LMS Route: Grand Junction Railway
LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Lichfield
LMS Route: Birmingham-Soho-Perry Barr-Birmingham

Aston Station: lnwra3633

A 1903 view of the sidings, looking North East, which were located in front of Windsor Street Goods Station and Rupert Street in the background. Beyond the sidings a large end-loading dock can be seen. In this view seven of the fourteen sidings are visible together with the two sidings in the distance which ran alongside the depot (as can be seen in image 'lnwra3632'), plus part of a siding abutting the end loading dock. Each siding was fitted with a wagon turntable just in front of the goods depot building in order to minimise the need to shunt the rake of wagons on the sidings; the wagons being removed via the wagon turntables. Only four of the seven sidings actually entered the goods station, which had platforms inside of a level compatible with the floor of the railway wagons to aid the rapid loading and unloading of goods. The remaining three sidings were used to release wagons which had been moved sideways via the turntables. A single wagon or van can be seen standing on each of these release sidings in the photograph. The capstans visible on either side of the row of turntables appear to be fixed rather than powered and are set out so that a rope can be used to rotate the wagon when on the turntable. Its most likely that the power used to move and turn the wagons was via one of the many cart horses owned by the railway.

The wagons seen are, from left to right:

• Siding 1 — an LNWR open with 9 inch side (D1).
• Siding 2 — LNWR meat van No 71264 (D45); an unidentifiable sheeted wagon; a possible open GWR wagon with rounded ends, the next wagon cannot be identified.
• Siding 3 —Two LNWR vans (D15 'Beer Vans') which according to Mike Williams of the LNWR Society, having corrected the original categorisation of the vans from D33, were rarely photographed as only 270 were built); a L&YR van; a LNWR open wagon (D1).
• Siding 4 — an open unidentified wagon.
• Siding 5 — a NSR open wagon; three LNWR vans (D32); two LNWR two-plank open wagons (D2); an unidentified high side open wagon.
• Siding 6 — a LNWR goods brake (D' 6).
• Siding 7 —Two LNWR vans (D32); three LNWR two-plank opens (D2); a LNWR ten-ton open wagon (D9*) is third from rear; others not identified.
• Siding 8 — NER four-plank open: LNWR open wagons (D4); LNWR open wagons (D1) sheeted.
• Siding 9 — Two LNWR open wagons (Dr) and (probably) a LNWR two-plank open wagon (D2)., End loading dock — an unidentified wagon.

* In the original article this wagon was classified as a D4 not as a D9 but as Mike Williams of the LNWR Society pointed out, 'the only difference between D4 and D9 is that the latter has larger journals and axleboxes so it can carry 10 tons. This is indeed 10 tons (says so on it) so it is a D9, not a D4'.

We would like to express our thanks to Jim Watt for providing a copy of this and the other photograph ('lnwra3633') which featured in an article on Page 52 to 54 in the HMRS' Journal Vol 11, No 2, April - June 1982. The article was written by CW Underhill with information on the wagons provided by Jim Richards and Geoffrey Platt. We welcome any other photographs of Windsor Street which regrettably are extremely rare.

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