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LMS Route: Rugby to Wolverhampton

Berkswell and Balsall Common: lnwrberk1313

Looking towards Birmingham showing Berkswell with its original staggered platform configuration with the up platform opposite the signal box

Looking towards Birmingham showing Berkswell with its original staggered platform configuration with the up platform opposite the signal box. John Boynton in his book 'The London & Birmingham Railway between Birmingham and Coventry' reports that a retrospective article in the Coventry Evening Telegraph (18th September 1934) stated that in the early years of the London & Birmingham Railway's history the station, as with others on the line, might have had an unofficial status. Marston Green and Stetchford Gates together with Dockers Lane, as Berkswell was then known, initially had no wayside stations. "Passengers entered and alighted at their own convenience, without considering the danger from passing trains. There was much indifference, people jumping on and off at ease". Whilst early trains travelled at low speeds and slowed when approaching crossings and people's attitude to life was very different this practice was perhaps a little 'hairy' by today's standards.

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