GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Acocks Green & South Yardley Station: gwrag3993

Two internal documents addressed to Mr S Johnson (Divisional Superintendent of the Line based at Snow Hill Station, Birmingham). Both documents are dated June 1911 and provide an insight in to progress of works at the Acocks Green & South Yardley Station: The first is an internal letter dated 16th June from the Engineering Department confirming that the internal painting of the access bridge has been completed and that this can now be opened. The second is an internal memo dated 26th June 1911 regarding the need for a telephone in the Booking Office and a bell communication system to the Down Platform (Apparently this had been previously achieved using the single needle telegraph instrument in the redundant platform signal box located at the north end of the station). The message reads:

I beg to make application for a telephone to be fixed in Booking Office, Footbridge Booking Office, Station Masters Office and an electric bell on Down Platform connected with the Booking Office, so we can ring for Porters to attend to luggage. At present we have no means of communication no matter how important the message may be, except by going personally with the message. Until a few weeks since we could communicate with Signal Box on the single needle. Now the single needle has been taken from Signal Box, we have nothing.

The 1930 Great Western Railway Telephone Book records the following two private railway telephones were at Acocks Green:
      Station Office – GWR Birmingham Exchange, Omnibus Circuit No 260
      Acocks Green Signal Box – GWR Birmingham Exchange, Omnibus Circuit No 159

The General Post Office (GPO) opened their Acocks Green telephone exchange at 1 Warwick Road in 1899. When this exchange relocated to Station Road it was made an automatic exchange in January 1931. Although the Great Western Railway station at Acocks Green was not connected to the GPO network in 1930, by 1938 the station had a GPO telephone - ACOcks Green (220) 0773.

Robert Ferris

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