Brinklow Station

London North Western Railway:

Midland Railway:

Stratford Midland Junction Railway

The Shakespeare Route

Brinklow Station

Brinklow station, or 'Stretton station' as it was originally named by the Trent Valley Railway when the station first opened on 1st December 1847, was the first station north on the line from Rugby. It was located almost midway between the villages of Brinklow and Stretton-Under-Fosse. RVJ Butt in his book The Directory of Railway Stations, published by Patrick Stephens, suggests that the spelling of the latter station name was possibly 'Streeton'. In some timetables the station was described as being 'Brinklow for Stretton Under Fosse'. The station buildings were, as with Shilton, sited on the road bridge with a covered staircase down to each of the two platforms. The passenger facilities were primarily located within the roadside structure as the platforms only accommodated a timber waiting room on the down line. The station was originally built with two platforms but with the increase in traffic, particularly coal from the North Warwickshire Coalfields, a third line was installed - the up slow line - which resulted in an island platform being provided servicing both up lines.

This third line ran between Bulkington and Rugby and was opened on 14th August 1871. Initially this third line was purely used for goods traffic but was later upgraded as a 'slow line' in June 1876. The last twenty years of the 19th century saw an ever increasing amount of traffic resulting in the LNWR applying for permission to widen 13 miles, 4 furlongs, 2 chains of the Trent Valley line between Rugby and Nuneaton. However, other than the sections between Rugby and Brinklow, and Attleborough Sidings and Nuneaton, this was not carried out. More powerful locomotives and increased capacity elsewhere reduced the need for continuous quadruple track. In 1895 six down and five up trains called at Brinklow. This had fallen to four down and three up workings by 1946, with a gap of ten hours in the middle of the day between two of the up services. The lack of passenger traffic not surprisingly resulted in the station being closed to passenger services on 16th September 1957 with goods traffic succumbing less than four years later when the goods yard closed on 20th February 1961. Brinklow's signal cabin remained open until 14th September 1964 when stage one of Rugby Power Box was commissioned.

Goods facilities were accommodated at Brinklow with the yard being located on the up side of the station. In addition to the goods shed there was capacity for 38 wagons in the two sidings in the yard (one of which past through the goods shed) with another 25 wagons being accommodated in the dead-end off the 'down slow'. Access to the goods yard was off the Fosse Way and adjacent to the main station building located on the bridge. The Railway Clearing House's 1929 Handbook of Railway Stations states Brinklow station provided the general public and businesses with the following services: Goods traffic; Passenger and Parcels traffic; Furniture Vans; Livestock; Horse Boxes and Prize Cattle Vans; and Carriages (Horse-drawn - Ed) by Passenger Trains (GPFLHC). No cranage facilities were provided within the goods yard or shed, therefore should one be required this would need to be specially hired. This could be either a wagon mounted crane or a road crane, the later more likely after the First World War. The 1894 edition of The Railway Clearing House Handbook of Railway Stations did not provide information to the same detail e.g. the number of categories listed, and only recorded (GPFL), however its reasonable to assume that the same facilities recorded in 1929 were offered from the outset.