GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill: gwrbsh2687

A view of porters working outside the heavily sand bagged telegraph offices on Platform No 7 at Birmingham Snow Hill in 1940.

Instructions were issued regarding the best method of constructing sandbag barricades. In these instructions, it was estimated that a width of 30 inches of sandbags was equivalent to a three brick thick (13.25 inch) wall and that this would provide adequate protection from the blast of a 500lb high explosive bomb landing 50 feet away. Notice that the sandbags have been specifically positioned to protect the platform building windows. These sandbag barricades have been constructed according to the Government instructions; they are raised off the platform surface to prevent damp from deteriorating the sandbags in the lower courses, the sandbags are laid alternately in rows of headers and stretchers beginning and ending with headers, were possible vertical joints have been staggered, and all seams and tops of sandbags are inside the structure.

Robert Ferris

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