Bournville Railway Station

If this was the train station outside Wonkaville, there would be cool stuff everywhere, oompa loompas would greet you off the train, there’d probably be chocolate rails… no such luck with Bournville. It is an extremely basic station, not clearly signed and sometimes completely unmanned.
Bournville is a quaint, pleasant village and when you smell the chocolate cooking in the air it can make you feel like everyone might suddenly burst into song walking down the streets, but the station brings you right back down to earth.
I know you shouldn’t expect much from a small station but come on, Cadbury World is right there, make an effort… at least have one of the Crème Egg cars on the car park!

If there is a station that means paradise, it’s Bournville one! The reason is simple: it takes you to the Cadbury World and for a chocoholic person like moi, it means that heaven is near somewhere here.
It doesn’t matter that a part the purple spread everywhere in this station, it is a quite simple stop, really. I used to make the Selly Oak– Bournville-​Selly Oak way every Tuesday because the kid I was looking after had some sport classes in that area. It was a very quick journey, really, but a very pleasant one and walking in the streets of Bournville itself is always something great.
Maybe it’s just a romantic thought a la «Charlie and the Chocolate Factory» but I love the fact this station has huge importance to the development of this particularly area of Birmingham and perhaps because this its simplicity has being preserved.
I can’t deny that the view of Cadbury World itself and the canal that we have from the station makes Bournville stop a perfect post card of Birmingham.

On a sunny day this place isn’t so bad, on a rainy day I can imagine it’s hell. Running alongside the canal and with postcard bridges passing over the railway line it feels quite relaxing and picturesque in the sunshine. When it’s raining this place is exposed. With a tiny ticket office, It suffers the fate of many small stations, it is only staffed part-​time so who knows when it’s open. As the train station for Cadbury World the signage has the touch of cadbury purple to them and you can see the back of the factory from the station.
As a small station it has few amenities and just the two platforms so things shouldn’t really be confusing. Sadly for me this isn’t true, with no sensible way out signs to point you to Cadbury World, never mind to specific roads. When trying to meet a friend to by the main station entrance I went the wrong way and just couldn’t figure out how to get where I needed to go through the lack of decent signage. I guess they just assume you should know.