Archive photos of the Oswestry to Gobowen railway show much-missed line before closure
It's been nearly 57 years since the last train left Oswestry for Gobowen.
Oswestry was once a railway hub, but it was the branch from Gobowen that arrived first. Built in 1848 by the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway (SCR), it allowed residents in the town to change onto main line trains to continue their journeys.
17 years later the Cambrian Railways chose to house its headquarters in its own Oswestry station, built next door to the SCR's
In the years that followed, passengers could travel north east to Ellesmere and Whitchurch, our south towards Welshpool and Llanfyllin, as well as on the branch to Gobowen.
The companies running the trains changed: the SCR was taken over by the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1854. In 1923, the Cambrian Railways was amalgamated with the GWR, and in 1948 the GWR nationalised, becoming part of British Railways.
In 1924 the GWR closed the original Shrewsbury and Chester-built station at Oswestry, with Gobowen trains running into a short platform at the north end of the station constructed by the Cambrian Railways.
Services continued until the mid-1960s when the line from Whitchurch to Welshpool was listed for closure in Dr Richard Beeching's infamous Reshaping of British Railways report. The last trains on that route ran in January 1965.
The Gobowen line wasn't listed in the report as one that should close, however in August 1965 British Railways announced plans to close it. Labour's transport secretary, Barbara Castle, signed off on the plan 11 months later with the final services running on Bonfire Night 1966, leaving Oswestry cut off from the national network.
Freight services continued along the route until 1971 before a single train serving Blodwell Quarry was all that ran through Oswestry until operations ceased in 1988.
