and from that time express passenger trains between Bristol and Birmingham used the West Suburban line. This had the added advantage of entering New Street station from the west, enabling forward running on to the Midland Railway's Derby line without reversal. Lifford Curve In 1892 a curve was installed at Lifford forming the third side of a triangle there, and enabling circular suburban passenger train operation. Lickey bank engines Banking on the Lickey incline remained an operational inconvenience throughout the years of steam traction. In 1920 a four cylinder 0-10-0 locomotive was built specially of the purpose; no 2290, it was known informally as Big Bertha, in association with the German heavy howitzer used during World War I. An electric headlight was provided on the engine to assist in closing up to the rear of a goods train in the hours of darkness Later, while no. 2290 was being overhauled, an LMS 2-6-0+0-6-2 Garratt design of engine, no 4998, was used and later an LNER 2-8-0+0-8-2 Garratt, class U1, no 69999 was used in 1949. Intermediate stations near Birmingham During World War II intermediate stations between Kings Norton and Birmingham on the original Birmingham and Gloucester alignment were closed as an economy measure, in 1941. After the end of the war, there appeared to be little public pressure to reopen them, and they remained closed. From 1923 A the start of 1923 most of the railways of Great Britain were restructured into four large concerns, a change mandated by the Railways Act 1921. The Midland Railway as a constituent of the new London, Midland and Scottish Railway, (LMS). Nationalisation In 1948 the railways were taken into national ownership under British Railways. Concentration from alternative routes Still in the early 1960s three routes vied as those for freight between two groups of areas: a) South West England and South Wales and b) England's West Midlands and North West: the above described main line, the "Lickey route", the via Honeybourne and Stratford and (in the case of South Wales only) the via Hereford and Worcester, or Shrewsbury. The backbone, Lickey route, carried the heaviest traffic by a moderate margin. The second line overlapped on the use of an east-of-Gloucester stretch of track for the onward link to South Wales; the third was principally Welsh-related and would be circuitous and involve the Great Western's Severn Tunnel for the South West of England. Concentration