LMS Route: Rugby to Wolverhampton

LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Lichfield

LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Soho and Perry Barr

Curzon Street Good Station: lnwrcs2160

A cart load of hay being weighed at Smithfield Market prior to being sold at the open-air corn and fodder markets in 1903. Through the services of Curzon Street, and its Great Western and Midland Railway equivalents, came much of the goods sold on the streets of Britain and which fed a growing economy. The expansion of trade could not have been possible without railways as they made mass transportation of people and goods possible. All types of fresh food could be transported which opened up new markets as well as feeding numbers in towns and cities otherwise impossible. Richard Foster writes, 'On the right, at No 67, are the premises of Griffiths & Company, wholesale stationers , who from 1902 advertised themselves as Midland Railway Company's Parcel Receiving Office (as can just be seen on the building). Next door at No 69 is Peter Ambrose Debney, provision merchant. His premises opened here in 1896 and closed about 1908. Edwin Albert Eades at No 71 was a hardware dealer and his shop front is crowded with zinc bowls, buckets and other goods. The writing on the windows above offers cycles for sale by retail or wholesale as well as a comprehensive service of repairs, spare parts and tyres, and even offers to build cycles to order. The business was taken over by Clement & Troon in 1904. On the left is the London, City and Midland Bank'.

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