Water Orton railway station serves

Water Orton Water Orton is a village and civil parish in the North Warwickshire borough of Warwickshire in the West Midlands, England near the River Tame. It is located between Castle Bromwich and Coleshill, and borders the West Midlands metropolitan coun ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

, near Coleshill,

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 is owned by

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

, and managed 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 ...

. However, no West Midlands Trains stop there; it is only served by

CrossCountry CrossCountry (legal name XC Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the Cross Country franchise. The CrossCountry franchise was restructured by the Department for Transport (DfT) ...

services.

History

It was first opened in 1842 by the

Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway The Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway was a British railway company. From Birmingham it connected at Derby with the North Midland Railway and the Midland Counties Railway at what became known as the Tri Junct Station. It now forms part of ...

on its line into Birmingham Lawley Street from . However the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

built a cutoff line from slightly further west to a junction at between 1908 and 1909. The station was resited in August 1908. 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.

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. Platform 1 is used for stopping trains to

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

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

Services

Services are mainly two hourly to Birmingham New Street and Leicester, with additional services in the peak. There is one train a day Monday-Friday to Derby via Tamworth; one also calls in the opposite direction. There is no Sunday service.

References

External links

Water Orton station
at warwickshirerailways.com * A history of the station within a National context a
History

Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Water Orton railway station
{{Warwickshire railway stations, open Railway stations in Warwickshire DfT Category F2 stations Former Midland Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1842 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1908 Railway stations served by CrossCountry Railway stations in Great Britain not served by their managing company