Water Orton railway station
Water Orton  | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The station in 2013. | |||||
| General information | |||||
| Location | Water Orton, North Warwickshire England | ||||
| Coordinates | 52°31′07″N 1°44′38″W / 52.518611°N 1.743889°W | ||||
| 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 | ||||
| 1909 | resited | ||||
| Passengers | |||||
| 2015/16 |  45,886 | ||||
| 2016/17 | 51,680 | ||||
| 2017/18 | 55,642 | ||||
| 2018/19 | 57,080 | ||||
| 2019/20 | 62,924 | ||||
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Water Orton railway station serves Water Orton in Warwickshire, near Birmingham, 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.
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 in 1909 and the station was resited.[1] 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, such as the 20:30 Crosscountry service from Birmingham towards Derby, though it passes fast through Water Orton.
A freak tornado in Birmingham in 1996 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.[citation needed]
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.[2]
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.[3]
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
- ^ Pixton, B., (2005) Birmingham-Derby: Portrait of a Famous Route, Runpast Publishing
- ^ [birmingham.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/1891/ta22_birmingham_eastern_fringe_rail_study_2014.pdf "New Station at Water Orton to relieve capacity constraints"] (PDF). Retrieved 6 January 2021.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Table 47 & 57 National Rail timetable, May 2019
External links
- Train times and station information for Water Orton railway station from National Rail
- Water Orton station at warwickshirerailways.com
- Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Water Orton railway station
| Preceding station |  National Rail
|
Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrossCountry Mondays-Saturdays only | ||||
| Historical railways | ||||
| Castle Bromwich | Midland Railway Birmingham-Peterborough line |
Forge Mills | ||