Tyseley (TYS)

Tyseley is at the junction of the Chiltern Main Line and Stratford-upon-Avon line in Birmingham between Small Heath and Spring Road or Acocks Green. It is also adjacent to a motive power depot and the Birmingham Railway Museum / Tyseley Locomotive Works (see below).
A non-stopping Cross Country service heads through Tyseley



Information
Type: National Rail (Chiltern Main Line, Snow Hill Lines)
Station code: TYS
Opened: 1906
Platforms: 4

The station was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1906 on what was originally the line from London Paddington to Birkenhead Woodside at the junction of the North Warwickshire Line down to Stratford-upon-Avon [1], the station was known as Tyseley Junction for a time. The station has a ticket office and entrance on the main road bridge that crosses a wide cutting. The four platforms consist of two islands both of which retain their GWR canopies and platform buildings.


Tyseley did lose the use of two of its platforms for a time but these were restored by Network Rail in 2008. The station is remarkably unchanged from its GWR days though the track layout has been greatly simplified [2].
Under the canopies

The booking hall is located on the road overbridge

Down the platform



Birmingham Railway Museum / Tyseley Railway Works

A large motive power depot and carriage sidings were built next to Tyseley railway station to cater for GWR's Birmingham division. The steam shed was closed in 1967. A couple of years a charitable trust was set up to build and maintain a workshop for steam locomotives which were now entering preservation. Lease of a site at Tyseley depot was purchased, flanked either side by parts of the remaining MPD and work began on the new steam workshop in 1969 [1].

By 1972 facilities were sufficient to allow the first trial run of a steam locomotive on the main line after BR withdrawal between Tyseley and Didcot. The site is now usually known as the Tyseley Railway Works (though the Tyseley station nameboards still refer to the railway museum). The works are the base of the steam excursion operator Vintage Trains as well as being host to a number of rebuild, restoration and new build projects as well as looking after the museum's collection and other rolling stock.

New build steam locomotives in the workshop

GWR Pannier tank 7752 at an open day




[1] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Banbury to Birmingham (Middleton Press, 2004) map. XXVI
[2] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Stratford-upon-Avon to Birmingham (Moor Street) (Middleton Press, 2006) fig. 94 
[3] Birmingham Railway Museum Guide Book, p. 5