Hartlebury railway station serves the village of
Hartlebury
Hartlebury is a village and civil parish in Worcestershire, England which is in Wychavon district centred south of Kidderminster. The civil parish registered a population of 2,549 in the 2001 Census.
The railway station is centred 800 metr ...
in
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...
, England. All trains serving the station are operated by
West Midlands Trains
West Midlands Trains (WMT) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. It operates passenger trains on the West Midlands franchise between London and the English Midlands under two trade names: West Midlands Railway (WMR) (within the ...
. The station is unstaffed and is about half a mile to the east of the village. Hartlebury is the least-used station in Worcestershire.
Details and history
Hartlebury station was opened by the
Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway
The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&WR) was a railway company in England. It built a line from Wolvercot JunctionThe nearby settlement is spelt ''Wolvercote'' and a later station on the LNWR Bicester line follows that spelling. ...
in 1852, and from 1862 it served as the starting point of the
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 ...
, which ran to
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 ...
in
Shropshire
Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...
, a distance of 40 miles. Through passenger trains over this route ended in September 1963, but local workings to
Stourport-on-Severn
Stourport-on-Severn, often shortened to Stourport, is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of North Worcestershire, England, a few miles to the south of Kidderminster and downstream on the River Severn from Bewdley. At the 2011 ce ...
& continued until January 1970 and coal trains to the power station at Stourport until 1979. The branch has since been lifted, though its formation can still be seen.
The original station had an overbridge and canopies but these were removed in the 1960s, during a period of rationalisation on the railways, and crossing the platforms must now be done via the road. As the old station building is now a pub/restaurant, waiting passengers are provided with bus shelter-style structures to shelter from the elements. Due to the station having short platforms longer trains cannot stop here.
After being used by a marine engineering company, the old station building is currently being redeveloped as a micro-brewery, pub and restaurant.
There is a level crossing at the north end of the station, formerly operated by Hartlebury Station Box (to the north of the crossing) but now worked remotely from the West Midlands Signalling Centre at Saltley.
Hartlebury Station Box was an example of the second
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'' ...
design from
McKenzie & Holland of
Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
, and became operational in 1876. A further signal box, Hartlebury Junction, previously existed at the junction of the Severn Valley line, but was demolished after the closure of the line rendered the box redundant.
Services
Up until the December 2013 timetable change the service from the station to both Birmingham and Worcester was limited, especially outside of the morning and evening peak periods. From 9 December 2013 however, the station has an hourly service in each direction between 06:40 and 20:07 Mondays to Saturdays. A few additional later evening trains also call at Hartlebury after this time. Most eastbound trains run beyond to , whilst westbound trains switch between the two main stations in Worcester at different times of day.
[GB National Rail Timetable May 2016, Table 71]
A two hourly Sunday service was introduced in May 2022
A normal weekday service operates on most bank holidays.
Notes
Further reading
*
*
External links
Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Hartlebury station
Railway stations in Worcestershire
DfT Category F2 stations
Former Great Western Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1852
Railway stations served by West Midlands Trains
1852 establishments in England
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