Madeley Junction to Lightmoor

The origins of this line came from the building of the Shrewsbury to Birmingham Railway, which once completed opened up the potential to serve the industrial areas in the Ironbridge Gorge and the areas close to it north of the River Severn. By this time a significant number of Ironworks were busy expanding in the area and were looking for ways of transporting materials. Several of the works were running tramways as a means of freight transportation; Lightmoor being one such example where minerals were moved through the area by a system of workable tramways. However, the potential was there now to build a railway to serve this mineral rich area and gain from its profits. The line was authorized in 1847 and was completed by 1854, the line extending between three and four miles from Madeley Junction on the Wolverhampton Line down to Lighmooor, thus linking it to the mineral tramways serving the Ironworks in the Lightmoor and Horsehay areas of the Severn Gorge. However, not all of the origional plans came to fruition; a triangular junction with the main line never happened and the proposal to extend the line to Coalbrookdale came off the rails due to the lack of finance. This latter problem though, soon resolved itself when the Wellington to Buildwas Line was developed through the Lightmoor area and down through Coalbrookdale. There was one intermediate station on the short line, that being Madeley Station, this being renamed Madeley Court Station in 1884. A further renaming of the station happened just thirteen years later in 1897 when it became Madeley (Salop) The line was mainly freight of course, but some passenger services ran the line, often joining onto other services in the area, particularly those running between Wellington and Craven Arms over the Albert Edward Bridge onto the south side of the river and crossing The Severn Valley Line. Passenger services were always thin on the ground and they halted altogether during the First World War and were only reinstated a full seven years after it had ended. This reopening though was very short lived; just two months later the line was permanently closed to passenger traffic. However, freight traffic continued until the late 1960’s when Kemberton Colliery finally closed its doors. In recent years the line has been kept open with coal trains going down to the Power Station at Ironbridge on the south side of the river over the Albert Edward Bridge.  Sadly the Power Station finally closed in November 2015, thus condeming the line to being Shropshire’s newest disused railway. writing.

History