GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Widney Manor Station: gwrwm433b

Close up of image 'gwrwm433' from Platform 4 showing on the left the island platforms, Nos 2 and 3, which served the Down Main and Up Relief lines and the building and which housed the passenger facilities. Martin Crane writes, 'Unlike the other stations that were rebuilt for the quadrupling in 1932, the Relief Line platforms were built of wood, as can be seen in the photos. (The rebuilt Olton station had wooden faces to the platforms for a while as can be seen in the relevant photos, but were subsequently replaced with conventional brick and flagstones)'.

Its not known to the author the raise d'être behind the GWR's decision to build four platforms to accommodate local passenger services as few, if any, express services would stop at Widney Manor or other stations on the route. The answer might found in the volume of goods traffic bound to and from Bordesley and Hockley in Birmingham.

Refuge sidings were frequently provided along the route from London to Birmingham to accommodate goods traffic in between passenger services. The provision of four tracks would allow goods services to use the slow and allow both local and express services to pass them without impediment on the fast lines. However local passenger services also need to be moved out of the paths of express services and therefore they would need to be accommodated on relief lines too.

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