railroad.wikisort.org - Station

Water Orton railway station serves Water Orton in Warwickshire, near Coleshill, England. It is owned by Network Rail, and managed by West Midlands Trains. However, no West Midlands Trains stop there; it is only served by CrossCountry services.

Water Orton
The station in 2013.
General information
Location	Water Orton, North Warwickshire England
Coordinates	52.518611°N 1.743889°W / 52.518611; -1.743889
Grid reference	SP174912
Managed by	West Midlands Trains
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	WTO
Classification	DfT category F2
Key dates
1842	first station opened
1908	resited
Passengers
2016/17	51,680
2017/18	55,642
2018/19	57,080
2019/20	62,924
2020/21	9,470
Location
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

History

It was first opened in 1842 by the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway on its line into Birmingham Lawley Street from Whitacre Junction.

However the Midland Railway built a cutoff line from slightly further west to a junction at Kingsbury between 1908 and 1909. The station was resited[1] in August 1908.[2] Although the distance saved was only a mile-and-a-quarter, the junctions at Water Orton and Kingsbury could be taken at a much higher speed than the original one at Whitacre. The line from Whitacre to Kingsbury is used by only a few trains a week.

A freak tornado hit Birmingham in 1996 and damaged the wooden staircase. Rather than remove and replace the stairs, the damaged staircase was repaired in situ resulting in a zig-zag appearance. Local residents approved of this and it was left as it is found today.

Stationmasters

Layout

The station is known to be a bottleneck for many CrossCountry services, with stopping Leicester to Birmingham, all Birmingham to Leicester and services from the North east to Birmingham all using one platform. However, resolving this is not easy and proposals have been put forward to build a new station at Water Orton to relieve capacity constraints through the station.[10]

The station is unstaffed and has no ticketing facilities, so passengers requiring a ticket must purchase one in advance or from the conductor on the train.[11]

Services

Platform 1 is used for stopping trains to Leicester and Birmingham.

Platform 2 is used for trains towards Derby, of which only one calls per day

Services are mainly two hourly to Birmingham New Street and Leicester, with additional services in the peak.[12]

There is one train a day Monday-Friday to Derby via Tamworth; one also calls in the opposite direction.

There is no Sunday service.

References

External links

• Train times and station information for Water Orton railway station from National Rail
• Water Orton station at warwickshirerailways.com
• A history of the station within a National context at History
• Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Water Orton railway station

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Birmingham New Street		CrossCountry Birmingham-Leicester Mondays-Saturdays only		Coleshill Parkway
	Historical railways
Castle Bromwich		Midland Railway Birmingham-Peterborough line		Forge Mills

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