to construction work on the new station. This resulted in an extra three trains per hour on the Cross-City Line serving the new station, when the new electrification went live in 2018.[1][27]

The electrification work involves reconstruction of four overbridges between Barnt Green and Bromsgrove and 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) of electrification works between Barnt Green junction and Bromsgrove. Re-signalling and track relaying work tied into the project at the station and at various points further north saw all services diverted via Kidderminster or replaced by buses between Droitwich Spa and Longbridge for twelve days in the autumn of 2016.[28]

The first timetabled electric services were scheduled to start in May 2018[29] however in March 2018, plans for an extra 4 trains per hour were delayed to 29 July 2018.[30]

References

  1. 1 2 "Bromsgrove Railway Station". Wourcestershire County Council. Archived from the original on 13 July 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  2. ↑ Jowett's Railway Centres Volume 1, Alan Jowett (PSL, 1993)
  3. ↑ "Dreadful accident on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. Two Lives Lost". Worcestershire Chronicle. England. 18 November 1840. Retrieved 29 December 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive. (Subscription required (help)).
  4. ↑ Rolt, L.T.C. Red For Danger (1966 ed.). Pan Books. p. 69. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  5. ↑ A Century of Railways Around Birmingham and the West Midlands, Volumes 2, John Boynton (Mid England Books, 1998)
  6. ↑ A Century of Railways Around Birmingham and the West Midlands, Volumes 3, John Boynton (Mid England Books, 1999)
  7. ↑ "Bromsgrove to get new station". Network Rail News Releases (Press release). 4 May 2007.
  8. ↑ "Bromsgrove Rail User Group". Retrieved 14 January 2010.
  9. ↑ "Network Rail schemes in development". Retrieved 9 June 2009.
  10. ↑ "New Bromsgrove railway station money frozen". BBC News Hereford & Worcester. 20 June 2010. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  11. ↑ "Bromsgrove Rail Station Information - Consultation ReportWorcestershire County Council
  12. ↑ "Bromsgrove railway station plans approved Bromsgrove railway station plans approved". BBC News Hereford & Worcester. 24 September 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  13. 1 2 Greenway, Sam (31 Mar 2015). "Bromsgrove's new railway station remains on track for November opening". Bromsgrove Advertiser.
  14. ↑ Harris, Nigel, ed. (5–18 February 2014). "Spring 2014 start for Bromsgrove station, ahead of 2015 opening". RAIL. Vol. 741. p. 21.
  15. ↑ "Bromsgrove £17.4m railway station replacement starts". BBC News Hereford & Worcester. 13 March 2014. Retrieved 14 March 2014.
  16. ↑ "Bromsgrove railway station plans approved"BBC News article 24 September 2013
  17. ↑ Railway footbridge ruled too close to power linesBBC News website article, 17 July 2015
  18. ↑ Harris, Tristan (6 January 2016). "Bromsgrove's new railway station on track to open in the spring". Bromsgrove Standard. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  19. ↑ "Opening of new Bromsgrove train station delayed... again". Bromsgrove Advertiser. 13 June 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  20. ↑ "Bromsgrove railway station opens". BBC News. 12 July 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  21. ↑ "New Bromsgrove Station Opens". Modern Railways. Railway Study Association. 73 (815): 21. August 2016.
  22. ↑ Harris, Tristan (2 November 2016). "A look behind the scenes at the signalling and track work being done at Bromsgrove Station". Bromsgrove Standard. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  23. ↑ Nicholls, Mark, ed. (February 2017). "Bromsgrove track signalling upgrade". Railways Illustrated. Vol. 15 no. 2. Stamford: Key Publishing. p. 10. ISSN 1479-2230.
  24. ↑ Davies, Tom (7 October 2016). "Paralympic hero Lauren Rowles celebrated with gold station sign". Bromsgrove Advertiser. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  25. ↑ GB eNRT May 2018 Edition, Tables 57 & 71
  26. ↑ First Cross City line trains arrive at BromsgroveCollis, Emily Bromsgrove Advertiser news article 30 July 2018; Retrieved 3 August 2018
  27. ↑ "Bromsgrove Rail Station". Worcestershire County Council. 2013. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  28. ↑ "Passengers warned of 12-day closure for railway works on Bromsgrove line" Collis, Emily Bromsgrove Advertiser news article 12 October 2016; Retrieved 26 October 2016
  29. ↑ Darlington, Paul (17 January 2017). "Bromsgrove Corridor resignalling". Rail Engineer. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  30. ↑

Further reading

  • Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2006). Bromsgrove to Gloucester. Middleton Press. figs. 1-10. ISBN 9781904474739. OCLC 931169432.


Coordinates: 52°19′23″N 2°02′53″W / 52.323°N 2.048°W / 52.323; -2.048

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