Shrewsbury railway station
Shrewsbury railway station is in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. Built in 1848, it was designated a grade II listed building in 1969. The station is north west of Birmingham New Street. Many services starting at or passing through the station are bound for Wales; it is operated by Transport for Wales, although the station is also served by Avanti West Coast and West Midlands Railway services, and is one of the key network hubs of Transport for Wales. History. The station was formerly known as Shrewsbury General and is the only remaining railway station in the town; Shrewsbury  Abbey, as well as other small stations around the town, having long closed. Shrewsbury railway station was originally built in October 1848 for the county's first railway — the Shrewsbury to Chester Line. The architect was Thomas Mainwaring Penson of Oswestry. The building is unusual, in that the station was extended between 1899 and 1903 by the construction of a new floor underneath the original station building. The building style was imitation Tudor, complete with carvings of Tudor style heads around the window frames. This was done to match the Tudor building of Shrewsbury School (now Shrewsbury Library) almost directly  opposite. The station's platforms also extend over the River Severn. It was operated jointly by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). At Shrewsbury in steam days, the GWR regularly turned its locomotives by running round the triangle formed by using the Abbey Foregate loop, which links the Wolverhampton Line with the Welsh Marches Line and enables through running for freight trains, summer Saturday specials and formerly for trains like the "Cambrian Coast Express". Until 1967 Shrewsbury was served by the GWR, latterly BR Western Region, express services between London Paddington and Birkenhead  Woodside railway station. The station was given Grade II listed status in May 1969; this applies to the main building on Castle Foregate, adjacent to platform 3. Platforms and facilities. There are five platforms in use, numbered 3 to 7 (platforms 1 and 2 have been disused since the 1980s and have no track; around 2019 platform 2 was dismantled). Of these, platforms 4, 5, 6 and 7 are grouped on a main island, while platforms 1, 2 and 3 are separate, located by the main station building. The platforms are numbered in order from west (Shrewsbury Castle side) to  east (The Dana side) from 1 to 7. Platform 3 was until recently only used by trains running in from the Wolverhampton direction and out towards Chester. Changes made in 2010 to the signalling and track now allow additional passenger trains (those coming in from and going out to the Hereford, Heart of Wales and Cambrian lines) to use platform 3. A passenger lift was opened on the platform in 2009 and a waiting room opened shortly after. A lift has also been built for access to platforms 4–7, making the station fully accessible for wheelchair and mobility-impaired users . Platforms 4 and 7 are through platforms, usually used for trains between (via Chester and Wrexham General) and Cardiff Central/ and between Manchester Piccadilly (via ) and , Carmarthen, and Milford Haven. Platforms 5 and 6 are bay platforms, used mainly for trains to and from Aberystwyth and Birmingham, as well as trains for the Heart of Wales Line and local stopping trains to Birmingham New Street. The island platforms are connected to the main station building and platform 3 by a pedestrian subway running underneath the station. A pedestrian footbridge over the platforms still exists but has long been disconnected from  the station; instead, it is a public walkway allowing pedestrians to cross over the station area, and part of a route named "The Dana". All platforms are fitted with CIS screens and automatic announcement speakers and there are customer help points on platforms 3 and 4. Ticket gates are in operation, with the ticket office here manned throughout the week (Monday - Friday 05:20 - 20:40, Saturday 05:20 - 19:30, Sunday 07:30 - 19:30). Ticket machines are available for use when this is closed and for collecting pre-paid tickets. A buffet, toilets, and vending machines selling snacks and drinks are sited between platforms  4 and 7. Opposite platform 7 is a high concrete wall that divides the rest of the station from what could be considered to be platform 8. This platform does not see any use and was built for the use of transporting prisoners from HM Prison Shrewsbury. (The prison gateway, surmounted by bust of prison reformer John Howard, is visible from platform 7.) It is believed that this platform was only used a few times each year between 1868 up until just before the First World War. War memorials. On platform 3 is a