Water Orton railway station

Water Orton
The station in August 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 Railway
Platforms	2
Tracks	3
Other information
Station code	WTO
Classification	DfT category F2
Key dates
10 February 1842	first station opened
1908	resited
Passengers
2019/20	62,924
2020/21	9,470
2021/22	25,812
2022/23	39,384
2023/24	43,444
Location
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Lines around Whitacre Junction

Water Orton railway station serves the village of Water Orton in Warwickshire, England. It is owned by Network Rail, and managed by West Midlands Railway. 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 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.

Facilities

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.^[3]

Platform 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.^[4]

Platform 1 is used for stopping trains to Leicester and Birmingham, whilst platform 2 is used for trains towards Derby, of which only one calls per day.

Services

CrossCountry serves the station with services every two hours off-peak westbound to Birmingham New Street and eastbound to Leicester, with 1tph in each direction in the peaks. The last train to New Street of the day departs at 16:02.^[5]

There is generally one train a day Monday-Friday evenings to Nottingham via Derby and Tamworth. There is no Sunday service.

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Birmingham New Street		CrossCountry Birmingham – Leicester – Stansted Airport Mondays-Saturdays only		Coleshill Parkway
Birmingham New Street		CrossCountry Cardiff - Birmingham - Nottingham Mondays-Fridays only		Wilnecote
	Historical railways
Castle Bromwich		Midland Railway Birmingham–Peterborough line		Forge Mills

References

1. Pixton, B., (2005) Birmingham-Derby: Portrait of a Famous Route, Runpast Publishing
2. "The Midland Railway". Gloucestershire Chronicle. England. 15 August 1908. Retrieved 23 January 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
3. "National Rail Enquiries - Station facilities for Water Orton".
4. "New Station at Water Orton to relieve capacity constraints" (PDF). Retrieved 6 January 2021.
5. "Stansted, Cambridge & Nottingham to Birmingham & Cardiff - Sunday 21 May 2023 – Saturday 09 December 2023" (PDF). Cross Country Trains.

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