From time to time I’ll search for Wolverhampton Low Level related stuff on e-Bay. The platform ticket (which is the avatar I use both here and on RMweb) is one recent example of this. The photo below shows this, along with a couple of other recent finds.
The June 1971 edition of Railway Magazine was sourced following a tip-off from Neil Rushby that it contained an article about the (then) imminent closure of the GWR mainline between Low Level and Snow Hill. While the article itself doesn’t really tell me much I’d not read or seen elsewhere before, it’s nice to have and really helps to set the scene for the layout. It’s interesting to read something written at the time the layout will be based, rather than the more recent sources. It is accompanied by a couple of photos, one of Low Level with the bubble car stabled in one of the centre roads and an 08 in the former up platform (with a varied selection of parcels vans and a couple of vanfits). The other shows the bubble car pausing for custom at Priestfield on its way towards Snow Hill.
The pink sheet of paper (actually there are two sheets stapled together) is a BR handbill (which also dates from 1971) showing the timetable and ticket prices for the Low Level – Snow Hill passenger service. Six weekday departures left Low Level bound for Snow Hill (with an additional 13:50 departure Saturdays only). Journey time was 32 minutes (compared to 35 minutestoday on the Midland Metro – although that includes additional stops and takes you right into the centre of Wolverhampton), calling at Priestfeild, Bilston, Wednesbury, Swan Village, West Brom’, Handsworth, Langley Green and Hockley. There was of course, we are reminded “NO SUNDAY SERVICE”. A second class day return would cost you the princely sum of 40p; a one month season ticket £7.20.
One which got away recently was a 1971 Locoshed, mainly to confirm the Bescot 08 allocation at the time; I’ll keep looking. The plan is to display these finds on the fiddle yard screening of the layout – assuming I get the time to continue with the layout build since the arrival of the new family member at chez Forrest:
Staffordshire Finescale 