Bumble Hole Line

Bumble Hole Line
Legend South Staffordshire Line Blowers Green Baptist End Withymoor Goods Yard Windmill End Darby End Old Hill High Street Old Hill (Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster Line ) Halesowen Railway

The Bumble Hole Line was a short railway located in Central England. It opened in 1878 to give Dudley a direct railway link with Old Hill, over a distance of three miles. It was used as a connection between Dudley town and Snow Hill, and was dual track all of the way, to allow its inclusion into a mainline route. As with most lines of this nature, patronage was extremely poor and passengers would often find themselves alone on the single car Class 122 DMU that operated the service in later years.

Opening

The line was opened by the GWR on 1 March 1878 ^[1] on the same day as the line from Old Hill to Halesowen started service.

Closure

Passenger services along the line were withdrawn in 1964 due to the Beeching Axe, though the line remained to goods trains until January 1968. The track was removed in 1969.

Remains

The Greaves Road Bridge at the edge of Netherton Park. The Withymoor Basin branch line passed under this bridge.

By 1980 most signs of the line had been completely obliterated, at least to the casual observer, though a number of reminders of the line - including embankments, cuttings, three former road bridges over the line (at New Road, St. Peters Road and Greaves Road) and the remains of other bridges including an overbridge in Old Hill - are still in existence some 40 years after the line's closure. With the assistance of a pre-Beeching closure map and the current Explorer Ordnance Survey map of the area (sheet 219) it is possible to trace much of the line either on foot or on satellite images available on the Internet. As the OS map shows, much of the Netherton end of the line (including the canal branch) is now a footpath and it is possible to walk on the former track bed from the New Road crossing, south of Dudley, to the site of Windmill End Station and a little beyond with just a few detours around new buildings. Access to the line is more difficult as it approaches Old Hill but since little of the line has been built on, it is clearly visible using the satellite images from Google Maps, for example.

See also

• Bumble Hole Branch Canal

References

1. ↑ Shaw, Dan (6 October 2011). "When the slow train stopped at Windmill End". Black Country Bugle. Retrieved 24 November 2015. 

Coordinates: 52°29′27″N 2°04′08″W / 52.4909°N 2.0688°W / 52.4909; -2.0688