Morning,
I'm standing in a bus stop in Staffordshire
a very grey October, but mild day,
but I bet it's going to rain though.
This bus stop at a station,
that's no longer a station.
I've got a special guest with me.
We're going do the least used station,
But before that,
we're going to check out the abandoned stations
of Norton Bridge, Wedgwood, and Barlaston.
Yes, Welcome to this part of the West Coast
Mainland in Staffordshire,
which has three abandoned stations.
The last passenger services ran to the three
stations in 2004.
Although Norton Bridge was formally closed in
2017 and there's not a lot left of it.
However, at Barlaston and Wedgwood stations
the structures are almost entirely intact
as we're about to see as we go and visit them.
So behind me, well,
I'm standing what in,
I think was the forecourt and maybe where there
used to be a station burning of the Norton Bridge.
I'm in Staffordshire,
but I've got a guest with me.
So if you will wave and say hello to Andrew, who's there.
Morning.
He's going to be in my next three videos.
You're in three videos, three videos.
This one, we'll do least used station and we'll do a chat.
Cause you might know him as Mr. Mappy on Twitter,
but before we do anything else,
we've discovered this amazing old station sign
the Norton Bridge, but here for how long?
It's been shut for a years and years and years.
And yet this sign has been put up by London,
Northwestern Railway,
who only took over the franchise a couple of years ago.
So they put up a sign for
a station that doesn't exist.
That's right.
And they took away the bridge,
so there's no access to the platform that is still there.
And this is the original Grand Junction Railway that ran
from Birmingham to Crewe
four tracks
two fast lines.
And now only one slow line
because the other slow line is on
the new diversion.
London Northwestern Railway.
What, why have you put in a poster for a station
that doesn't exist.
Cause are where you'd bolster as we see
there are very much, because they're not closed.
They're kind of off board, but this,
this is gone, right?
This has gone.
Should we go and let's kind of look and see what's gone.
So there's an old,
like an old blue that's very British rail, 1970s.
I think it
might've been network Northwest or something.
Network Northwest?
Possibly.
Wow. So the platform that we can see
is that an island configuration?
Yes.
So that would have been the Northbound stopping one.
The one that's nearest to us,
and the Southbound stop
would have been on the far side.
Is that correct?
Yes, correct.
That is one overgrown station. Okay.
If we wait long enough,
we'll see an Avanti whiz be whizzing through, right?
Should do with a bit of luck.
Okay.
There pretty frequent. Don't forget.
This is supposed to be the busiest mainline in Europe,
which is why they building HS two.
We'll wait for a train.
(train roaring)
Yeah,
When you come down to the allotment
(whispers) allotment,
down the side for a much
better view of this gives you a much better,
a sweeping view of the whole,
the station and the platforms.
Right?
Hey,
I can see the signal box there and it still got the original
sign on it.
There is a normal bridge sign. I love it.
There we go.
Okay.
It looks like they demolished half the signal box.
So they've taken off the top bit,
but the base some brick basis is still there.
Also back in 2016,
the layout of this important junction at Norton Bridge on
the West Coast,
mainline was very much improved
with the construction of a flyover,
which allowed the Stoke branch to be great,
separated from the mainline to Crewe.
As Andrew explains.
Four tracks up to Search Light junction,
the three tracks up through Norton bridge up to the Hemi's
two tracks take the slow lines up here
and over to Stone and Stoke-on-Trent.
And there's one single slow line Northbound to reconnect
with their original grand shrunk mainline.
It was a fantastic engineering job.
I got a figure in my head of 160 million,
they did it in 18 months and it was a spectacular thing to
watch massive earth moving machinery,
moving huge amounts of soil.
But now it's really,
really cleaned up and it's improved the train service
dramatically with no conflicting movement.
(train roaring)
And from Norton Bridge,
it's a short ride in Andrew's car to take us to our next
abandoned station, which hardly feels abandoned at all.
So, at a station that looks like a station.
There's a sign, a board, what looks like a timetable
poster and stuff.
But it's actually a completely defunct closed station,
even though it looks open.
So Andrew we're at Barlaston,
which remind us, which closed when do you think?
2004, was the last train.
Did you ever catch a train from here?
Have you ever used?
I used it when I went to art college.
When you were a young lad?
While a young lad, going to Stafford.
We can't get onto the platforms.
Is it all closed?
It appears now, now it's all locked up.
Now there were station buildings on the left,
but they've obviously been demolished and there's only the
remains of a more modern waiting shelter there on the right.
But it looks like, you know, it's still,
it looks like this station could be reopened very easily.
The platforms are in perfect condition.
There will be no problem at all.
Are there plans to reopen the station?
There were plans to reopen the station.
The Northwestern Railway were talking about starting again,
in May 2001,
either here or at Wedgwood
but nothing has transpired.
It's just so strange having
an abandoned station that
doesn't look that abandoned.
That's the weird thing.
Yeah. And it's been closed for.
17 years? 16 years?
Yeah.
Please keep our village tidy,
No access.
Are you keeping the village tidy, Andrew?
