Another quick one from the huge number of images generously donated to the blog by Sir Gerald of Reece recently, and this time we have an image of somewhere familiar to all of us, but I bet the folk from Back the Track will be particularly interested.

This is an interesting image of the new traffic island in Brownhills from the mid 80s, and typifies Gerald Reece’s attention to taking photos few others were, that have been hugely useful to document change incrementally.

Brownhills Bridge, to give the traffic island its real name, was created in the mid 80s using the existing bridge and adding a new one alongside. It was constructed not long after the rails were lifted following the last goods train in 1984.

The wonderful Peter Booth covered the construction in this remarkable photo set too.

David Evans, who sent me the scan, had this to say:

Hi Bob

I am slowly working through the photos Gerlad Reece has given to me…

This is one of an album of some 70 plus photos of local bridges… Most of which I do not recognise!

But this one..yes. I have phoned Brian Stringer to check…

I think the photo dates from soon after the new bridge was completed…

Perhaps an ongoing irregular name that bridge series during the year?

What do you think Bob?

kind regards

David

I’m well up for a game of Name that Bridge – go for it David! Thank you, as always.

Now of course, the track is being brought back to the community by those wonderful folk from Back the Track, who are now very near the A5 in their clearance work. My respect and thanks to Brian Stringer and all the crew for their hard work.

If you want to find out about the Back the Track campaign and group, you can visit their website here and Facebook group here. They also have a twitter account here.

The donor of this remarkable image, Gerald Reece is of course a talented and superlative local historian, indeed now resident in Devon, who wrote the seminal work ‘Brownhills – A walk into history’ upon which this blog stands.