Notes: Rhosymedre Halt was located on the Great Western Railway’s (GWR) main line that linked Birmingham to the River Mersey at Birkenhead via Chester. The section of line on which Rhosymedre Halt was located had been opened on 4 November 1846 by the Shrewsbury & Chester Railway. The GWR took over the line on 1 September 1854 (click here to read more about the events that led up to the take over) . Under their ownership it became a busy trunk route linking the Midlands to Birkenhead on the River Mersey. Express passenger services began operating between London Paddington and Birkenhead on 1 October 1861. The line also carried heavy volumes of freight.
The halt was authorised on 18 July 1906 and opened on 1 September 1906 to serve the small settlement after which it was named. It was located to the north of Chapel Street which passed over the line on a bridge. The line was in a cutting at this point and sloping paths led down to 150ft length timber platforms. The down platform (Chester direction) was also connected by a sloping path to Church Street which was to the north of the halt.
On each platform there was a GWR pagoda style corrugated iron shelter.
The cost of providing the halt was £336.
The halt would have been served by local trains and the July 1922 timetable showed ten up and eleven down services Monday-to-Saturday. There was an extra service in each direction on Wednesdays and two trains each way on Sundays.
Tickets were issued by the guards of trains. Lamps were lit by the lad porter from Whitehurst Halt and extinguised by the guard of the last train.
On 1 January 1948 the line became part of British Railways [Western Region] (BR[WR]).
The summer timetable for 1949 showed only six up and four down services Monday-to-Saturday as shown in the table below. There were no services on Sundays.
Up trains
Summer 1949 |
Destination |
Down Trains
Summer 1949 |
Destination |
6.50am |
Oswestry |
8.00am |
Ruabon |
9.35am |
Oswestry |
11.07am |
Wrexham General |
11.55am |
Gobowen |
1.06pm |
Wrexham General |
4.24pm |
Gobowen |
9.26pm |
Wrexham General |
5.57pm |
Gobowen |
|
|
8.12pm |
Oswestry |
|
|
The last timetable in which Rhosymedre Halt was shown covered the period from 15 September 1958 to 14 June 1959. It showed no trains calling at Rhosymedre Halt and this was because it was closed by BR[WR] on 2 March 1959. It was demolished shortly after leaving no trace.
The line remained a busy trunk route until the mid-1960s when many mainline services were diverted to other routes or ceased to run. By the late 1970s it had become a shadow of its former self with only an hourly DMU service in each direction.
Following a period of passenger growth in the first decade of the Twenty-First century the line was once again handling main line traffic.
Tickets from Michael Stewart and route map by Alan Young
Sources:
- A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain - Volume II North & Mid Wales - Peter E Baughan - David & Charles 1980.
- Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies - Christopher Awdry - Guild Publishing 1990.
- Great Western Halts - Volume 2 - Kevin Robertson - KRB Publications 2002.
- Paddington to the Mersey - Dr R. Preston Hendry & R. Powell Hendry - Oxford Publishing Company 1992.
- Railway Passenger Stations in Great Britain - a Chronology - Michael Quick - Railway & Canal Historical Society 2009.
To see the
other stations on the Shrewsbury - Chester General line
click on the station name: Shrewsbury S&C, Leaton, Oldwoods Halt, Baschurch,
Stanwardine Halt, Haughton Halt, Rednal & West Felton,
Whittington Low Level, Weston Rhyn, Trehowell Halt, Llangollen Road, Whitehurst Halt Rhosymedre, Cefn, Wynnville Halt, Rhos, Johnstown & Hafod, Rhosrobin Halt, Gresford, Rossett, Pulford, Balderton and Saltney |