Water Orton railway station

Water Orton railway station serves Water Orton in Warwickshire, near Birmingham, England. It is owned by Network Rail, and managed by West Midlands Trains. However, no West Midlands Trains stop there; it is only served by CrossCountry services.

Water Orton
The station in 2013.
Location	Water Orton, North Warwickshire England
Coordinates	52.518611°N 1.743889°W
Grid reference	SP174912
Managed by	West Midlands Trains
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	WTO
Classification	DfT category F2
Key dates
1842	first station opened
1909	resited
Passengers
2015/16	45,886
2016/17	51,680
2017/18	55,642
2018/19	57,080
2019/20	62,924
Location
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Lines around Whitacre Junction

History

It was first opened in 1842 by the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway on its line into Birmingham Lawley Street from Whitacre Junction.

However the Midland Railway built a cutoff line from slightly further west to a junction at Kingsbury in 1909 and the station was resited.[1] 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, such as the 20:30 Crosscountry service from Birmingham towards Derby, though it passes fast through Water Orton.

A freak tornado in Birmingham in 1996 damaged the wooden staircase. Rather than remove and replace the stairs, the damaged staircase was repaired in situ resulting in a zig-zag appearance. Local residents approved of this and it was left as it is found today.

A panorama of the front of the station.

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.[2]

Services

Platform 1 is used for stopping trains to Leicester and Birmingham.

Platform 2 is used for trains towards Derby, of which only one calls per day

Services are mainly two hourly to Birmingham New Street and Leicester, with additional services in the peak.[3]

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

1. Pixton, B., (2005) Birmingham-Derby: Portrait of a Famous Route, Runpast Publishing
2. [birmingham.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/1891/ta22_birmingham_eastern_fringe_rail_study_2014.pdf "New Station at Water Orton to relieve capacity constraints"] Check |url= value (help) (PDF). Retrieved 6 January 2021.
3. Table 47 & 57 National Rail timetable, May 2019

External links

• Train times and station information for Water Orton railway station from National Rail
• Water Orton station at warwickshirerailways.com
• Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Water Orton railway station

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Birmingham New Street		CrossCountry Birmingham-Leicester Mondays-Saturdays only		Coleshill Parkway
	Historical railways
Castle Bromwich		Midland Railway Birmingham-Peterborough line		Forge Mills