Northfield railway station gets a blog post all of its own because I think it’s rather spectacular. It has
4 platforms, but only two are used. It has bricked up subways (that most people
don’t know exist) and has completely changed in the ~140years it’s been here.
When the station first opened in the late 1800s, the
passenger trains originally used the central platform, with the outer tracks
being used for freight. Platforms one and four didn’t exist then! Access to the
central platform was gained via the subway under the bridge on West Heath Road
(near the petrol station) – you can still see the bricked and boarded up holes
today (the other is in the subway at the ticket office end). At the time,
Northfield wasn’t part of Birmingham, so the railways brought people, jobs and goods to
the rural areas, and subsequently modern Northfield built up around this.
The passenger subway at the ticket office end is now the
only subway here, and it has recently (late 2012) had a refurb – lifts have
been installed, more lighting, steps and hand rails. There are also two strips
of neon green ‘stuff’ on the floor. One of these patches covers the numbers
‘1892’. My brother (who is a train geek)
and I have decided that this date marks the opening of the subway, as the
station as a whole was already open for a while before this.
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I lived nearby to the station in the 1960's and would pass by the now bricked up entrance many times on the way to St. Laurence school or Northfield and remember the echo's the cavernous passage ways would make when going up the steps to the single platform that had traditional brick built station with ticket hall and waiting room, luggage storage, etc., the Station Master was a Mr. Courtney who lived in the Station Master’s house on the corner of what’s now Spinney Close on Church Hill. One recollection I have of those cavernous passage ways was when some miscreant tossed a firework banger in there once. Gee… it was like a bomb had gone off!
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