Stafford railway station

Infobox UK station
name = Stafford


manager = Virgin Trains
locale = Stafford
borough = Stafford
latitude = 52.80359
longitude = -2.12307
code = STA
start = July 1837
Rebuilt 1844
Rebuilt 1862
Current building opened 1962
platforms = 5
usage0405 = 1.016
usage0506 = 1.072
usage0607 = 1.155

Stafford railway station (Ordnance Survey grid reference gbmappingsmall|SJ918229) is an important main line interchange station in the United Kingdom. It serves the county town of Stafford.

The present station built in 1962 is a good example of the Brutalist style of architecture - the beauty of the building was perceived to be its very functionality and its designs follows the Modernist approach.

From the south, two branches of the West Coast Main Line meet here; the Trent Valley branch and the Birmingham branch. To the north, the trunk of the line continues towards Crewe, whilst the Manchester branch goes on to Stoke-on-Trent.

There are five platforms in use at the station, all of which are accessible from either of the main lines that converge from the south. Normally platform 1 & 3 are used by trains to and from London and platforms 4 & 5 by trains to/from Birmingham. Trains from the Walsall direction usually terminate/start at platform 6 (the former bay platform 2 is no longer used by passenger trains).

In 2007, the station's visual display units were upgraded.

The station is also served by rail replacement bus services, notably the X1 (operated by Baker Buses) which serves the locations of Norton Bridge, Stone, Barlaston and Wedgwood; all of which possess a rail station but no stopping train service. A rail replacement bus service operates along the Trent Valley serving the stations of Rugeley, Atherstone and Polesworth - as well as the major stations of Tamworth Low Level, Lichfield Trent Valley and Nuneaton.

History

The first station was built by the Grand Junction Railway and opened in July 1837. It soon became inadequate and was replaced by a second station in 1844. A third station was built in 1862 which was eventually replaced by the current concrete brutalist building in 1962, built as part of the modernisation programme which saw the electrification of the West Coast Main Line.

Lines originally built by the Stafford and Uttoxeter Railway and the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company (to Shrewsbury) also used the station up to the 1960s.

Two accidents have happened at Stafford, both in recent years. In 1990, an out-of-service train heading to a depot in Birmingham crashed into the back of an express train bound for Penzance on Platform 4 at Stafford station. The driver was killed and 36 people were injured. Then in 1996, a mail train collided with a freight train carrying industrial acid just south of Stafford in a small village. A mail sorter was killed and another 22 people were injured. The mail train locomotive was catapulted up the embankment and came to rest against a house.

References

Lewis, Roy (1996). "Staffordshire Railway Stations on old picture postcards" (reprinted 2002). Nottingham: Reflections of a Bygone Age. ISBN 1-900138-05-0

Current Services

The station has an hourly service Monday to Saturdays to and from London courtesy of Virgin Trains, whose Liverpool Lime Street to London Euston call. CrossCountry also provide an hourly service between Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly that stops here and London Midland operate half-hourly (with some gaps) to Liverpool and Birmingham New Street via Wolverhampton.

There is also an hourly daytime service to Birmingham via Rugeley Town and Walsall, although this doesn't run during the evenings or on Sundays.

London Midland runs a limited stopping service via Nuneaton to Rugby and beyond during the current timetable but this will increase to hourly during the day from December 2008 [http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/wcml/wcms2008timetables/wcmsgoviatimetable] .

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