Bromsgrove Rail User Group

Throughout the age of steam many different locomotives were used on the Lickey for banking duties, the most famous of which was BIG BERTHA, a huge machine built in Derby in 1920 and scrapped in 1956. BB had five pairs of driving wheels and massive power. 'Bertha' fell victim to the diesel age but she remains the most revered locomotive ever among her legions of admirers and especially amongst those who drove and fired her. No words could express the sadness of her passing like those of David Goulder:

      Her name lives on though her voice has gone,

     From the early morning fields

    Now all I have is a photograph

     of a girl with ten big wheels.

‘Resident’ diesel bankers working the Lickey were withdrawn completely in the 1980s and today it is only exceptionally heavy freight trains that need assistance. In these cases, a locomotive is sent from Gloucester.

Since the first sod of the Lickey Incline was cut in 1838 many colourful exploits that have occurred on the two miles climb have been passed on through generations by word of mouth and have been recorded in countless books and films. For Lickey Incline devotees both in the Bromsgrove locality and in many other parts of the country, it is a place of great charm and appeal, undiminished by the death of steam or the passing of the years. The two miles climb has survived for over 150 years, through war and peace and through times of fortune and ill fortune for the railway history and a much prized place in the folklore of the Bromsgrove district.  

 

Big Bertha