Stone railway station

Stone railway station serves the town of Stone, Staffordshire, England. The station is located on a junction of the Colwich to Manchester spur of the West Coast Main Line, but has platforms only on the branch from Stafford to Stoke-on-Trent.

Stone
Location
PlaceStone
Local authorityStafford
Coordinates52.908°N 2.155°W / 52.908; -2.155
Grid referenceSJ896345
Operations
Station codeSNE
Managed byWest Midlands Railway
Number of platforms2
DfT categoryF2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2014/15 106,474
2015/16 108,902
2016/17 127,608
2017/18 145,340
2018/19 166,728
History
Original companyNorth Staffordshire Railway
Pre-groupingNorth Staffordshire Railway
Post-groupingLondon, Midland and Scottish Railway
17 April 1848First station opened as Stone
1 May 1849Station relocated
January 1888Renamed Stone Junction
?Renamed Stone
1947Colwich platforms Closed
24 May 2004Services withdrawn
15 December 2008Services reinstated
Listed status
Listed featureStone railway station
Listing gradeGrade II listed
Entry number1297502[1]
Added to list27 July 1972
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Stone from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.

History

There have been two stations at Stone and both were opened by the North Staffordshire Railway.[2] The first opened on 17 April 1848 [2] and was next to the Newcastle Road bridge. With the opening of the Colwich line on 1 May 1849, the original station was closed and replaced the same day by the current station.[2] The station was renamed Stone Junction in January 1888, but reverted to the original name Stone at some point between 1923 and 1947.[2] The Colwich platforms were closed in 1947 and subsequently removed.

The station building has been redeveloped by Stone Town Council [3] as a community centre.

APTIS ticketing here ceased in 1993, when the station became unstaffed.

Recent developments

In 2004, rail services were withdrawn from the station and were replaced by buses, operated by BakerBus; this was initially whilst upgrade work was carried out on the Stafford and Colwich to Cheadle Hulme lines. However, the former Stafford to Stoke local service, that formerly called here, was never reinstated once the work was completed (the units used on it being redeployed in the West Midlands) and so the rail replacement service continued (the Trent Valley local service between Stafford and Coventry also suffered the same fate).

Virgin CrossCountry were reportedly going to reinstate Stone as a stop from June 2006 on the Birmingham to Manchester service,[4] but this never materialised.

However, in December 2008, Stone station reopened for an hourly train service between Crewe and London Euston, as part of a new revamped West Coast main line timetable unveiled by the Department for Transport.[5] This service is operated by London Northwestern Railway, as of December 2017.[6] Passenger usage is now returning to reasonable levels (see figures right).

Services

Stone is currently served by the hourly semi-fast London Northwestern Railway services between London Euston and Crewe via Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent. Trains operated by CrossCountry do not currently call at Stone.

The new West Midlands franchise specification plans will, when implemented in 2018, see the current Euston to Crewe trains replaced by a new Birmingham - Wolverhampton - Stoke - Crewe service that will stop here.[7] This was changed for a new London service via Birmingham, due to opposition against losing a direct link to London.[8]

See also

References
  1. Historic England, "Stone Railway Station (1297502)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 11 January 2017
  2. Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 221. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  3. Stone Town Council website retrieved Feb 2017
  4. "Google Groups". groups.google.com.
  5. ""All aboard first train in five years", The Sentinel, 12-15-2008".
  6. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 67
  7. "Rail Minister Paul Maynard announces a host of extra benefits and services for passengers in the West Midlands"Department for Transport Press release 30 August 2016; Retrieved 28 October 2016
  8. "Staffordshire stations to keep rail link". 17 August 2017.

Further reading
  • Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2016). Rugeley to Stoke-on-Trent. West Sussex: Middleton Press. figs. 41-42, 45-62. ISBN 9781908174901. OCLC 972169395.
Preceding station   National Rail   Following station
London Northwestern Railway
London - Crewe
Historical railways
Barlaston and Tittensor
Line and station open
North Staffordshire Railway
Stafford to Manchester Line
Line open, station closed
North Staffordshire Railway
Line open, station closed,
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