Rugeley Town railway station



Rugeley Town railway station serves the town of Rugeley in Staffordshire, England. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by London Midland.

History
The station was originally opened by the London and North Western Railway on 1 June 1870. The station, together with all those on the line between Walsall and Rugeley Trent Valley, were closed on 18 January 1965 as part of the Beeching Axe, although the line remained open as freight-only. The station closed to goods on 6 September 1965.

The station reopened in 1997, as the second stage of the reopening to passengers of the Chase Line saw the extension of services beyond Hednesford. The following year, the short section of track between Rugeley Town and Rugeley Trent Valley stations was also reopened, allowing services to be extended via the Trent Valley section of the West Coast Main Line to Stafford (though through running there ended at the December 2008 timetable change).

In April 2011, the area was still mechanically signalled from the Brereton Sidings signal box immediately south of the station on the east side of the line (the sidings are no longer extant, though there is still an active rail connection to the adjacent coal-fired Rugeley power stations), but the box closed in 2013 (along with neighbouring Hednesford & Bloxwich boxes and the PSB at Walsall) as part of the ongoing West Midlands re-signalling scheme. Control passed to the West Midlands Signalling Centre at Saltley, though in the long term the WCML South Rail Operating Centre at Rugby will have responsibility for this part of the country.

Services
On Monday to Friday, there is an hourly service in the daytime northbound to Rugeley Trent Valley and southbound to Walsall and Birmingham New Street. This service frequency also applies in the evenings and on Sundays. At peak periods and all day Saturday daytime, there are two departures per hour each way - this was the basic daytime weekday frequency on the route for several years in the mid-to-late 2000s, but it reverted to just one per hour at the December 2010 timetable change.