Solihull railway station serves the town of Solihull in the West Midlands of England. The station is served by London Midland and Chiltern Railways. CrossCountry serve the station occasionally, when replacing stops at Coventry and Birmingham International during engineering work. Solihull used to have a regular Virgin Trains service to Manchester Piccadilly, Blackpool North and Portsmouth Harbour until 2004, when all services were reverted to going through Coventry.
The station booking office is located underneath the trackbed in a subway, where footsteps lead up to the island platform. Services are operated by Chiltern Railways to London Marylebone via High Wycombe, London Midland to Dorridge, extending to Leamington Spa at peak times. The vast majority of Chiltern Railways services terminate at Birmingham Snow Hill, with extensions to Kidderminster at peak times. London Midland operate services to Great Malvern via Stourbridge Junction on a 20-minute frequency.
Recent investment by Chiltern Railways has seen rail times into London reduced to just one hour and 22 minutes - trains now travel along the line at 100 mph. In 2012, a new car park deck was suspended above the existing station car park to increase passenger capacity in light of the investment. As a result, car park capacity doubled to 455 car parking spaces. The car park was delivered by the contractor, Bourne Parking.
Solihull station has undergone significant rationalisation in recent decades, with a goods yard being removed, an island platform and a signal box. Until 1967 the former GWR London Paddington - Birkenhead Woodside train services passed through the station but few stopped there; these services ceased with the electrification of the former LMS line from London Euston to Birmingham New Street. With the removal of an island platform, Solihull has since lost its platform buildings, being reduced to a single platform building. It has lost much of its GWR features. Platform canopies were constructed once again in 2007-08, but not to the former GWR scale.
Some recent renovations under the auspices of Chiltern Railways has seen the removal of the signage above the station entrance in the photograph shown above and replacement with gilt signage inspired by the that used by the Great Western Railway.
Famous quotes containing the words station and/or railway:
“With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)