GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Hatton Station: gwrhj107

A view of a busy Hatton Station looking east towards Warwick from the road bridge with the mainstation and forecourt on the left beyond the horse box van. Passengers from Birmingham head for footbridge to cross to the Stratford-upon-Avon passenger train waiting in the branch line platform on the right. The footbridge construction gives the impression that it was designed with the possibility of a future extension in mind. Indeed the Great Western owned more land on the south side of the station, where a turntable and sidings existed at this time. C1912

Not all southbound trains stopped at Hatton, as several Wolverhampton to Paddington expresses would instead ‘slip’ a coach at Hatton for Stratford-upon-Avon. Stratford-upon-Avon passengers from the south either changed, or were ‘slipped’ at Leamington-Spa. The Great Western operated slip coaches at 79 locations every weekday in 1908. These slip coaches allowed express services to given to intermediate stations without the need for the express to be stopped, but it was a complicated and expensive business involving an additional guard controlling the slip coach and special procedures.

Robert Ferris

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