The least used station in... West Midlands BORDESLEY (Annual passenger usage: 29062)
It's time once again to visit a ceremonial county's least used station.
I went to Greater Manchester's last year and before that Gloucestershire, Kent, Norfolk, Bucks, Surrey, Beds, Essex, Greater London, Herts and Berks. This one's properly odd, also oppressive, also rarely served, also sometimes extremely busy, also mostly locked, also at the heart of a built-up area, also a bit scary, and also doomed because it's scheduled for closure. So I got there just in time.
Bordesley is an inner Birmingham neighbourhood just over a mile east of the city centre. It's marginally inside Birmingham's mega inner ring road, the Middleway, and a tad further out than Digbeth. It was once filled with furniture factories, wharves and criminal gangs, being the very place where Peaky Blinders was notionally set. It's now run-down, semi-industrial and a focus for regeneration. It gained a station in 1855, later resited but still the last stop before Birmingham Moor Street. The issue is that hardly any trains stop here, indeed since 2007 the timetable has included just one train a week northbound only. That parliamentary train is currently the 14.08 to Kidderminster on a Saturday afternoon, after which the gate is locked again and the island platform goes back into enforced hibernation.
But Bordesley is also the closest station to St Andrew's, home to Championship side Birmingham City, and when they have a home match it's opened briefly to assist with fans' travel. Were it not for this double life Bordesley's annual passenger numbers would be pitiful, probably in the low hundreds, but instead it attracts 29,000 a year because all those home matches add up. So when I had an hour to waste in Birmingham on Wednesday evening the first thing I did was check the football fixtures, then smiled because Birmingham were playing QPR at home, then looked to see what the special timetable was. Several trains were making additional stops, ten northbound between 6pm and kick-off and five southbound between the final whistle and 11pm. And one of those looked doable so I bought a single ticket, walked quite fast to Bordesley and hoped to catch a rare train back. It was a ridiculously unlikely window of opportunity but it worked.
The station entrance is underneath a very broad railway viaduct, this the main route into Moor Street from Marylebone and Solihull. It was also very gloomy and I suspect it always is, not just because I'd turned up at dusk. This is not a station that shouts about its existence, this advertised only by a single West Midlands Railway sign on the wall and a few grubby poster frames. Alongside is a locked gate to some manky Victorian urinals (which Geoff managed to explore when he dropped by), also a bus stop somewhat optimistically named Bordesley Rail Station because making an interchange is nigh impossible. Five years ago there was a timetable poster (singularly titled 'Departure from Bordesley') but that's since been covered over by a list of engineering works. And last month the DfT added an additional official notice entitled PROPOSAL BY OPERATOR TO CLOSE BORDESLEY STATION, the proposed date of "on or after 4 June 2029" tucked away in the smallprint.
With the gate unlocked for football purposes it was possible to wander in and stand at the foot of a broad twisty stairwell. There's no ticket office here, not even a broom cupboard, just a list of platforms and a warning to fold pushchairs on the stairs. I was quite relieved the lights were on because it would have been seriously oppressive otherwise. But I'd only got halfway up the stairs, hovering for another photo and thinking blimey this is quiet, when there was a sudden commotion from above. A train had just arrived and hordes of Birmingham supporters in blue kits and scarves were storming downwards, clearly surprised to find a human obstruction in their way. I pushed on past at least 100 fans taking advantage of Bordesley's rare opening, meeting the stragglers on the platform, and as the doors closed on the Worcester train mused on the fact that even least used stations can have a rush hour.
And then I had Bordesley to myself. The stairs emerge at one end of a long wide island platform, adrift between the rails on a high brick viaduct. Ahead is a sign saying 'Smartcard reader' but underneath simply a post where one used to be attached. Behind that is a squat white waiting shelter with slot windows and no seats, so attractive to huddle in only if the weather's poor. As a nod to the 21st century the outer wall boasts a modern touchscreen help point on which the next trains are listed, normally zero or one but in this case seven thanks to QPR. And beyond that is nothing but an intermittent chain of lamps that stops well before the far end, where a lone signal gantry hangs expectantly over the northbound track. As befits a least used station it's a whole lot of empty nothing.
It is however an excellent viewing platform from which to view Birmingham's inner suburbs, or would have been if I'd arrived before twilight. To the east a lowrise skyline with the occasional silhouetted church. To the north a few large sheds and maybe some floodlights. To the west not as many high towers as you'd think Britain's second city would have. Up the line a modern bridge over a dual carriageway and a few canalside warehouses. And immediately alongside the station several soaring liftshafts, the spines of a brand new housing development of 550 build-to-rent flats called Smith'sGarden. One's so tall it's easily spotted from the city centre, but it's been that height for ages because the construction firm Elements Europe went into administration last summer and the entire project's stalled. Serves them right for boasting of "excellent connectivity" whilst overlooking a station with one train a week.
It may even have no trains a week by the time the first flat's occupied. The DfT very rarely go to the effort of properly closing a station, but in this case Bordesley's fate has been sealed by multiple factors. Most importantly it's in the way of a necessary transport project, the Bordesley Chords, which are needed to connect this viaduct to the Camp Hill line below. This freight line is reopening to passenger traffic next month with three new stations (Moseley Village, Kings Heath and the delightfully-named Pineapple Road). But trains will have to come the long way from New Street whereas with the extra chord's connections they could come direct from Moor Street, as could several other services unlocking a serious central bottleneck. Sacrifice one lightly-used station to create a junction and many more passengers could benefit.
It's also the case that Birmingham City intend to move into a superduper new stadium at the start of the 2030/31 season. It'd be near where they play now but crucially closer to Adderley Park station, a regular stop with regular trains, so the whole point of retaining Bordesley for football traffic would be lost. In addition there are plans to extend the West Midlands Metro to the new Sports Quarter, very likely with a stop near the current Bordesley station although they only got the funds to start planning it last month so it's too early to be sure. At present the tram tracks stop 500m away in Digbeth and aren't yet connected to the main network because HS2 needs to finish some intermediate works first, but one day, maybe, hopefully.
My isolation was shattered when, right on time, a train from Stratford-upon-Avon slid into platform 2 and another blue-clad throng emerged. I counted at least 100 which I thought was impressive, but only served to emphasise how unsuitable the stairs are for a sudden rush of footfall. They'd all be back later heading south whereas I was almost certainly the only northbound passenger of the day, dropped off just two minutes later at Birmingham Moor Street. Poor Bordesley - one of just a handful of inner Birmingham neighbourhoods to be blessed with its own station but cursed by an appalling service and now facing the axe. But there's no reason why this godforsaken station shouldn't close in 2029 because a tram could do the job infinitely better, and the sacrifice of one is for the good of the many.
