Far more troubling are the full demolitions - Bradford Exchange, Birmingham Snow Hill etc.
Snow Hill station Birmingham. Although a bit of a wind tunnel it was very impressive for it's lengthy platforms and canopy. The present station is equally windswept but under a multistorey car park....
With regards to
Birmingham Snow Hill let's have another go at the surrounding context. (I lived and was brought up in Birmingham and around the Black Country in the 1950s to 1970s.)
Was that one not falling down by itself?
Yes it was. The former road - the very Snow Hill that the station was named after - disappeared as part of redevelopment and construction of the Inner Ring Road. Excavation of the St Chad's Underpass/Road Tunnel must have affected the water table and the north side of the station (where the former parcels office had been) started to subside. I remember walking along the side and seeing cracks opening up.
I've not seen any evidence that a bit of remedial work couldn't have stabilized it, particularly if it hadn't been let slide for several years.
The station wasn't demolished until well after the complete closure, after functioning as a car park for several years. There was no obvious way in which the two separate ranges of buildings could be re-used given that they were below what would be regarded as 'street level' in Colmore Row. The central gap in the roof which had always been there had been allowing rain to fall onto what was basically the top of a wide viaduct throughout its life. The Edwardian structure of the station had been built with riveted girders (just like the
Titanic) and was completely obsolete in structural engineering terms.
Given the situation of Birminghams railways at the time, the entire closure could be considered an act of vandalism.
Would this be the 'situation' that saw not one but two electrified routes between Birmingham and Wolverhampton with 4-aspect signalling (Stour Valley and Grand Junction)? Not to mention numerous well-equipped steel terminals, Dudley Freightliner, new Bescot computerised marshalling yard, Curzon Street Express Parcels Depot, etc.
Because it ripped the heart out of the whole former Western Region group of routes (a heart that had to be put back expensively not long after).
Would this be the network that had struggled since the Edwardian era against Britain's most extensive network of 3' 6"-gauge electric tramways that duplicated the entire set-up apart from Smethwick to Old Hill (and that bit never closed but actually got faster and better integrated services to New Street). The original GW Oldbury branch had closed to passengers in 1915: other bits struggled on with irregular services by rail motors or single diesel railcars. Even the 1954 timetable drew attention to 'frequent Midland Red bus services' in the district. The GW's attempt to introduce a passenger service on the new Oxley-Tettenhall-Stourbridge line was given up after only seven years in 1932 (admittedly not a direct Snow Hill service).
To be fair, a lot of the Snow Hill debacle had to do with the PTE's obsession with buses. Would Snow Hill closure have been pursued had there not have also been plans to shut the direct line to Stratford as well for example.
I suspect that BR might have put the cart before the horse and closed Snow Hill in expectation of more closures of local services than materialised.
At the end it was entirely down the PTE. The 1968 Transport Act squarely put responsibility for local suburban rail services in their areas in their hands. BR would get no subsidy other than via the PTE. They were offered the Snow Hill-Wolverhampton Low Level line (and limited link to Langley Green) and explicitly refused to take it on. Their first unifying act to bring together Birmingham, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton Corporation bus services was the new Route 79, precisely paralleling the Snow Hill line. (Just so that Walsall Corporation didn't feel missed out they summarily withdrew the trolleybuses, introduced a new express Birmingham-Walsall bus service via the Aston Expressway and M6 and planned to scrap the newly-electrified Birmingham-Walsall EMU service. The wouldn't even have signs between Walsall Bus Station and the railway station 'because it's going to close anyway'.)
Indeed. A supportive PTE might have tipped the balance.
A masterly understatement!
It should perhaps also be mentioned that the 1968 Transport Act also introduced 'Surplus Track Capacity Grants'. This was time-limited investment cash that had to be spent on rationalising lines.
There may well have been vandalism 'in the BR era' but it is far from clear that BR/Beeching/Marples/whoever were the real vandals.
And, yes, I spend far too many hours absorbed in Steve's site.
