New Kidderminster Station Building Opened
The new station building at Kidderminster opened on 7 June, replacing the inadequate building that had served the station for 50 years. The new building is the fifth at the station. The first was a temporary structure that opened with the station in 1852. It was replaced in 1859 by a building that only survived 3 years before it was destroyed by fire. The third building was the iconic mock-Tudor structure that served the station for over a century until it succumbed to dry rot in the late 1960s and was replaced by the “functional” brick portacabin. This survived until last year when it was demolished and replaced by a building more suited to a station with a footfall (pre-Covid) of over 1.6 million per year.
Campaign for Rail was able to visit Kidderminster station twice. The first occasion was on Monday 25 May, a fortnight before the station opened and our photographer was pleasantly surprised to witness a Transport for Wales Class 230 unit passing through while on a test run from Long Marston to Stourbridge Junction via Honeybourne and Worcester.
These test runs have become a regular occurrence with the units operating additional runs between Stourbridge Junction and Worcester before returning to the Vivarail base in Long Marston in the evening.
The photos below were taken on 23 June and show the completed station building. A larger version can be viewed by clicking on the individual photograph.
