GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Handsworth & Smethwick: gwrhs2650

View from the centre of the station footbridge towards Handsworth Junction with a freight train fast disappearing along the down relief line on Monday 22nd June 1961. Note that in addition to the tail lamp, that there are also side lamps on the brake van (telegraphic code – Toad), these were required where there were parallel running lines. The rail connection to the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company's private railway ran parallel to the down relief line to just beyond the Wattville Road Bridge in the distance. The spear fencing at the rear of the down relief platform can just be seen through the brake van's veranda. Behind this was the Goods Yard and Goods Shed, which was rebuilt after being severally damaged during the Second World War. The jib of the fixed ten ton crane in the goods yard can be seen here and another fixed six ton crane was located with the mileage sidings.

On the right is the original station buildings with the closed Handsworth North Signal Box visible at the end of the platform. This was also the position of a trailing siding from the up main, which served cattle pens and a loading dock (It became known as the Carriage Dock Sidings). The Handsworth North Signal Box was opened on 19th December 1909 on the completion of the quadrupling work. The building was a standard type GW7 (a type first introduced in 1896) with a brick built lock room, twenty-nine feet long by nine feet wide and an operating floor nine feet above the rail level. The Signal Box had a tiled hip roof with torpedo vents on the ridge and a stove pipe chimney. The box housed a 42 lever frame at 4 inch centres. Handsworth North Signal Box was initially open daily between 6:30am and 00:30am, but hours were later reduced to save costs. By 1921, special instructions had been included in the Appendix to the Service Time Table to allow access to the North end sidings when the signal box was switched out. The box was finally closed on 4th March 1928 following the removal of the two long ladder crossovers and spare frame parts were utilised in Stow Heath Signal Box. Two new ground frames, whose levers were electrically released from the South Box (renamed ‘Handsworth & Smethwick Signal Box’) were established to cater for the remaining switches to sidings.

Robert Ferris

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