LMS Route: Grand Junction Railway

Hamstead and Great Barr Station: lnwrgb2288

Looking along the up platform towards Bescot with the overbridge carrying the Old Walsall Road at the end. The station's building on the down platform indicated that at the time of rebuilding in 1898 the LNWR had identified that the passenger flow from Great Barr would have been fairly evenly proportioned between New Street, using the up platform, and Walsall using the down platform. Consequently the building erected on the down platform was nearly as large as that seen on the up platform. In the distance the steps from the down platform up to the Old Walsall Road can be seen with a similar set being sited on the up platform. The LNWR would have expected passengers to use these steps as an alternative to a footbridge or porter's crossing. The photograph was most likely to have been taken in the early 1960s as on the right the back of a sign can be seen. This sign would have had a number on it, most probably a 6, indicating that drivers of the recently introduced six-car Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) must stop opposite the sign.

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