LMS Route: Grand Junction Railway

LMS Route: Birmingham-Soho-Perry Barr-Birmingham

Witton Station: lnwr_wit1527a

Close up of image 'lnwr_wit1527' showing the passenger facilities accommodated in the buildings on both platforms of Witton station. The station's buildings were erected by the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) and utilised many common components produced by their factory in Crewe being built using timber for their frame and cladding. With the exception of the brick chimneys and the slate roof everything else was fabricated from highly combustible materials. Despite the fact that passing steam locomotives would frequently be ejecting glowing embers from their chimneys, it was very rare for buildings to catch on fire. The railways would always well equip stations and signal cabins with rows of fire buckets, painted red and filled with sand. However this did not completely overcome the danger of fire because at 2. 00 a.m. on a Sunday morning in December 1896, the signalman at Coundon Road station noticed smoke and flames emitting from the waiting room on the down platform of the station.

Photograph Clarence Gilbert courtesy Roger Carpenter

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