Wombourne Branch Line

Wombourne Branch Line

Legend
Wolverhampton High Level
Wolverhampton Low Level
Wolverhampton LineOxford-Worcester- to Stafford
to Stafford

Dunstall Park
Shrewsbury LineWolverhampton- to Shrewsbury
Tettenhall
Compton Halt
Penn Halt
Wombourne
1913 proposed line to Bridgnorth
Himley

mineral railway

Baggeridge Colliery
Baggeridge Junction
Gornal Halt
Limit of remaining track
Pensnett Halt
Bromley Halt
Brockmoor Halt

Round Oak Steel Terminal
South Staffordshire line to Walsall

Brettell Lane
to Birmingham Snow Hill
Stourbridge Junction
South Staffordshire line
to Kidderminster

"Meccano Bridge", a steel truss skewed bridge today carrying the South Staffordshire Railway Walk along the route of the former Wombourne Branch and over the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal in Smestow Valley Local Nature Reserve, Wolverhampton

The Wombourne Branch (also known as the Wolverhampton and Kingswinford Railway) [1][2] was a railway situated in the English West Midlands. It branched from the Great Western Railway's Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton line at Kingswinford Junction to the north of Brettell Lane railway station and joined the same company's Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton line at the triangular Oxley Junction on the north-western approach to Wolverhampton Low Level.

Traffic

Unusually, the line was initially constructed for goods trains only. It was not until 1925 that passenger trains started using the line. A number of halts and stations were built at locations on the line including Wombourne and Tettenhall. Passenger services were short lived and were discontinued in 1932 after just seven years.

Closure

The line between Kingswinford and Tettenhall remained open to goods trains until 24 June 1965, though the branch which served Baggeridge Colliery survived until the closure of that facility on 2 March 1968.[3]

The remaining section of the line continued to serve various industrial units in the Pensnett area until 1994. The line is now singled and heavily overgrown with vegetation and even mature trees, but most it is still in place and there have been many recent suggestions that this final stub of the line will re-open to serve the Pensnett Trading Estate, which was developed during the 1980s.

The site today

The section north of Pensnett closed and is now utilised as -

References

  1. By rail to Wombourn, J. Ned Williams and students of Wulfrun College, Uralia Press, 1969.
  2. John Speller's Web Pages: Wolverhampton & Kingswinford Railway
  3. "Closing of Baggeridge". The Black Country Society. Retrieved 2013-08-10.
  4. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-60316741.html
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