Atherstone railway station


Atherstone is a railway station serving the town of Atherstone in Warwickshire, England. It is on the Trent Valley section of the West Coast Main Line, exactly from London Euston station, as a placard on an adjacent building states. The station is conveniently near the A5 road.

History

The station was designed by John William Livock and opened by the London and North Western Railway in 1847. It was absorbed by the London Midland and Scottish Railway in the Grouping of 1923. The station passed to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. When British Rail introduced sectorisation in the 1980s, the station was served by the Regional Railways Sector until the Privatisation of British Railways.
In 1860 there was a train crash at Atherstone that killed 10 people.
The station building has been Grade II listed since 1980. It is no longer used for railway purposes, and is now used by a veterinary practice.

Services

operating under the London Northwestern Railway branding, provide an hourly service in each direction ; southbound to London Euston via, and, and northbound to via avoiding Stoke-on-Trent.
The hourly service was introduced by the previous operating company London Midland in December 2008. It was a substantial increase in service from the 1980s and 1990s when just half a dozen local trains a day served the station, none of which went further north than Stafford or further south than Rugby. Passenger use at the station has grown rapidly since the introduction of the new service.
From December 2012 Atherstone was part of the previous operator London Midland's "Project 110" scheme which saw the Euston-Crewe service take the express train route via Weedon rather than travel via the Northampton loop line. As a result, Atherstone lost its direct link with Northampton but the journey time to/from London was cut by 30 minutes, with most trains now timetabled to take 82 minutes to reach the capital. However, a few trains do go via Northampton Monday - Sunday.