Season 8, Episode 3 - Trains at Northfield station

Our third and final station of the day brings us one station up from Longbridge and brings us to the heights and windiness of Northfield station

The station was opened on 1st September 1870 by the Midland Railway. In 1892, the line through Northfield was quadrupled, though only the inner pair of lines had platform access. In 1913 it was the subject of an arson attack by suffragettes. Fortunately, the fire was extinguished before serious damage was done. The station was placed under threat of closure in 1963, when the suburban service to Redditch was listed for withdrawal in the Beeching Report and its frequency cut significantly. Following widespread public opposition and a campaign by local MPs, the route was subsequently reprieved in 1965 but for the next thirteen years it only received a limited service, just four return trips per day to & from New Street. In May 1978, the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive, now known as Centro, launched the new Cross City line suburban service, which linked the existing New Street to Lichfield route to a revamped service along the former Midland main line through Kings Norton to a newly re-sited terminus at Longbridge. One completely new station was opened at University, two others reopened and the remainder rebuilt & upgraded. Northfield received new slow line platforms as part of the £7.4 million upgrade package. Since then, the station has received a regular interval service from Birmingham and a variety of other improvements, notably the extension of the route at both ends in the 1980s and electrification in 1993.

Nowadays though, in this video, we see a variety of London Midland and Cross Country stock heading for a variety of destinations including Redditch, Four Oaks, Cardiff Central, Hereford and Exeter St Davids

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