Sleepy station soon to close
AT FIRST glance this old photograph may appear to show a delightful rural scene, with the sun shining on a sleepy station while a steam engine shunts back and forth. But this is a Black Country scene, with the station built to serve the heavy industry that made our region famous.
Railway enthusiasts among our readers may recognise the location as Halesowen Station and the picture was taken in 1959, just a few years before the station was closed for good.
Because of the piecemeal development of the railways, with different companies building competing lines or trying to block their rivals’ access to coveted routes, the Black Country network was something of a tangled skein. Halesowen was one of the later stations built in our area but being off the beaten track it was always under-used.
A branch line from the Great Western’s Snow Hill to Stourbridge Junction line, running from Old Hill to Halesowen was proposed by the West Midlands Railway. That company was formed in 1860 by the amalgamation of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway and the Worcester and Hereford Railway. However, before construction could begin, the WMR was itself absorbed into the GWR in 1863.
The line opened on September 1, 1878, the same day that the branch linking Old Hill to Netherton opened. The line to Halesowen had a halt at Coombs Wood and spur to the canal at Hawne Basin. 1878 also saw the start of construction of another line, from Halesowen to Northfield.
Halesowen Station and its buildings were built in the typical GWR style, the main station building being a single-storey, red brick structure. At first there was only one platform but a second one was built, with a waiting room, in the early 1880s, to coincide with the opening of the Halesowen-northfield line in 1883. The new line was jointly operated by the GWR and the Midland Railway but the GWR would not allow MR services to run all the way to Old Hill.
Passenger numbers were never high on the route and it was mainly used for freight services, particularly to the nearby Walter Somers forge. However, there was an increase in passengers after 1905, when Herbert Austin opened his new car production plant at Longbridge.
While the Austin works grew and grew, special workers trains were laid on but overall the numbers of passengers declined in the early 20th century. In 1919 the MR ended passenger services between Halesowen and Kings Norton and the GWR withdrew its passenger services from Old Hill to Halesowen in 1927. Only the Longbridge workers trains continued but that service was ended in 1958.
Freight continued but after the Second World
War that too declined and the line and Halesowen Station took on an increasingly worn out and forlorn appearance.
Our picture dates from those dying days at the station. The photographer was standing on the road bridge that carried Whitehall Road/mucklow Hill over the line. On the right is the southbound line to Longbridge, while on the left is the up line to Old Hill and the original station buildings. A hint of how run down the station was at this time is the name sign, which is propped up against the fence on the left. The waiting room on the south platform and the footbridge between the platforms had been removed by the time this picture was taken.
The locomotive is a Midland Railway 1142 Class 0-6-0, designed by Samuel W. Johnson. More than 900 of these locomotives were built between 1875 and 1908, so this particular engine could have been quite old when the photograph was taken. By 1964 every one of this class of locomotive had been withdrawn from service and none have been preserved.
Halesowen Station had just a few more years of operational life when our photographer visited in 1959. That last train from Halesowen to Rubery ran on January 4, 1964. Freight services continued between Old Hill and Halesowen until September 9, 1968.
Today, if you visit the site, you will find no trace of the old station, as the place has been completely redeveloped into an industrial estate.