Earlier history (19091987) At the turn of the 20th century, suburban rail traffic into Birmingham was growing rapidly. The
Great Western Railway (GWR) greatly expanded their facilities in the city at that time to cope with the demands.
Snow Hill station, their main station in Birmingham, was extensively rebuilt and expanded. However, the twin tracked
Snow Hill tunnel, which ran underneath the city centre into Snow Hill from the south, did not have enough capacity to accommodate all of the traffic, and widening the tunnel was considered impractical. In order to solve the capacity problem therefore, Moor Street station was built at the opposite end of the tunnel to take terminating local trains from the south and relieve traffic. It was a terminus for local trains from and local trains from , via the recently opened
North Warwickshire Line. It was opened with temporary buildings in July 1909, and the permanent buildings were completed in 1914. The station was located south of the entrance to Snow Hill tunnel, at the end of a short branch (the Moor Street branch) which connected the station to the main line. It originally had a single -long island platform with two platform faces. A third side platform, long was added in 1930. The through tracks to Snow Hill running alongside, however, were not provided with platforms. The station was equipped with two electrically operated
traversers at the buffer end of the platforms, as a space saving measure (given its confined site) in order to allow locomotives to move sideways between tracks, instead of having to reverse through crossovers. The traversers were removed from service in 1967, when all services to the station switched to
diesel multiple unit operation.
Goods station Moor Street was originally provided with a large
goods station situated adjacent to the passenger station, which opened in 1914. The GWR purchased and demolished a number of buildings, including the old
Public Office to make way for it. It was built using the increasingly rare
Hennebique technique for reinforced concrete.
Relocation In the mid-1980s, funding became available to reopen a station at Birmingham Snow Hill, along with
Snow Hill tunnel. As part of the reopening scheme, a new Moor Street station with through platforms was built at the southern portal of the restored tunnel. On completion of this project, the original Moor Street terminus became redundant, and closed down. The final train, on 26 September 1987, was a steam special hauled by a locomotive from
Birmingham Railway Museum,
Clun Castle. The old platforms were disconnected from the network and the new through station came into use on 5 October 1987. This service was taken over by Chiltern Railways following privatisation. In 1995, the completion of the
Jewellery Line project north of Snow Hill, meant that through services to , via and , were introduced.
Restoration The original station was not demolished, but was
mothballed and allowed to deteriorate. By the late 1990s, the former platforms were overgrown and dilapidated, and cracks in the wall were visible from the road side, including some caused by the impact of a runaway bus. In March 1988, the
Moor Street Station Historical Society was formed to "Save Our Station". Dr Bernard Juby, a medical practitioner from nearby Yardley, became its chairman and immediately set about campaigning for the station and its warehousing to be
listed. Large teams of volunteers met each weekend to clean and preserve the various buildings. The existing artefacts were carefully renovated and stored; they were subsequently reused when the station reopened to the public. As a result of their efforts, the old station became
Grade II listed in 1998. The inspector from
English Heritage had visited the site in 1988 and agreed that both station and warehouses should be listed; however, it took a further ten years and (with the help of councillors Sir Stan Yapp and Fred Chapman) a 14,500+ signature petition to
Birmingham City Council before the
Secretary of State signed it off. In the 2000s, the growth in services on the
Snow Hill Lines again strained capacity through Snow Hill tunnel; Chiltern Railways and the Birmingham Alliance decided to restore the original terminus and reopen it, to allow some services to terminate there rather than Snow Hill. Between 2002 and 2003, the original Moor Street station building and platforms were renovated and restored to a 1930s style at a cost of £11 million. However, there was a long delay before the old terminal platforms were connected to the network and opened for service; this was because of delays in carrying out the necessary signalling work by
Network Rail. Two of the three former terminal platforms, numbered 3 and 4, were reopened for use on 11 December 2010. The third bay platform 5 remains disused. The station became home to the cosmetically restored second
GWR 2884 Class 2-8-0 no. 2885 which, until its removal on 4 June 2013, stood in the disused platform five. Further renovations during 2011–12 included the installation of GWR-inspired gilt signage on the front and side elevations of the station building. Since the December 2010 timetable change, two of the three south-facing bay platforms at Moor Street station are now connected to the network and in use; this enabled some of the Chiltern services to and from London Marylebone to terminate at Moor Street, instead of Snow Hill. Local Chiltern stopping services to Leamington Spa will also begin and terminate at the new terminal platforms. Chiltern Railways are engaged in a large-scale redevelopment of their route from London Marylebone to Birmingham, with improvements to allow higher speeds. An express service between Moor Street and London Marylebone was introduced on 5 September 2011, using locomotive-hauled coaches, furthering the competition with
Virgin Trains'
West Coast Main Line services from Birmingham New Street. ==Services==