A cracking shot sent to me by Trevor Shakespeare showing a Class 25 loco (number D5223, later 25073) at Walsall Wood station in about 1964. The loco is facing towards Aldridge near the Lichfield Road bridge, on a train of 16-ton mineral wagons.
The Aldridge - Walsall Wood branch closed to passengers in 1930 and the line became a freight-only branch, being singled and terminated at the colliery just north of Walsall Wood station (the line formerly ran to Brownhills Watling Street station and on to Chasewater).
The branch closed completely shortly after January 1965 when the Sutton Park line lost it's passenger services, so this may have been one of the very last trains to use the branch.
Trevor writes - "The tall buildings in the background are those of the now demolished Co-op store. The small brick building above the first wagon was a pumping house ; that area used to flood regularly and the pump house had a full time attendant who lived
in a house on the land between the pump house and the road which can be seen in front of the Co-op."
The Walsall Wood station buildings survived until the 1970s (as did those at Aldridge) when they were finally knocked down.
Photo copyright T Shakespeare.
