Snow Hill lines

This is about the lines in the West Midlands. The name also sometimes refers to the lines through Snow Hill Tunnel in London, now part of the Thameslink route.

Diagrammatic map of the Snow Hill Lines (not to scale)

The Snow Hill Lines is the collective name for the railway lines running through Birmingham Snow Hill, and Birmingham Moor Street stations in Birmingham, United Kingdom.[1][2] They form an important part of the suburban rail network of Birmingham, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. All other lines to/through Birmingham use Birmingham New Street station. The Snow Hill lines carry around 20% of the daily rail services into Birmingham; the remainder use New Street.[3]

Historically, the lines running through Snow Hill station were built by the Great Western Railway, and so they are largely separate from the lines running into New Street station, which were built by the London and North Western Railway and Midland Railway.

The original Snow Hill station was closed in 1972. The Snow Hill lines in their present form came into being between 1987 and 1995, when Snow Hill station, and the line through to Smethwick was reopened, in order to create a new cross-city rail service via Snow Hill and Moor Street stations. The former line to Wolverhampton was reopened as the Midland Metro tram line in 1999.

  1. ^ "A new era for the Snow Hill lines". London Midland. Archived from the original on 26 March 2014. Retrieved 23 September 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. ^ "NETWORK ROUTE UTILLISATION STRATEGY (PASSENGER ROLLING STOCK)" (PDF). networkrail.co.uk. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  3. ^ "Birmingham New Street — History". Network Rail. Retrieved 2 April 2014.