LMS Route: Rugby to Wolverhampton

LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Lichfield

LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Soho and Perry Barr

Curzon Street Goods Station: lnwrcs2105

Stableman Jones with his prize winning bay horse from Curzon Street 'The Colonel', winner of the 1932 Horse Show. Each year in Birmingham on May Day a horse parade was held which featured the dray horses and carts being decorated. Many of the businesses operating horse transport would enter one or more horses with their handlers spending many hours grooming and preparing their charges for the big day. Cartage work was hard with long hours and not overly generous pay. The fish market demanded the earliest start, 4am booking on at the depot, in order to prepare the horse, load the dray and to get to the wholesale fish market for 5am when it opened. While the driver prepared his horse the trains arriving at Curzon Street would be unloaded and the fish boxes would be loaded into the dray. It was the aim of the unloading gangs to have the drays loaded and parked so that the driver could quickly leave after arriving at the yard. The fruit and vegetable drivers would be next to leave the yard with their loads again with the objective of being outside their respective wholesale markets by 5pm.

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