Birmingham is not renowned for its gorgeous countryside, but, back in the day, the Sunday afternoon outing for Brummies was a tram ride to the Rednal terminus of route 70. Alas, even the successors to the Birmingham Corporation tram service no longer go to Rednal. But we can go.
At Longbridge we eschew the busy A38 and continue straight on, signposted for Rednal and Bromsgrove.
Soon we come to a chinese restaurant, Lai Ling ...
It lies between a little loop of road called Elliott Gardens and the B4120 as shown on the road sign above. Lai Ling holds a little secret. Round the back ...
... we will find this ...
... just part of the former terminus of the 70 tram at Rednal. Here is a view of the Lai Ling building with a tram at the conventional terminus ...
... and others waiting in the loop that became Elliott Gardens, waiting for the crowds to return. Buses did use the paved are for a while ...
... even more modern ones photographed from the opposite direction.
The crowds would be tottering a little further south to enjoy the beauty of the Lickey Hills (normally called just "The Lickeys").
And what would you need after a 40 minute bouncy tram ride from central Birmingham - and what would it be wise to frequent before an equally bouncy ride back? Answer Rednal public conveniences - now the Lai Ling Chinese Restaurant.
fbb is overjoyed to report that, back in his youth, he was able to appreciate practically the vast facilities, where the gents stand-up porcelain stalls stretched off into the misty distance.
But the Lickey Hills have a railway fame as well.
Between Bromsgrove Station (bottom left) ...
... and Blackwell Station (top right) runs the famous Lickey incline - at 1 in 37-and-
a-bit the steepest climb on any main line in the UK. A telephoto lens, with the cameraman lying on the ground, captures the bend in a train!
Blackwell station is long gone ...
... and Bromsgrove, at the bottom of the hill, is now a terminus of Birmingham's "Cross City" electrified line.
It looked very different back in the "good old days".
Most of that trackwork and the array of signals were needed to provide for banking engines that would be needed to give trains a helping hand up the hill. This extract from the BBC TV "Railway Roundabout" series gives a taste of the operation.The film dates from 1958, just two years after Bertha retired.
Big Bertha was actually a steam locomotive with TEN coupled wheels, built specially by the Midland Railway for banking trains on the Lickey Incline.
In Britain very rarely does the need arise for a locomotive with 10 driving wheels, the only locomotives with such design include the 0-10-0 tank engine “Decapod” ...
... built by the Great Eastern Railway (GER) and the 2-10-0 British Railways (BR) standard class 9F’s ...
... and of course the 0-10-0 tender locomotive built by the Midland Railway (MR) shown in the picture below.
The engine, built in 1919, became known as "Big Bertha" or "Big Emma" by railwaymen and railway enthusiasts; as time went on she was inherited by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) after the Midland Railway was annexed into the LMS and then inherited by British Railways (BR) when nationalization happened. With a weight of 107 tons and 10 driving wheels with a diameter of 4 ft 7 1⁄2 in, she had a tractive effort of 43,300 lbf. She was the only locomotive not given a power classification by either the LMS or BR, since she was designed specifically for the job of providing extra power over the Lickey Incline and was not suitable for normal train working. The engine was withdrawn on May 19th 1956 and scrapped by Derby Works in September 1957, having covered 838,856 miles mostly on the Lickey Incline. BR standard class 9F No. 92079 took over her roll, even acquiring Big Bertha’s electric headlight for the duty.
Here is the replacement British Railways 9F No. 92079 with Big Bertha’s electric headlight.
There is a bit of YouTube video showing Bertha, but it is so fuzzy that fbb will leave his very keen readers to search for it.
Nowadays the design of modern electric and diesel trains means that you simply do not notice the hill. All the paraphernalia of the banking process is lost for ever.
But now, lo and behold, you can own a Big Bertha. K R Models (a firm based in Canada) has announced yet another addition to the burgeoning collection of OO gauge models of one-off locomotives, most of which will surely stay in their boxes to be admired by wealthy collectors.
K R Models assure potential buyers that their Bertha will carry the very large electric headlight (working, of course) but not shown in the 12 inches to the foot version's ex works picture above.
The big light helped the drivers of the banking engine to "buffer up" to the train they were pushing; because banking continued throughout the night. Banking engines were not coupled to the train, so at the top of the hill the banker put the brakes on and the "pushed" train trundled on in its merry way.
And the price for this iconic but unique loco as an OO model?
Of course that is for the very basic model. If you wat electronic control it will be £208 and if you want sound effects (choo choo toot toot) be prepared to spend nearly £267.
As usual, not for fbb.
Makuler Tripeing Mistooks
fbb goes for his first eyeball stabbing on Monday 14th. Over the last few months small print, as on a standard laptop screen, has become more of a challenge. Enlarging the screen is OK up to a point, but some applications then get lost and cannot be used.
fbb bashes on regardless until the blog is finished and then checks it on his phone - with more legible enlarged text.
Things do get missed and a second check is initiated while the fbbs' early morning "cuppa in bed" is a-brewing.
Usually most orthographic 'bludners" have been dealt with by 0730!
Further enlargement options are current being evaluated. STOP PRESS - A magnifier setting has been initiated on the laptop - but it need practice to get the best out of it.
Be patient with fbb who now defines himself as "no longer just numerically old, but becoming physically old"!
But he looks "to the hills from where his strength comes, his strength comes from the Lord." (from Psalm 121). And that is not the Lickey Hills but, euphemistically, the hills of an eternal heaven!
Next Vriety blog : Saturday 12th Nov
Just to complete the list, there were the WD 2-10-0s, designed (as was the 9F) by Riddles and his team.
ReplyDeleteJust a PS - WD 600 survives and at present is in the Engine House on the Severn Valley Railway, where I saw it in 2019. However I saw it in action at Longmoor in 1969 - actually at very close range as I was walking beside the track as it passed!
ReplyDeleteThough the main Bristol Road buses no longer go to Rednal, being 61 or 63, Nat Ex WM do still run a service through Rednal. It starts at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, so you have to swap routes in Northfield.
ReplyDeleteBromsgrove station has moved since steam days - there wasn't room at the old site for the four platforms required for terminating Cross-City trains in addition to Cross-Country, the Worcester line and freight.
Some freight still requires banking, even if Voyagers and 170's don't. There used to be 37's based at Bromsgrove, nowadays 66's come on site as required.
There was a brief spell of trials using a loco with 16 driving wheels:-
ReplyDeleteA couple of quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_U1
"Class U1 was a solitary 2-8-0+0-8-2 Beyer-Garratt locomotive designed for banking coal trains over the Worsborough Bank …..................... was tried out on the Lickey Incline in 1949–1950 and again, after the electrification of its home line, in 1955. These trials were unsuccessful, and so the locomotive was withdrawn in 1955 and scrapped."
"In 1949 it was decided to try the U1 on the Lickey Incline on the Ex-LMS Bristol-Birmingham route to supplement the existing 0-10-0 banker nicknamed "Big Bertha". Initially it worked chimney-first, but after difficulty in buffering up to passenger trains, it was turned to run cab-first up the bank and an electric headlight was fitted. Despite this the crew had great problems with visibility from the cab, particularly after dark, and the U1 returned to Mexborough in November 1950"