Stourbridge Junction railway station

Stourbridge Junction railway station is a railway station on the Birmingham, Worcester and Kidderminster Line in West Midlands, England. Stourbridge Town Branch Line runs from the station to Stourbridge town centre. Until 1974, the station was in Worcestershire.

The nearest railway stations are Hagley, Stourbridge Town and Lye.

History
The station was opened in 1852 on the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton railway line, at a slightly different location to the present station, under the name of Stourbridge. The junction came about when the Stourbridge Railway built their line to Lye and beyond.

Stourbridge become a double junction on October 1, 1879 when the branch to Stourbridge Town and goods was opened.

On 1 October 1901 the new station opened 400 yards to the south of the original.

In 1962, the OW&WR was closed to passenger traffic north of Stourbridge by the British Transport Commission, although the route remained open for freight. Today only the section as far as the Round Oak Steel Terminal is still in use.

The station was previously a four platform station, comprising two island platforms. The southern divergence to Platform 1, which is now solely served by the Stourbridge Town branch, was taken up some years ago and the end of the line is surrounded by fencing. Inside this fencing is a shed which houses the experimental Parry People Mover that is currently used on the branch line. Platform 4 was also closed some years ago, with the adjacent carriage sidings being removed to make way for a car park. Track has also been rationalised in the yard to the north in recent years.

There is a vast array of sidings to the north of the station and they are often used to rest various maintenance vehicles and trains, and they are home to a Chiltern Railways LMD (light maintenance depot) where at night, and on Sundays, many Class 168 trains can be seen stabled.

The Signalbox controls from just north of Hagley, to near Jewellery Quarter. It works Track Circuit Block to Blakedown Signal Box and the West Midlands Signalling Centre (Snow Hill Workstation).



Services
From Stourbridge Junction, the main trains in service are Centro/London Midland Class 150 DMU units which are supplemented by Class 153 units. They usually run to Birmingham Snow Hill via Smethwick Galton Bridge, and to Kidderminster, Worcester Shrub Hill or Great Malvern. Trains to Birmingham usually continue to Whitlocks End, Stratford-upon-Avon, or Dorridge.

Chiltern Railways also provide a peak time service to London Marylebone, commencing at Kidderminster and running via Birmingham Snow Hill. Despite local opposition, trains no longer run from Stourbridge to Birmingham New Street.

Trains operating from the Junction to Stourbridge Town are currently being run by Class 139 units.

Charter trains can often be seen either stopped or routed through the station on weekends, since Stourbridge Junction is on the route to Kidderminster, where a lot of tours operate from or to. Two CrossCountry services - one early morning and one late evening - are timetabled to route through, but not call at, Stourbridge Junction. These start and terminate from New Street. The station also sees frequent expresses pass through when the Lickey Incline is closed.

Freight
In the recent economic downturn freight through Stourbridge Junction has lessened significantly. There is now just one steel train per day each way to and from Round Oak. Other 'as required' services include the scrap steel service and a new stone service from Croft to Brierley Hill which operate on Fridays, and a nuclear flask train which operates from Bridgwater to Crewe.