Steam Memories: The Lickey Incline and Bromsgrove Station

Our visit to the Severn Valley Railway

gave me the opportunity to visit Bromsgrove

and the infamous Licky incline

Bromsgrove Station

At the end of the platform the 1:37

begins

The Lickey Incline, between Bromsgrove

and Blackwell, south of Birmingham. It is the

steepest sustained main-line railway incline

in the UK. The climb is a gradient of 1-in-37

(2.65%) for a continuous distance of two

miles (3.2 km).

Looking up the bank from Finstall Rd

Bridge towards Blackwell. I well

remember this steady slog behind

Jubilee's or Black fives on the

returning 'Devonian'.

Looking back down the start of the

bank towards Bromsgrove station whose

platform can be seen in the distance

The once busy banker sidings are now disappearing

under modernisation at Bromsgrove. Once the Licky

banker (Big Bertha) would wait trains needing assistance

up the bank in the sidings to the right. Later the work was

undertaken by 9F's and a mixture of others. On busy

days you could see a couple of GWR panier tanks

double/double banking as it were on the climb.

up the Licky hills

It is part of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, surveyed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1832, who suggested a route well to the east. William Moorsom was asked to take over, with his remuneration linked to the savings he achieved. At the time, most railways were for difficult terrain between canals, and the use of cable assistance would not have seemed unreasonable. (When Brunel, for instance, first surveyed the GWR, he planned to use cable assistance in the Box Tunnel.)
The climb is just over two miles (3.2 km), at an average gradient of 1 in 37.7 (2.65%), between Bromsgrove and Blackwell (near Barnt Green). It is on the railway line between Birmingham and Gloucester (grid reference SO985710). The Lickey Incline is the steepest sustained adhesion-worked gradient on a British standard gauge railway. It climbs into Birmingham from the south over the Bunter geological formation (one or two exposures are visible from the track-side), and passes about a mile and a half (2.4 km) away from the Lickey Hills, a well-known local beauty spot.

To assist trains up the incline and in some cases to provide additional braking, particularly to unfitted freights, specialised banking engines were kept at Bromsgrove shed at the foot of the incline.
The first locomotives were American Norris 4-2-0s, English manufacturers having declined to supply. The railway acquired 26 of them, of which the last nine were built in England, three by Benjamin Hick and Sons and six by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company The last one was withdrawn in 1856.
Around 1845 a large 0-6-0ST, the Great Britain was built in Bromsgrove Works.
1377 Class 1Fs, and later 2441 Class 0-6-0Ts were used on the route.
In 1919 the specialised 0-10-0 No. 2290 "Big Bertha" was introduced to complement the existing 0-6-0Ts. "Big Bertha" was withdrawn in 1956 and replaced by BR standard class 9F No. 92079, which acquired Big Bertha's headlight.
The LNER Class U1 Garratt was also tried out unsuccessfully in 1949–1950 and again in 1955. On one occasion it was banking a train hauled by LMS Garratt No. 47972 which stalled on the bank and was rescued by "Big Bertha",^[1] resulting in the formation of a train with nineteen driving axles.
The Lickey was transferred to the Western Region in 1958 and the 3F tanks were replaced by GWR 9400 Class pannier tanks and 92079 was replaced by classmate 92230, which did not acquire the headlight.
The bankers would stand in a siding on the up side to the south. The load of each train would be telegraphed from Cheltenham.
If the driver decided he needed more bankers than the table provided for him, he would whistle approaching Stoke Works signal box: a short whistle, pause, and a number of shorts indicating the number of bankers he wanted. (The 0-10-0 counted as two).
He stopped at a marker fifteen yards to the rear of Bromsgrove Station up home signal, or further up if necessary to clear the crossover by which the bankers moved on to the back of his train. They were not coupled to his train or to each other. When he was in position each banker gave two crow whistles,^[5] and the train driver gave two crows in reply. Then he gave one long whistle and all of them opened their regulators.
At the top the bankers kept pushing through Blackwell station and then shut off in turn, keeping well apart, then crossed over to the down line and closed up ready to return.
To speed things up at busy times, Blackwell down advance starter signal had a calling-on arm which applied only to the bankers accepting them downhill while the station was still occupied.
Descending trains were never accepted unless the line was clear as far as Bromsgrove South, and were strictly required to slow to 10 mph at the top and not exceed 27 mph on the way down. Loose-coupled freight trains had to stop at the top to apply wagon brakes and not exceed 11 mph.

Many thanks to Wikipedia for the above