Bewdley railway station 1795793 c24b1cba

Bewdley railway station serves the town of

Bewdley Bewdley ( pronunciation) is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley west of Kidderminster and southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the River Sev ...

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 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 ...

. Until 2014, it was the administrative headquarters 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 ...

, after which they were moved to Comberton Hill, Kidderminster. Bewdley is the principal intermediate station on the line.

History

Bewdley station originally opened in 1862 as one of the main intermediate stations on the line between

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 United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 Census. The Hartlebury ra ...

and

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 ...

. It was operated by the

West Midland Railway The West Midland Railway was an early British railway company. It was formed on 1 July 1860 by a merger of several older railway companies and amalgamated with the Great Western Railway on 1 August 1863. It was the successor to the Oxford, Worces ...

, before that company was absorbed into 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 ...

(GWR). In 1864, the

Tenbury & Bewdley Railway The Tenbury and Bewdley Railway was an English railway company that built its line from Bewdley in Worcestershire to Tenbury station, which was in Shropshire. The line connected the Severn Valley Railway at Bewdley with the Tenbury Railway at Tenb ...

opened, with its route through the

Wyre Forest __NOTOC__ Wyre Forest is a large, semi-natural (partially unmanaged) woodland and forest measuring which straddles the borders of Worcestershire and Shropshire, England. Knowles Mill, a former corn mill owned by the National Trust, lies wi ...

branching off the SVR north of Bewdley station, before crossing the

River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

over the now partially-dismantled Dowles Bridge. Thus Bewdley became a junction station. In 1878, GWR opened a "loop-line" to

Kidderminster Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it had ...

, which meant that Bewdley had a direct link with the town and became a double junction. As a legacy of its former junction status, Bewdley station is unique on the SVR in that it has 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, Bewdley North and Bewdley South. Bewdley station was at its busiest at weekends and local holiday periods, but traffic declined with the increasing use of

car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as ...

s in the 1950s. As a consequence, rationalisation resulted in the end of through passenger traffic — firstly on the Wyre Forest line in 1962, followed by the Severn Valley line in 1963. Although thought by some to have been a result of the

Beeching axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

, those closures pre-dated his report. Until January 1970,

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

continued to serve the last remaining stations of

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 ...

, Burlish Halt, Bewdley, Foley Park Halt and

Stationmasters

*Thomas Appleton 1862 - 1897 *George Smith 1898 - 1909 (afterwards station master at Chipping Norton) *Frederick Hallett 1909 - 1914 *Alfred W. Cooke 1923 - 1937 (formerly station master at Cleobury Mortimer) *E.T. Rose 1939 - 1942 (afterwards station master at Broadway) *William H. Needle until 1956 (afterwards station master at Totnes) *H.E. Ray 1956 - 1960 (afterwards station master at Bridgnorth)

Preservation

Bewdley was disused for only four years before preservationists from the new SVR Company bought the land, track and buildings in 1974, enabling the SVR to extend from

Bridgnorth Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the 2011 Census was 12,079. History B ...

–

Hampton Loade Hampton Loade is a hamlet in Shropshire, England along the Severn Valley. It is situated on the east bank of the River Severn at , some five miles south of Bridgnorth, and is notable for the unusual current-operated Hampton Loade Ferry, a reacti ...

Highley Highley is a large village in Shropshire, England, on the west bank of the River Severn and 7 miles south east of Bridgnorth. The closest cities being Wolverhampton and Birmingham. History Highley began as a rural farming community, including ...

and eventually Bewdley that same year. From 1980 onwards, occasional

bank holiday A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and the Crown Dependencies. The term refers to all public holidays in the United Kingdom, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation or held ...

services were operated to Bewdley, originally from

and later from

Birmingham New Street Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the Birmingham station group, three main railway stations in Birmingham city centre, England, and a central hub of the Rail transport in the United Kingdom, British railway system. It is a ma ...

. The SVR's own services to Kidderminster could not commence until sugar beet traffic to Foley Park ceased in 1982, and its own station, Kidderminster Town, was opened, which occurred two years later. During and after preservation: *The station clock on platforms 2 & 3 was brought from

Stourbridge Junction railway station Stourbridge Junction is one of two railway stations serving the town of Stourbridge, in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England. It lies on the Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster Line and is the junction for the ...

. *The longer valancing pieces on the east side of the island platform canopy came from Birmingham Snow Hill station. That is marked on the canopy. The canopy itself was constructed for the opening of the line to Kidderminster and was later extended. It was not brought in from elsewhere, as has been reported.

Bewdley Tunnel

Just to the East of the station lies the -long Bewdley Tunnel.

Future services

Due to heavy congestion in the

, there have been calls for Bewdley station to be returned to the

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 ...

network. The idea of Kidderminster to Bewdley trains has been discussed at meetings with

Central Trains Central Trains was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by National Express that operated a variety of local and inter-regional trains from 2 March 1997 until 11 November 2007. Overview Created out of the Central division of ...

, its successors

London Midland London Midland was a train operating company in England which operated the West Midlands franchise between 11 November 2007 and 10 December 2017. It was owned by the British transport group Govia. London Midland was created as a result of Govi ...

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 ...

and

Chiltern Railways Chiltern Railways, formally The Chiltern Railway Company Limited, is a British train operating company that has operated the Chiltern Railways franchise since July 1996. Since 2009, it has been a subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains. Chiltern Railw ...

. The obstacle was always the question of who would provide the infrastructure and staff. New services could run further than Kidderminster, to Birmingham, Dudley or London. West Midlands Trains says it plans to operate extensions of services from Kidderminster to the station by December 2019.

Famous Media Appearances

Bewdley Railway Station has been used as a location for a number of television and cinema productions. These include the 1992 film ''

Howards End ''Howards End'' is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. ''Howards End'' is considered by many to be Forster's masterpiece. The book was ...

'', the 2007 film ''Woes of the Departed'', and, as "Musborough Junction" station, the opening scenes of the 1984 BBC Television adaptation of the

John Masefield John Edward Masefield (; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967. Among his best known works are the children's novels ''The Midnight Folk'' and ''The Box of Delights'', and the poem ...

novel ''The Box of Delights'' (keen-eyed viewers will spot the Bewdley station sign reflected in a window).

References

External links

Official Station Web Site
{{Worcestershire railway stations Heritage railway stations in Worcestershire Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1862 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1970 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1974 Former Great Western Railway stations Severn Valley Railway

Railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

1862 establishments in England