Camp Hill railway station

Camp Hill
Camp Hill railway station, date unknown
General information
Location	Camp Hill, Birmingham England
Coordinates	52°27′43″N 1°53′00″W / 52.4620°N 1.8832°W / 52.4620; -1.8832
Grid reference	SP080849
Platforms	2
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Birmingham and Gloucester Railway
Pre-grouping	Midland Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
17 December 1840 (1840-12-17)	Opened
17 August 1841	Closed
15 November 1841	Reopened
1 December 1867	Closed; reopened as Camp Hill and Balsall Heath
1 April 1904	Renamed Camp Hill
27 January 1941 (1941-01-27)	Closed[1][page needed]

Camp Hill railway station was the name of a series of successive railway stations in Camp Hill, Birmingham on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway.

The first station at Camp Hill, then near the outskirts of Birmingham, was opened as Birmingham Camp Hill in 1840 by the B&GR to serve as their temporary northern terminus.

After an agreement was reached with the London and Birmingham Railway, the line was extended to terminate at the latter's centrally located Birmingham terminus. Services switched termini on 17 August 1841, and the station was closed to passengers. As goods traffic had started operating on the line from April that year, the site of the B&GR terminus at Camp Hill was converted into a goods terminus. Now located on a short spur, it was renamed Camp Hill Goods. A short time later on 15 November 1841 a newly-constructed passenger station was opened just south of the spur, also named Camp Hill.

From 1867 to 1904, it was known as Camp Hill and Balsall Heath. The name of the station reverted back to Camp Hill in 1904.

Because of the necessity for a reversal at New Street (which replaced Curzon Street as the northern terminus in 1854), many trains on the Midland Railway line from Derby continued to use Camp Hill until New Street was extended in 1885 and connected to the Birmingham West Suburban Railway (BWSR).^{[2][page needed]} This also resulted in the stretch from Kings Norton to Camp Hill becoming a branch line, being renamed the Camp Hill line after its eponymous former terminus.

The station and line closed to passenger traffic on 27 January 1941.^[3] Camp Hill Goods station continued operating until the 1960s, however it has since been turned into an industrial estate.

• Mr. Mewis c.1847—?
• John F. Pepper 1859—1894^[4]
• John Edward Hemmings 1895—?
  (formerly station master at Five Ways)
• Mr. Avery ?—1936^[5]
• E. Bosworth ?—1939^[6]
• H.J. Turner 1939—1941
  (also station master at Brighton Road and Moseley)

On 26 June 1845, a B&GR passenger train from Gloucester, hauled by one of the company's Philadelphia, United States-built engines, ran into a slow-moving "heavy, powerful" goods engine which was crossing the line from a siding, via a diamond crossing, at Camp Hill. The driver of the Gloucester train was badly hurt after jumping from his engine. Some passengers suffered minor injuries, mostly from flying glass. Both engines suffered only minor damage. The driver of the goods engine was deemed at fault, but was discharged by magistrates on the grounds of previous good character. For the same reason the company demoted him to non-driving duties, rather than dismissing him.^[7]