Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line

Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line
Overview
Locale Shropshire
Wolverhampton
Staffordshire
Shrewsbury and Atcham
West Midlands (region)
Telford and Wrekin
Operation
Owner Network Rail
Technical
Track gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge

Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line

Legend
Shrewsbury to
Chester Line
Welsh Marches Line
 Shrewsbury
Welsh Marches Line
Abbey Foregate
Wellington to
Craven Arms Railway
Upton Magna
Ironbridge
Power Station
Walcot
Severn Valley Railway
Admaston
Coalbrookdale
Nantwich and
Market Drayton Railway
Green Bank Halt
Wellington
Lightmoor
Stafford to
Shrewsbury Line
Wellington to
Craven Arms Railway
New Hadley Halt
Oakengates
Coalport Branch Line
Madeley

Telford Central
 Shifnal
 Cosford
 Albrighton
 Codsall
 Bilbrook
Wombourne
Branch Line
Oxley TRSMD
Rugby-Birmingham-
Stafford Line
Dunstall Park

Victoria Basin
Wolverhampton
(High Level)
Wolverhampton
Low Level

 
Midland Railway
Rugby-Birmingham-
Stafford Line

goods depot
 
 
Oxford, Worcester &

Wolverhampton and
Walsall Railway
Wolverhampton Line
 
 
Walsall to
Wolverhampton Line
 

The Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line is the railway line from Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury via Wellington; it was originally built by the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway. The line is double track throughout, with rarely used relief sidings at Cosford and 4 tracks through Wellington station.

Electrification from Stafford Road Junction to Oxley, is provided solely to enable electric stock to access Alstom's Oxley TRSMD, and is therefore constructed as a "tram wire" suitable for low speeds only.

Signalling is centred at Madeley Junction. Towards Wolverhampton, the West Midlands Signalling Centre, Oxley Workstation, takes over (previously Oxley signal box until it closed on Saturday 27 November 2010 under the West Midlands Resignalling scheme) and towards Shrewsbury, Abbey Foregate signal box.

Route

The towns and villages served by the route are listed below, East to West.

Passenger services

Monday-Saturday

Arriva Trains Wales, London Midland and Virgin Trains operate passenger trains on this line. Westbound, some trains go beyond Shrewsbury to Chester, Holyhead, Aberystwyth and Wrexham General while eastbound, services continue beyond Wolverhampton to Birmingham New Street and/or Birmingham International.[1]

As of December 2014, Virgin Trains run two daily services between Shrewsbury and London Euston. [2]

Sundays

There are no London Midland services in operation on this line on Sundays. Virgin Trains services only operate one of their direct trains in each direction on Sundays. Arriva Trains Wales services operate as normal with infrequent additional stopping services in lieu of the London Midland services.

Freight

Telford Railfreight Depot

The Coalbrookdale line, which serves Ironbridge Power Station to the south of Telford near Ironbridge, joins the Wolverhampton-Shrewsbury Line at Madeley Junction, which is between Telford Central and Shifnal stations.[3] Coal trains run by EWS up to 2012 and by Fastline up to 2010[4] used the route, supplying the power station. Between 2012 and 2015, the power station was converted to run on biomass which was supplied mostly via Liverpool Docks by GBRf trains until closure of the plant in November 2015.[5]

In 2008 the former Wellington to Stafford line was rebuilt as far as Donnington, for freight use. Telford International Railfreight Park is located at a 48 acres (0.19 km2) site just off the Hortonwood Roundabout near Donnington which opened in 2009. The reopened line is single track and runs for 2 miles 68 chains (4.6 km) from the junction with the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line at Wellington ( 0.25 miles (0.40 km) east of Wellington station). Currently the only rail business to and from the site is Ministry of Defence traffic[6] which runs down from Warrington so only uses a brief portion of the line between Shrewsbury and Wellington.[7]

References

  1. ↑ GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 74 & 75
  2. ↑ BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29313965
  3. ↑ Bridge, Mike (2013). Railway Track Diagrams - Midland and North West. Bradford-on-Avon: Trackmaps. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-9549866-7-4.
  4. ↑ Buck, Martin (2010). Loco Review 2011. Swindon: Freightmaster Publishing. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-9558275-4-9.
  5. ↑ Shannon, Paul (20 January 2016). "Feeding the nations power stations". Rail Magazine. No. 792. p. 49.
  6. ↑ Shannon, Paul (December 2013). "On government business". Railways Illustrated. 11 (12): 84. ISSN 1479-2230.
  7. ↑ Rawlinson, Mark (November 2015). "Freighmaster 80". Freightmaster (80): 75. OCLC 904391334.

See also

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