days as the Metropolitan Siding, opened in 1904, from what the LNWR termed Washwood Heath Junction at the point where the Aston-Stechford line passed over the Midland Railway from Birmingham to Derby. The Metropolitan Siding descended on an incline from Washwood Heath Junction and was the subject of detailed instructions on the working of trains and prevention of what the instructions term "breakaway" wagons on the siding. The new line was also used for the Wolverhampton portions of some London expresses and also to provide through carriages between Euston and Walsall. In May 2022 the arched viaduct carrying the Aston-Stechford line was replaced with a new steel bridge, 92 metres long with space below for the future HS2 tracks to run parallel to the Birmingham-Derby line. The first station at Aston was replaced by a new building during the construction of the Stechford line with a booking office level with Lichfield Road. Stairs and hydraulic lifts for goods traffic gave access to each of the two platforms. Also in 1880, the LNWR opened a line for freight traffic from Aston to Windsor Street goods depot. The latter line closed in 1980. The LNWR's Aston locomotive depot ("Aston Shed") was opened in 1883 in the area between the Aston to Birmingham and the Aston to Stechford lines and with an entrance on Long Acre, Nechells. It was closed in 1965, by then under British Railways ownership. The line between Aston and Vauxhall and Duddeston was quadrupled in 1891. In 1900, a connection to Nechells gas works was opened from a point near Nechells Park Road bridge on the line towards Birmingham New Street. When the gas works closed in 1969, the branch was taken out of use at the same time. Although the tracks have been lifted, the embankment on which it ran remains substantially intact. The station became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923. It then passed to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. When Sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by Regional Railways on behalf of the West Midlands PTE, for whom British Rail had been running the trains since the PTE's inception. In 2011, London Midland, proposed a major reduction in the opening hours of the ticket office, with complete closure at weekends. Electrification and resignalling Apart from the Sutton Coldfield branch, all of the