metal plaque listing (with their respective  stations of employment) 42 employees of the London and North Western and Great Western Joint Railways who died serving in the armed forces in 'the Great War', with figures of a soldier and sailor and representations of a cannon and steamship. It was restored and rededicated in 2010. Inside the Railtrack offices is a decorative metal plaque to 14 "heroes" of the LNWR's Locomotive Department in Shrewsbury who died serving in World War I, placed there in December 1920. Also preserved is a framed Roll of Honour listing employees of the GWR nationally who also died in the war . All of the services above are operated by Class 150s, Class 153s, Class 158s or Class 175s, except the "Premier Service" which is operated by a Class 67 and Mark 4 coaching stock. Services. Bus. Shrewsbury bus routes 2, 24, 25, 64, 501, 511, 524 and 576 all serve the station heading towards Shrewsbury bus station. Signalling. Severn Bridge Junction signal box, at the south east end of the station and built by the LNWR, is the largest surviving mechanical signal box in the world, with a frame accommodating 180 levers, and is a listed building. Whilst the line beyond  Abbey Foregate signal box to Wolverhampton has been updated to electronic signalling, Shrewsbury itself is set to remain lever operated for the foreseeable future. As a result of Shrewsbury's joint (GWR/LNWR) history, and having been transferred at different times between the Western and London Midland regions of BR and more recently Network Rail - it is now in the Great Western territory again - the signalling is a diverse mixture of lower-quadrant and upper-quadrant semaphore signals, with a few colour lights too. Crewe Junction, on the north end of the station, accommodates around 120 levers and is of  the same design as Severn Bridge Junction. The other Shrewsbury signal boxes are at Abbey Foregate (to a GWR design), controlling the eastern corner of the triangle and Sutton Bridge Junction where the Aberystwyth line diverges from the Hereford line (the now closed Severn Valley Railway to Bridgnorth and also left the main line there). Two other boxes at Crewe Bank and Harlescott Crossing (slightly further on towards Crewe) were both abolished (and subsequently removed) in October 2013, when the Crewe line had its signalling replaced by a new modular system controlled from the South Wales Rail Operating Centre in  Cardiff. The former box had been "switched out" of use for several years previously and had been proposed for abolition by Network Rail back in 2009. In Autumn 2010 changes were made to allow Cambrian and Welsh Marches line trains to depart in a southerly direction from Platform 3. An upper quadrant signal replaced the previous shunting disc and a facing point lock was added to the points. Though the track layout could already accommodate this, until the lock was added only non-passenger movements southbound from Platform 3 could be made. Station usage. According to the Office of Rail  Regulation statistics for the 2011/12 financial year, the total number of entries and exits at the station was 1,730,390 (based on tickets sold at Shrewsbury, and tickets sold to Shrewsbury); with an estimated 205,148 passengers interchanging between services. This makes Shrewsbury the 14th busiest in the West Midlands region and the 6th busiest on the Transport for Wales network. New stations. It has been proposed that Shrewsbury should have a Parkway railway station built on the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line, east of the town in the Preston Boats/Emstrey area, adjacent to the A5 road. This new station would be  co-located with a fourth bus-based Park & Ride site for the town to simultaneously serve shoppers and commuters heading both to and from Telford and the West Midlands conurbation. Reasons cited for this project include the poor provision of car parking at Shrewsbury's current only railway station and the lack of a park and ride site to serve visitors to the town from the east, who presently need to use Meole Brace in the south or Harlescott in the north of the town. As well as the poor provision of car parking previously mentioned, the town's geographic  location in a tight meander of the River Severn, combined with the one-way systems for motor traffic in the town (particularly the need to go under the low and congested Cross Street arch bridge), make the station difficult and time-consuming to reach by car from many parts of the town. Indeed, from many locations in southern Shrewsbury, e.g. Shrewsbury Business Park, Shrewsbury College on London Road and the Sutton Farm area, it often actually takes less time to drive to Telford Central railway station, along the fast A5 and M54, than to Shrewsbury station.