Notes: Madeley Road railway station served the area of Madeley, in Staffordshire. The Stoke to Market Drayton Line was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) in 1870; the station called simply Madeley was opened on the line in the same year. Within a few months, the station was renamed Madeley Manor; this was possibly to avoid confusion with the LNWR station at Madeley. It was so named after the nearby abandoned house of Madeley Old Manor. By August 1871, the name had been changed again to Madeley Road.

The station comprised two facing platforms. The main station building which incorporated the station master's house was on the up platform with a shelter on the down platform. Passenger access to the down platform was via a barrow crossing at the east end of the station. A signal box stood at the back of the down platform close to the west end. By 1924 the box had been located closer to the shelter. Public access was along a sloping footpath from Manor Road.

The station had no goods facilities and, due to its rural location, passenger use was low. In 1931, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway closed the station. The station's low usage is indicated by the LMS estimate that only £92 per year was saved by its closure.

The line through the station remained in use until the closure of Silverdale Colliery in 1998.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE STOKE TO MARKET DRAYTON LINE
The Stoke to Market Drayton line ran through Staffordshire and Shropshire and was built by the North Staffordshire Railway. Three Acts of Parliament were required, The Silverdale and Newcastle Railway Act 1859, the Silverdale and Newcastle Railway Act 1860 and the North Staffordshire Railway Branches Act 1864.

The first part of the line to be built required the private Silverdale and Newcastle Railway, built in 1850 by ironmaster Ralph Sneyd, to become public. This was enabled by the Silverdale and Newcastle Railway Act 1859 and passenger services from Stoke to Newcastle began in 1862. Silverdale was reached in May 1863.

Meanwhile, the Great Western Railway was planning to reach Manchester and in an effort to block this, the Market Drayton extension was completed in February 1870.

The early years of the 20th century were the busiest, there being thirteen trains daily from Stoke to Silverdale and five to Market Drayton. Railmotor services began in 1905 and several new halts were built. Running from Silverdale as far as Trentham, they were intended to compete with trams and were somewhat successful in this respect, although they only lasted until 1926. The section between Silverdale and Pipe Gate was reduced to single track in October 1934.

Dwindling passenger numbers after World War II meant that there were only two trains daily from Stoke to Market Drayton, and services ceased on 7 May 1956 when they were cut back to Silverdale. Passenger services to the latter ceased in 1964, a casualty of the Beeching Axe.

Express Dairies had a creamery with private siding access to Pipe Gate, allowing its preferred transport partner the GWR to provide milk trains to the facility, for onward scheduling to London. Following nationalisation there was a very considerable increase in freight traffic on this route reaching a peak of 10,000 tons weekly in 1962-63.

In 1962 a new 'chord' line was opened at Madeley to provide a connection to the West Coast Main Line. This was used as a diversionary route when the Harecastle diversion line was being constructed and continued in use for freight workings once the latter was completed.

After closure of the creamery at Pipe Gate, the route between Market Drayton and Madeley Chord closed for good in 1966. That same year, the line between Newcastle Junction (Stoke) and Brampton Sidings was closed and the junction severed in preparation for the West Coast Main Line electrification. The Pool Dam branch survived until 7 October 1967.

The last traffic on the line was coal from Apedale and Silverdale collieries, which ceased in December 1998 when the latter was closed.

As of 2020, the line remains extant but out of use between Newcastle and just west of Madeley Road station. The line is also extant from Silverdale Tunnel, and now a public footpath runs along the line, from its start in Stoke-on-Trent (Cockshot Lock/Newcastle Junction) to as far as Silverdale station.

The station at Norton-in-Hales is the only station still standing on the former route, as a private residence. The station site at Newcastle-Under-Lyme has been landscaped, and Market Drayton's has been demolished and built on by both a Morrisons store and an industrial complex.

In 2009 the platforms at Silverdale were cleared of vegetation and the derelict track from the former station site to the tunnel portal was lifted but the track remains intact between Silverdale and Pipe Gate via Keele and Madeley Road.

In January 2019, Campaign for Better Transport released a report identifying the line between Stoke and Wellington which was listed as Priority 2 for reopening. Priority 2 is for those lines which require further development or a change in circumstances (such as housing developments).