Walsall railway station

Walsall railway station is the principal railway station of Walsall, West Midlands, England and situated in the heart of the town. It is operated by London Midland, who run all of its train services. The main entrance is situated inside the Saddlers Shopping Centre.

Overview
Services from the station go to Birmingham New Street 10+3/4 mi south on the Walsall Line, (operated on behalf of Centro), and north to Cannock and Rugeley.

The station has three platforms: Platforms 2 and 3 have been recently refurbished, with a new waiting room added and enigmatic "poetry" on the walls of the stairs to the platforms. The mainline platforms are not electrified, but platform 3 (and the through line next to it) are electrified to 25kV AC Overhead power. This electrification ends for both tracks at the northern end of the platforms.
 * Platform 1: operating northbound services to Rugeley;
 * Platform 2: operating southbound, semi-fast services from Rugeley to Birmingham New Street;
 * Platform 3: (a terminus platform) operating local services to Birmingham New Street.

An S&B self-service ticket machine was placed on Platform 1 but was no longer in place in April 2011; however, a similar machine remains in the station booking hall which is at street level above platform 3. The station has a staffed ticket office.

Services
Monday to Saturday daytimes four trains per hour run south from Walsall to Birmingham New Street (two fast and two stopping) with most of the all stations services continuing past Birmingham to form the Birmingham to Wolverhampton stopping service. The fast trains call only at Tame Bridge Parkway and are routed via the direct line through Soho and Winson Green, whilst the stopping trains run via Aston.

From Walsall to Rugeley Trent Valley the service is hourly, though at peak times and on Saturdays it increases to half-hourly (the additional Saturday services run fast to Cannock). On Sundays and weekday evenings there are two trains per hour to Birmingham (one fast and one stopping) and one train per hour to Rugeley Trent Valley.

History
The network of lines spanning out from Walsall was once more extensive than it is now. The line to Wolverhampton via Wednesfield and Willenhall Stafford Street closed in 1925. As part of the Beeching axe, the line to Lichfield and the South Staffordshire Line to Stourbridge via Dudley closed in 1964. The lines to Wolverhampton via Willenhall Bilston Street, Rugeley via Cannock and Sutton Coldfield closed a year later. This left only one line running to the station from Birmingham New Street and the station's importance to the town was reduced even further when this service was reduced to just one train per hour in the late 1970s.

In the 1980s and 1990s, vast improvements were made to the quality of services from Walsall. In 1989 passenger services were reintroduced on the previously freight only line to Hednesford 24 years after they were withdrawn. The number of trains to Birmingham was gradually increased from one to four trains per hour and the Hednesford service was extended to Rugeley in 1997 (and subsequently through to Stafford). Passenger services to Wolverhampton were reintroduced in 1998, but this service was short lived and the frequent hourly service was withdrawn again in 2008 due to low passenger numbers. However, one train per day ran straight to Wolverhampton from Walsall, in the evening (leaving Walsall at 19.36) until the May 2013 timetable change as a parliamentary train to avoid the need for formal closure proceedings. This now runs in the opposite direction on Saturdays only (06.38 ex-Wolverhampton). Centro still has ambitions to reinstate a regular (half-hourly) weekday service on the route and reopen the station at Willenhall, but funding problems have precluded any action being taken on the proposals until the West Midlands area rail franchise comes up for renewal in 2015. Electrification plans are also in place for the Chase Line in the next Network Rail control period (between 2014 and 2019), which could result in through services to destinations including London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street.