GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1167

View of the layout of Snow Hill station's original 1912 track plan showing the signals and double scissors crossovers in the centre of the station. The complexity of the trackwork controlled by the North Signal box with its 224 electrically operated levers can be understood by examining this portion of the track and station layout. The new sidings were provided to the East of the station and named after the adjacent road Northwood Street Sidings. With Tyseley shed being located on the other side of the two-road Snow Hill tunnel some locomotive facilities were required at Snow Hill station. Therefore the locomotive turntable was supplemented with some other facilities within New Yard Sidings. With each external platform being long enough to accommodate two trains plus the bay platforms for traffic to the north this meant that Snow Hill had the equivalent passenger facilities of 12 platforms. However, had there been no restriction caused by Snow Hill tunnel or the constraint of the width of the station the facilities built at Moor Street would have also been incorporated into the 1912 design. In such a form it might well have challenged New Street station as the superior station in the centre of Birmingham. With the expensive properties sited in Livery Street and Snow Hill on both sides of the station, the option of purchasing extra land for the rebuilding of the station was never an option. The only way the GWR could address the need to provide more platform space was to elongate the station instead of extending width ways. In addition, the slope of the site which was significantly higher at the Colmore Row end of the station (on the right) than Great Charles Street which allowed facilities to be built under the station, the parcels offices being one such example.

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