There's no way through.
It's not my village, but.
You're hoping there was a sneaky way through.
We'll you kind of walk up here.
There's a remains of a waiting room
or parts of the station building up there.
That's on the Northbound side.
I've not seen that before.
When you stopped here
So this would have been pre Pendolino days.
It would have been like Loco.
Loco Hall's stock. It was a very early part of the London,
Northwestern Railway electrification.
The very first EMU's that used to take us
through to Stafford to Manchester road
called AM falls, I think.
And they were still Slam-on-Stock,
Wow.
which was pretty uncivilised.
And weren't much of an improvement upon the esteem stock
that went before it.
(train roaring)
Another one coming.
Look at this.
(train roaring)
(train gates rising)
How's the rain treating you.
Not well,
We've discovered the it's got a classic onward travel
information poster
again, it's got a helpful information
poster, just as a Norton Bridge did.
There was no ticket office at this station.
What it should say as people have said on Twitter is there
are no trains at this station that would be more handy.
It is helpful.
This is what we're
here to talk about, Andrew,
the bus service because there is a replacement bus,
it that correct?
So I understand.
Have you ever got the replacement bus?
I never have.
Do you know what number it is?
I think it's the number. What is it?
The 100? How does it work?
I don't think it particularly
matters what the number is.
It just turns up as a little sort of transit bus type thing.
It's a small thing. I've never seen many people on this.
When it calls in Stone,
it only calls at Granville Square in town
and not by their
obvious station.
(siren sounds)
(train gates closing)
(train roaring)
So much rain.
I'm so sorry about the rain
(laughs)
so much,
so much rain on the lens.
All right, to Wedgwood.
Right. I can see we're approaching the level crossing.
So this would be Wedgwood station.
Do you know where to park? Oh, we'll just,
we'll just pull in here.
(laughs)
Lets just park here.
I've got rain inside your car, Andrew.
Sorry about that.
Yeah don't worry about it.
It's kind of drizzling. I wouldn't say raining.
We have a bit of drizzle, Wedgwood station,
Wedgwood station.
All right.
What we've got is a sign saying access to platform
prohibited due to condition.
So is this is Wedgwood,
not in a good condition as Barlaston. what'd We think?
These platforms are made out of wood.
So it's not a brick and concrete like Barlaston.
Was it a later build?
Was it built after Barlaston?
This was built in 1940 Barlaston was open when the north
staff year, well, we originally opened in 1848.
I think it was.
So this was built when the factory was built that's to bring
possibly workers down from Stoke-on-Trent.
There were a couple of big waiting rooms on both platforms.
That's a whole, quite a lot of people.
I used to catch the train from here
to Stafford to go to art college.
In my late teens, interestingly, there was a,
a very late train back from Stafford at 1:20 AM,
and it was called the milk train.
It consisted of an engine,
a carriage and a milk van at the back.
And it was heading for Stoke-on-Trent.
And it said it was stopped at Stone and Barlaston,
by request to the guard.
I would go up to the engine driver and say,
can we stop at Wedgwood? And he says,
as long as you don't tell anybody,
and the train was stopped here in the middle of the night,
no lighting in the middle of the winter,
the overhead wires were covered in ice.
When the train started moving that the enormous blue flashes
lighting up my way.
(bleep)
Did I break my camera?
I think it's okay. Okay.
Camera not broken helpful.
Here's the thing I was going to say,
doing my dramatic walk-up
there still an old station cottage over there.
That's quite nice.
There's no bars and arrow symbol.
There is helpful information posted again.
Thanks on the Northwestern.
And that's very helpful
along with the bus times again.
I do feel that we should go and find the bus stop this time.
Yeah. Do you want to know what saved my camera?
What saved my camera was my Rode microphone.
It fell, it fell on to
the squishy bit of the mic.
Otherwise I'd have a broken camera and the video right now.
I did not order this rain by the way.
Do you want to go and find the bus stop?
We should go find the bus.
(train roaring)
Right, the cross country has gone
through we're back in the car.
We just feel like we ought to
we're just going to go and find
the bus stop.
Coming around the corner in Andrew's car.
I just wanted to see the bus stop.
I'm a little bit confused about the bus situation.
Hi at YouTube. This is your chance.
If you're from Staffordshire in this local area,
tell us what's happening with the bus situation,
because this is the bus stop,
Barlaston old road and for Wedgwood station.
And if you read Wikipedia says that the replacement route
bus service is route number 100,
but on the time type of boards back there around the corner,
I really no one in the station.
It says it's written as the 14.
So is it the 14 or is it the 100?
I'm a little confused now.
Have you ever got the replacement bus
and thanks very much for being my Boston Wedgwood, man.
Would you also like to be my taxi driver to take,
to take me to Longport?
At your service sir?
Would you,
would you like to be my companion?
So the least station in Staffordshire.
Let's go and find out what's going on there.
That's why I'm really in Staffordshire.
This was just like a little sort of precursor little
A little warm-up.
Andrew will now join me in the next video
as we do the least used
station in Staffordshire, see you there.
(upbeat music)