Following the huge success of his authoritative railway atlas of London, Joe Brown has turned his attention to the railway network in & around Birmingham & the West Midlands. Lying in the heart of Engl&, Birmingham is an important railway centre. Historically, Birmingham was the focus of Britain`s first trunk railway from London to the North, which became the London & North Western Railway, & the Midland & Great Western Railways also soon extended their networks to Birmingham, leading to the construction of two impressive stations
- New Street & Snow Hill. Although some lines & stations have disappeared, the bulk of the network continues to play a pivotal role in the life of the city & Britain as a whole. This new atlas provides a comprehensive study of the railways of the West Midlands. The area covered extends to Nuneaton, Coventry, Redditch, Wolverhampton, Lichfield, Tamworth, Leamington & Stratford, with additional large scale & evolutionary maps of areas of particular interest. The detailed mapping shows individual track & platforms for all the lines, open & closed, as well as stations, changes of station name & opening & closing dates. The lines are colour coded by pre-Grouping company, with closed lines shown as thinner dashed lines.