Wombourne Branchline

The Wombourne Branchline was a railway situated in Central England. The line branched from the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line at Kingswinford Junction to the north of Brettell Lane railway station and joined track near Bushbury Junction on the approach to Wolverhampton Low Level.

Unusually, the line was initially constructed for goods trains only. It was not until 1925 that passenger trains started using the line. A number of halts and stations were built at locations on the line including Pensnett, Wombourne, Penn, Compton and Tettenhall. Passenger services were short lived and were discontinued in 1932 after just seven years.

The line between Kingswinford and Tettenhall remained open to goods trains until 1965, though the branch which served Baggeridge Colliery remained open until that facility closed in 1968.

The remaining section of the line continued to serve various industrial units in the Pensnett area until 1994. Much of the line is now heavily overgrown with vegetation and even mature trees, but most of the track is still in place and there have been many recent suggestions that this final stub of the line will re-open to serve the Pensnett Trading Estate, which was developed during the 1980s.

The section north of Pensnett closed is now utilised as the South Staffordshire Railway Walk. The former station buildings at Wombourne are still in use as a tea-room. Other various relics of this line still exist.