Stone railway station

Stone
Location	Stone, Stafford England
Coordinates	52°54′29″N 2°09′18″W / 52.908°N 2.155°W / 52.908; -2.155Coordinates: 52°54′29″N 2°09′18″W / 52.908°N 2.155°W / 52.908; -2.155
Grid reference	SJ896345
Managed by	West Midlands Railway
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	SNE
Classification	DfT category F2
History
Original company	North Staffordshire Railway
Pre-grouping	North Staffordshire Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
17 April 1848	First station opened as Stone
1 May 1849	Station relocated
January 1888	Renamed Stone Junction
?	Renamed Stone
1947	Colwich platforms Closed
24 May 2004	Services withdrawn
15 December 2008	Services reinstated
Passengers
2015/16	0.109 million
2016/17	0.128 million
2017/18	0.145 million
2018/19	0.167 million
2019/20	0.184 million
Listed Building – Grade II
Feature	Stone railway station
Designated	27 July 1972
Reference no.	1297502[1]
Location
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

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.

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 as a community centre.^[3]

APTIS ticketing here ceased in 1993, when the station became unstaffed.^{[citation needed]}

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In 2004, rail services were withdrawn from the station and were replaced by buses, operated by BakerBus; this was initially whilst upgrade work was carried out on the Stafford and Colwich to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, but this never materialised.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[4] This service is operated by London Northwestern Railway, as of December 2017.^[5] 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.^[6] This was changed for a new London service via Birmingham, due to opposition against losing a direct link to London.^[7]

Gallery[]

• 

  Looking south, with the line to Colwich to the left and Norton Bridge to the right

• 

  Plaque on the station facade

• 

  A CrossCountry Class 220 unit heading north towards Stoke-on-Trent

See also[]

• Listed buildings in Stone, Staffordshire

References[]

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.

External links[]

• Website of Potteries.org Neville Malkin's "Grand Tour" of the Potteries Retrieved Feb 2017 = Has several old pictures, drawings and historical narrative

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stone railway station.

• Train times and station information for Stone railway station from National Rail

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Stoke-on-Trent		London Northwestern Railway London – Crewe		Stafford
Historical railways
Barlaston and Tittensor Line and station open		North Staffordshire Railway Stafford to Manchester Line		Norton Bridge Line open, station closed
		North Staffordshire Railway Stone to Colwich Line		Aston-by-Stone Line open, station closed,