History
The station was opened on 1 September 1870 by the Midland Railway. In 1892,the line through Northfield was quadrupled (though only the inner pair of lines had platform access). [1]
In 1913 it was the subject of an arson attack by suffragettes. The fire was extinguished before serious damage was done. [2]
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 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 (Birmingham),two others reopened and the remainder rebuilt &upgraded. Northfield received new slow line platforms as part of the £7.4 million upgrade package. [3] and other improvements to the designs of the architect John Broome [4] 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).
In 2013,lifts were built on both sides of the subway to allow disabled access to both platforms.
It currently has two operational platforms,numbered '1' and '4',with a disused island platform in the centre of the four-track lines.
Station masters
- J.W. Brookes 1870 - 1875 [5]
- Edgar Roach 1875 [5] - 1884 [6]
- William Morton 1884 [6] - 1915 - ????
- J.W Hook 1919 [7] - ???? (formerly station master at Wadborough)
- Harry Ariss 1937 [8] - ca. 1940 (afterwards station master at Water Orton)
- Fernley W. Maker 1952 - 1957
- F.G. Courtney 1957 [9] - ????
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
0.981 million
0.392 million
