Stourbridge Junction railway station

Infobox UK station
name = Stourbridge Junction
for Stourbridge Town
code = SBJ


manager = London Midland
locale = Stourbridge
borough = Dudley
pte = West Midlands
zone = 5
usage0405 = 0.371
usage0506 = 0.394
usage0607 = 0.444
latitude = 52.447 longitude = -2.134
platforms = 3
start = 1852

Stourbridge Junction railway station is a railway station on the Birmingham, Worcester and Kidderminster Line in West Midlands, England. Stourbridge Town Branch Line runs from the station to Stourbridge town centre. Until 1974, the station was in Worcestershire.

The nearest railway stations are Hagley, Stourbridge Town and Lye.

History

The station was opened in 1852 on the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton railway line, at a slightly different location to the present station, under the name of Stourbridge. The junction came about when the Stourbridge Railway built their line to Lye and beyond.

Stourbridge become a double junction on October 1 1879 when the branch to Stourbridge Town and goods was opened.

On 1 October 1901 the new station opened 400 yards to the south of the original.

In 1962, the OW&WR closed north of Stourbridge to passenger services under the Beeching Axe.

The station was previously a four platform station, comprising two island platforms. The southern divergence to Platform 1, which is now solely served by the Stourbridge Town branch, was taken up some years ago and the end of the line is surrounded by fencing. Inside this fencing is a shed which houses the experimental Parry People Mover that was used on the branchline on Sundays for a 12 month test period during 2006. Platform 4 was also closed some years ago, with the adjacent carriage sidings being removed to make way for a car park. Track has also been rationalised in the yard to the north in recent years.

There is a vast array of sidings to the north of the station and they are often used to rest various maintenance vehicles and trains, and they are home to a Chiltern Railways LMD (light maintenance depot) where at night, and on Sundays, many Class 168 trains can be seen stabled.

Railway operations

ervices

From Stourbridge Junction, the main trains in service are Centro/London Midland Class 150 DMU units. They usually run to Birmingham Snow Hill via the Black Country stations and Smethwick Galton Bridge, to Worcester Shrub Hill or Great Malvern and to Stratford, Shirley, or Dorridge

Chiltern Railways also provide a peak time service to London Marylebone, commencing at Kidderminster and running via Birmingham Snow Hill. Despite local opposition, trains no longer run from Stourbridge to Birmingham New Street.

Trains operating from the Junction to Stourbridge Town are a lone single unit Class 153.

Charter trains can often be seen either stopped or routed through the station on weekends, since Stourbridge Junction is on the route to Kidderminster, where a lot of tours operate from or to. Two CrossCountry services - one early morning and one late evening - are timetabled to route through, but not call at, Stourbridge Junction. These start and terminate from New Street. The station also sees frequent expresses pass through when the Lickey Incline is closed.

Freight

On weekdays, three EWS steel trains headed by Class 60s and Class 66s route through the station (except Fridays where just one train operates), headed for Round Oak Steel Terminal. These trains are from Margam and Llanwern. Four trains (three on Fridays) do the journey in reverse. These are spread periodically through the day. No freight operates on Saturdays, but one train each way operates on a late evening Sunday. There is also an occasional scrap train from Round Oak, which operates when required on Fridays. Other freight has been known to pass through on its way to Galton Junction to route onto the West Coast Main Line's Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line. This includes a nuclear flask train from Bridgwater which operates when required.

External links

* [http://www.railaroundbirmingham.co.uk/Stations/stourbridge_junction.php Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Stourbridge Junction railway station]
* [http://www.miac.org.uk/stourbridgejunction.htm Railways in Worcestershire]
* [http://www.stourbridge.com/htm/stourdudley.htm Re-open the Stourbridge-Dudley Line]
* [http://www.stourbridgelineusergroup.info/ S.L.U.G (Stourbridge Line Users Group)]

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