New life for railway station?

Baschurch's station building is a private house

The savage cuts to Britain's railway network in the 1960s brought an end to the time when most villages and small towns in Shropshire had easy access to local railway stations.

The Beeching report was the death knell for, among many others, Oswestry, Ellesmere, Market Drayton, Much Wenlock and Baschurch.

Now consultations are to begin to try to reopen Baschurch station which, according to the Baschurch Station Group, will benefit the surrounding villages of Ruyton XI Towns, Harmer Hill, Myddle and Bomere Heath.

At a packed public meeting in September 2009 in the village hall, chaired by North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson, people voiced their support for the plan.

Baschurch Station Group said the current owner of the old Victorian station building, David Janes, supports the plan to reopen the station and would be prepared to sell the building back to a public sector owner for the benefit of the community.

Oswestry station

Even if Baschurch is reopened, the largest town in north Shropshire will still be without a railway.

Oswestry was one of the busiest stations in the county

Oswestry was the biggest casualty of Dr Beeching's axe in the 1960s. At one time it was known as the 'Crewe station' of Shropshire, such was its importance to the local area.

The first of two stations for Oswestry opened in 1848 and signalled a huge expansion of the town. It was known as Oswestry GWR (Great Western Railway) and was sited on Gobowen road. The line linked the town to the main Shrewsbury to Chester line.

The second station, known as Oswestry Cam and run by Cambrian Railways opened in 1860 and ran trains from Whitchurch to Newtown.

But it was not to last.

Taken over

In 1924 GWR took over Cambrian Railways and closed the station on Gobowen Road.

The Cambrian station still remains, but the GWR station was totally demolished. Oswestry goods yard became a bus station and eventually a supermarket.

Then came nationalisation of the railways. This was followed in the 1960s by the Beeching report which had such a profound effect on so many towns and villages throughout England.

The final passenger train pulled out of Oswestry in 1965 and in 1971 the line closed completely.

Gobowen

Gobowen station opened in 1848 linking Shrewsbury and Chester with a loop to Oswestry.

Gobowen station survives, but Oswestry is defunct

It fell into decline and was threatened with cutbacks in the 1990s but was saved after pupils from nearby Moreton Hall Girls' School, led by their geography master, David Lloyd, took it over.

They restored the station and set up a booking office and travel agency in 1993.

The running of the station was taken over by Severn-Dee Travel in 1996 and continues to this day.

New terminal for Telford

Gobowen station is not the only good news story for Shropshire's railways.

Telford's new rail freight terminal opened in 2009

Earlier this year a brand new rail freight terminal opened in Telford giving direct access to Britain's rail network and the whole of Europe via the Channel Tunnel.

The development of the International Rail Freight Park involved the re-instatement of about 3km of line between Wellington and Donnington and was first mooted in 2001.

It was partly paid for the European Regional Development Fund and Advantage West Midlands.