Buildwas railway station was an isolated junction railway station on the

Wellington to Craven Arms Railway The Wellington to Craven Arms Railway was formed by a group of railway companies that eventually joined the Great Western Railway family, and connected Wellington, Shropshire and Shifnal, with Coalbrookdale, Buildwas, Much Wenlock and a junction ...

and

Severn Valley Railway The Severn Valley Railway is a heritage railway in Shropshire and Worcestershire, England. The heritage line runs along the Severn Valley from Bridgnorth to Kidderminster, following the course of the River Severn for much of its route, and c ...

. Opened on 1 February 1862. Although the station served both the Severn Valley Railway and

, it was an interchange station in open countryside with no passenger access except by rail. The station had three platforms, with two platforms at a lower level serving the Severn Valley Railway and one at a higher level serving the Wellington to Craven Arms Railway. At its peak, the station had a total of eleven staff, including the station master. Up to 1923 the area was controlled by two

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

es, the Station signal box controlling the station area and the Junction signal box controlling the junction between the Severn Valley line and the

double track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lin ...

line across the

Albert Edward Bridge The Albert Edward Bridge is a railway bridge spanning the River Severn at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, England. History Opened on 1 November 1864 and named after the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), its design is almost identical to Victori ...

towards

Lightmoor Junction Lightmoor Junction was a railway junction between Ironbridge Power Station at Buildwas and Madeley Junction in Shropshire, England. From Lightmoor Junction, a line ran towards Wellington via Doseley and Horsehay. Following the complete closure ...

. These were replaced with a single signal box approximately midway between its predecessors in 1923. This box was subsequently enlarged to accommodate a frame containing 113 levers on 9 December 1931. The track layout was altered several times during its existence including the additional

CEGB The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 Januar ...

sidings opened in 1932. The planned closure of the northern end of the Severn Valley Line including Buildwas station pre-dated the

Beeching report Beeching is an English surname. Either a derivative of the old English ''bece'', ''bæce'' "stream", hence "dweller by the stream" or of the old English ''bece'' "beech-tree" hence "dweller by the beech tree".''Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames' ...

. Following closure, the station was demolished to make way for Ironbridge B Power Station.

Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

for the power station was offloaded close to the site of the original station until the power station stopped generating electricity in November 2015. The

Telford Steam Railway The Telford Steam Railway (TSR) is a heritage railway located at Horsehay, Telford in Shropshire, England, formed in 1976. The railway is operated by volunteers on Sundays and Bank Holidays from Easter to the end of September, and at Christmas. ...

has aspirations to operate to this site, running over the Albert Edward Bridge to a new terminus on or close to the site of Buildwas station. Looking towards where Buildwas station was as the building can be seen in the past photo

Looking towards where Buildwas station was as the building can be seen in the past photo

Power Station Regeneration Project

The

Ironbridge Power station The Ironbridge power stations (also known as the Buildwas power stations) refers to a series of two power stations that occupied a site on the banks of the River Severn at Buildwas in Shropshire, England. The Ironbridge B Power Station was ope ...

closed in 2015 and the site was decommissioned by

Uniper Uniper SE �juːnipɚis an energy company based in Düsseldorf, Germany. The name of the company is a portmanteau of "unique" and "performance" given by long-term employee Gregor Recke. Uniper was formed by the separation of E.ON's fossil fuel ...

until sold to the Harworth Group in June 2018. Regeneration of the site is set to include approximately 1000 new homes with the potential of the reopening of a train station on the site. Both

and

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the p ...

have expressed interest in the reintroduction of both heritage and passenger services to the site using the disused tracks, which currently links the power station to the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

line near

Telford Telford () is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about east of Shrewsbury, south west of Stafford, north west of Wolverhampton and from Birmingham in the same direction. With an est ...

. Harworth Group's planning proposal was initially rejected by

Shropshire Council Shropshire Council is the local authority of Shropshire (district), Shropshire, in England, comprising the ceremonial county of Shropshire except Telford and Wrekin. It is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority, having the powers ...

in August 2021 over a number of issues including the level of guaranteed affordable housing, but was granted in September 2021 after amended proposals were submitted. In March 2020, a bid was made to the Restoring Your Railway Fund to get funds for a feasibility study into reinstating the line from Wolverhampton to Ironbridge. In March 2021 a bid was made to the Restoring Your Railway fund for money to strengthen and develop the case for plans to reinstate the former Ironbridge to Bridgnorth line. Both bids were unsuccessful. During 2021 part of the former railway line at the site was recommissioned and buildings, platform and other infrastructure features were installed to act as a marketing facility for the Revolution Very Light Rail (RVLR) Demonstrator vehicle announced in October 2021.

Power Station Regeneration Project

References

Further reading