Water_Orton_railway_station
Water Orton railway station
Railway station in Water Orton, Warwickshire, England
Water Orton railway station serves the village of Water Orton in Warwickshire, England. It is owned by Network Rail, and managed by West Midlands Railway. However, no West Midlands Trains stop there; it is only served by CrossCountry services.
Water Orton  | |
|---|---|
The station in 2013. | |
| General information | |
| Location | Water Orton, North Warwickshire England |
| Coordinates | 52.518611°N 1.743889°W / 52.518611; -1.743889 |
| Grid reference | SP174912 |
| Managed by | West Midlands Railway |
| Platforms | 2 |
| Other information | |
| Station code | WTO |
| Classification | DfT category F2 |
| Key dates | |
| 1842 | first station opened |
| 1908 | resited |
| Passengers | |
| 2018/19 |  57,080 |
| 2019/20 | 62,924 |
| 2020/21 |  9,470 |
| 2021/22 | 25,812 |
| 2022/23 | 39,384 |
| Location | |
| Notes | |
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road | |
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 between 1908 and 1909. The station was resited[1] in August 1908.[2] 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.
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.[3]
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.[4]
Platform 1 is used for stopping trains to Leicester and Birmingham, whilst platform 2 is used for trains towards Derby, of which only one calls per day.
CrossCountry serves the station with services every two hours off-peak westbound to Birmingham New Street and eastbound to Leicester, with 1tph in each direction in the peaks. The last train to New Street of the day departs at 16:02.[5]
There is generally one train a day Monday-Friday evenings to Nottingham via Derby and Tamworth. There is no Sunday service.
| Preceding station |  National Rail |
Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrossCountry Mondays-Saturdays only | ||||
| CrossCountry Mondays-Fridays only | ||||
| Historical railways | ||||
| Castle Bromwich | Midland Railway Birmingham–Peterborough line |
Forge Mills | ||
- Pixton, B., (2005) Birmingham-Derby: Portrait of a Famous Route, Runpast Publishing
- "The Midland Railway". Gloucestershire Chronicle. England. 15 August 1908. Retrieved 23 January 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- "New Station at Water Orton to relieve capacity constraints" (PDF). Retrieved 6 January 2021.
- "Stansted, Cambridge & Nottingham to Birmingham & Cardiff - Sunday 21 May 2023 – Saturday 09 December 2023" (PDF). Cross Country Trains.
- Train times and station information for Water Orton railway station from National Rail
- Water Orton station at warwickshirerailways.com
- A history of the station within a National context at History
- Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Water Orton railway station