The South Staffordshire Railway Walk is located in

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It runs for five and a half miles (about 8.85 km) from

Castlecroft Castlecroft is a suburb of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, located on the edge of the city, WSW of the city centre. It is situated where the Merry Hill, and Tettenhall Wightwick wards meet, and also borders South Staffordshire. History The name ...

Wall Heath Wall Heath is a suburban village in the Dudley Metropolitan Borough in the West Midlands of England. It is located on the A449 road, approximately 1.5 miles northwest of Kingswinford (of which it is considered a suburb), 5 miles west of Dudley ...

. It is a local nature reserve.

History

As the name suggests South Staffordshire Railway Walk was originally part of the Wombourne Branch Line built between 1912 and 1925 by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

Company. However it was not very successful and passenger services were withdrawn in 1932. In the aftermath of the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

landings in

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

during

The Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

it was used to transport wounded

allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

soldiers A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

to various

hospitals A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

in the area. It became part of the

Western Region of British Railways The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex- Great ...

in 1948 after the nationalisation of the railways. The line was finally closed in 1965 under 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' ...

after decline in traffic throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, with the last train running on 24 June 1965.

Walk

The South Staffordshire Railway Walk starts at

and runs for five and a half miles bout 8.85 kmto

passing through other villages such as

Wombourne Wombourne is a large village and civil parish located in the district of South Staffordshire, in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is 4 miles (6 km) south-west of Wolverhampton and just outside the county and conurbation of the W ...

where the Railway Café is located en route. It has an all weather surface making it accessible to wheelchairs users, pushchairs and cyclists with free car parking located at Wombourne Station and Himley Station. The walk also forms part of the

Smestow Valley Leisure Ride Smestow Valley Leisure Ride is an approximately long cycle path linking Aldersley Leisure Village in Aldersley, Wolverhampton following the route of the disused Wombourne Branchline to the disused Wombourne railway station. From Wombourne statio ...

(which begins at Aldersley Leisure Village then via the former

Tettenhall railway station Tettenhall railway station was a station on the Wombourne Branch Line, serving the town of Tettenhall in the West Midlands of England. It was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1925 and closed in 1932. A significant number of station ameni ...

) to Castlecroft until Wombourne Station.Wolverhampton City Council - Smestow Valley Leisure Ride

References

Footpaths in Staffordshire Rail trails in England Local nature reserves in Staffordshire {{Staffordshire-geo-stub