Lickey Incline on Facebook

Alan Spencer, a fireman based at Bromsgrove MPD from 1963 till 1970, has set up a Facebook page at ‘The Lickey Incline and Bromsgrove MPD’

View SW, towards Bromsgrove etc.; ex-Midland Birmingham - Bristol main line. At 1-in-37, few lines - let alone main lines - were burdened with a steeper incline and virtually all Up trains here had to be sent up from Bromsgrove with at least one banking engine; these were not coupled and they dropped off at the summit at Blackwell. On this comparatively light train, the 14.22 stopping train from Worcester Shrub Hill to Birmingham New Street, Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 No. 45040 is managing so well with just the current Bromsgrove banker (Class 9F 2-10-0 No. 92079) that it is blowing off as it passes.

© Copyright Ben Brooksbank and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

More photographs from Ben Brooksbank

Ben Brooksbank is a retired medical scientist and has been a keen photographer for over 64 years. He has taken photographs, primarily of scenery and railways, in Britain and abroad, in colour since 1953 (slides, prints since 1980), digital since 2003). A lifelong Railway Enthusiast, in recent years he has concentrated on Closed Stations...as well as Open ones. Ben has several thousand photographs in his library, including over 1,000 b/w of Railway stations/remains (and 3,000+ of locomotive and train scenes) taken 1946-66); also over 5,000 more recent colour photographs, mainly of Stations. But Ben's photography is not just devoted to railways, he has also taken scenery and other non-railway photographs the same 65 year period in comparable numbers. See more at Geograph