A class not often associated with Snow Hill
David. J. Hayes explains "The reason for the appearance of the Class 40 at Birmingham Snow Hill (BSH) at this time in the mid-1960's was most likely due to the ongoing installation of overhead electrification on the Stour Valley main line between Birmingham New Street (BNS) and Wolverhampton High Level (WHL). Class 40's, sometimes working in pairs, could be seen traversing the former Great Western Railway (GWR) main line axis between BSH and Wolverhampton Low Level (WLL) on services that had been diverted away from their normal routing of via the "Stour" because of the said engineering works.

The newly electrified main line between BNS and WHL brought about the demotion and downgrading of the GWR route between BSH and WLL in March 1967, which lost its main line status and eventually closed to passenger services in March 1972. It then became a fragmented freight-only byway. Today, much of the ex-GWR alignment between Birmingham and Wolverhampton forms the Midland Metro, which opened in May 1999".

Mike Hollick says "More likely this was taken in 1966 when Type 4s started appearing on Tyseley trip workings. Looks like its on the down through line with the driver on the phone waiting for the road.
Tyseley men started learning EE Type 4s in April 1965 so the pic could have been 1965 - they definitely had some freight trips with them in 1966".

44780 went to Tyseley in October 1965 but left for Shrewsbury the following September.