page_title: Lickey Incline
section_title: History and geography
hierarchical_section_title: Lickey Incline / History and geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Up express ascending Lickey Incline, View SW, towards Bromsgrove, Worcester, Cheltneham, Gloucester and Bristol; ex-Midland Birmingham - Bristol main line. The two miles at 1-in-37 of the Lickey Incline is the steepest bank on any main line in Britain and in the days of Steam all but the lightest trains had to be banked up from Bromsgrove to Blackwell. This Weston-super-Mare - Birmingham express, headed by LMS Compound 4P 4-4-0 No. M935 (temporary number, later 40935) had the dedicated Lickey banker, 0-10-0 No. 22290 &#39;Big Bertha&#39;, blasting behind.
context_page_description: The Lickey Incline, south of Birmingham, is the steepest sustained main-line railway incline in Great Britain. The climb is a gradient of 1 in 37.7 for a continuous distance of two miles. Constructed originally for the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway and opened in 1840 it is located on the Cross Country Route between Barnt Green and Bromsgrove stations in Worcestershire.
  In earlier times many trains required the assistance of banking locomotives with associated logistical considerations to ensure that the train reached the top; now only the heaviest of freight trains require such assistance.
context_section_description: A survey by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1832 for a line between Birmingham and Gloucester followed a longer route well to the east with a maximum 1 in 300 gradient avoiding population centres, the plan lapsed with the cost being deemed too high.  In 1836 William Moorsom was engaged on a no success - no fee to survey a suitable route; with his choice being the shortest and least cost path by avoiding high land cost population centres of Worcester, Droitwich, and Tewksbury but with the disadvantage of needing to mount the steep Lickey Incline. As some B&GR the independent engineer Joseph Locke was requested to review Moorsom's work; Locke responding that the Lickey Inline would be no more dangerous than a turnpike road on an incline and he saw no reason for an alternative route.  Brunel and George Stephenson declared it would be impractical for locomotives to work such a steep incline, however Moorson was aware of claims of climbing process of American Norris engines and ordered such engines against their advice.
  The Lickey opened for traffic on 17 September 1840 when the following the arrival of the second Norris Class A extra Boston avoided the first Philadelphia being a single point of failure to the operation of the incline.
  The climb is just over 2 miles (3.2 km), at an average gradient of 1 in 37.7 (2.65%), between Bromsgrove and Blackwell (near Barnt Green). It is on the railway line between Birmingham and Gloucester (grid reference SO985710).  The Lickey Incline is the steepest sustained adhesion-worked gradient on a British standard gauge railway. It climbs into Birmingham from the south over the Bunter geological formation (one or two exposures are visible from the track-side), and passes about 1 ¹⁄₂ miles (2.4 km) away from the Lickey Hills, a well-known local beauty spot.
  Working of the Lickey fell to successor companies of the B&GR: the Bristol and Birmingham then Midland (MR) from 1845; The London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) from 1923; and the London Midland Region of British Railways from 1948.  The Lickey was transferred to the Western Region on 1 February 1958.  Privatisation in 1993 has seen the infrastructure fall under the remit of Railtrack to 2010 and Network Rail thereafter while Freight Operating Companies (FOC) organise banking for the relatively small proportion of heavy freights that now require it.
  As of 2016, the incline was electrified overhead as part of the scheme to extend electric Cross-City Line trains to a resited Bromsgrove railway station. The first electric train, composed of two Class 323 electric multiple units, ran on 20 May 2018 . Scheduled electric services started in July 2018.
  Broadly the same hillside is climbed by the Tardebigge lock flight on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.
caption: Up express in 1948
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