Round Oak railway station

Round Oak
Round Oak
Location
Place	Brierley Hill
Area	Dudley
Coordinates	52.4886°N 2.1206°W
Grid reference	SO919878
Operations
Original company	Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway
History
1852	Opened[1]
1962	Closed[1]
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
	Closed railway stations in Britain; A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z

Round Oak railway station was a station on the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line.

History

It was opened in 1852 to serve the town of Brierley Hill. Two railways/routes served the station - originally the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and the South Staffordshire Railway, which later became the Great Western Railway and London, Midland and Scottish Railway (through amalgamation of the London and North Western Railway) respectively.

Accident

In 1858 a coupling broke on an excursion train at the station and the rear portion rolled back down the gradient from Round Oak railway station towards Brettell Lane where it collided with another train (which was actually part of the same excursion, the train already having been safely divided once due to its extreme length!) 14 passengers were killed and 50 more injured.

Closure

British Railways closed the station pre-Beeching in 1962 and plans for a freight use were abandoned at the same time. Goods trains continue to pass the site for a few hundred yards northwards, to Round Oak Steel Terminal.

West Midlands Metro

A £1,100,000/15-year-long regeneration project will see the station become part of the local tram network with the line reopening between Walsall, Dudley Port railway station, Dudley railway station and the Merry Hill Shopping Centre for trams on one track and for freight on the other. The freighters would continue on past Brettell Lane railway station and on to the mainline at Stourbridge junction.[2] The closed section of railway through Dudley was expected to re-open during the 2010s,[3] as a combined Midland Metro tramway and a heavy rail line for goods trains.

It was set to re-open as a through route in 2012, to run alongside the second phase of the Midland Metro - though it is expected that trams will diverge from the line at around the location of Harts Hill. As at October 2012 no announcement had been made when the construction work will commence.

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References

"Round Oak Station". Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands. Retrieved 31 March 2017.
Chadwick, Edward (25 November 2010). "Plans for 1.1 bn West Midlands Metro system unveiled". Birmingham Post. Archived from the original on 25 December 2010.
"Midland Metro - Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Timetable, Funding and Support". Midland Metro. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008.

Preceding station		Disused railways		Following station
Harts Hill		Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway Later Great Western Railway, then British Rail Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton (1852-1962)		Brierley Hill
Harts Hill		South Staffordshire Railway Later LNWR, then LMS, finally BR South Staffs Line Dudley-Stourbridge Junction section (1852-1962)		Brierley Hill