Light Rail
Gary Essex visits the only UK railway station lit entirely with oil lamps
When railway stations reopen, media reports usually list the facilities. In the case of Eardington in Shropshire, the news reports have made a feature about the lack of one particular facility. This rural single-platform station is near the northern end of the Severn Valley Railway (01562 757900, svr.co.uk), two miles from the heritage railway’s Bridgnorth terminus. With its lack of an electricity supply, it’s the only UK station lit entirely with oil lamps.
It first opened in 1868, six years after the rest of the Severn Valley line, which ran between Shrewsbury and Bewdley, joining the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway near Hartlebury in Worcestershire and was operated by Great Western. Erdington’s primary purpose was serving the nearby ironworks at Upper and Lower Forge, being much closer to them than the village it takes the name of. After the ironworks closed around 1899, the station remained open, but traffic was sparse, with under 6,000 tickets sold in 1903.
GWR records show just two members of staff in the 1920s, the stationmaster and a gatewoman, losing its stationmaster in 1931 when it came under the control of nearby Highley station. Its status was further reduced to an unstaffed halt in April 1949. The line was closed to passenger services in 1963. Although Beeching was blamed for this in later years, the decision had been taken several years before his infamous report.
In 1967, the line was reopened as the preserved Severn Valley Railway, and the station was regularly used, including for watering locomotives, but was last included on a timetable in 1982, due to the condition of the platform and low passenger numbers. The platform edge had partly collapsed and was removed, replaced by a wire fence alongside the track when stationmaster Steve Downs and a small team of around 20 volunteers started restoration in 1984.
They undertook a wide variety of tasks, as well as routine maintenance. The waiting room was totally restored from a semi derelict state, with two original Great Western tin sheds and a wagon body acquired and restored as workshops and stores.
Originally the volunteers just intended to keep the station tidy and maintained, but they began opening for galas in the 1990s, raising funds by selling tea and cakes to people arriving by road. They never intended reopening to stopping trains, but the regular gala openings brought an increasing number of visitors, so an agreement was reached with the SVR management to rebuild the platform, and fundraising began. The team raised £45,000 for the project, mostly through
donations, selling roast chestnuts at Christmas, and proceeds from galas.
Their appeal for bricks reached a company working on mainline electrification, which donated the remains of a demolished bridge near Bristol, so the platform was rebuilt with original GWR bricks. Cleaning of the 6,000 bricks was undertaken by volunteers, and the bricklaying by a local construction company. The work took place during the railway’s closed period in January and February 2018, with the 55 platform edging slabs cast in specially made moulds and laid a year later.
Steve, now officially stationmaster after unofficially holding the title since first arriving, has researched the station’s history. Their newest project is rebuilding a corrugated tin shed that served as a goods lock-up next to the tiny waiting room.
He recounts: “We first learnt about the lock-up from a lovely local resident called Bill Stacey, who’s sadly no longer with us. He was a real character, one of the last of the old countrymen, who grew up here in the 1930s. And he told us there used to be a tin shed with a curved roof. We started excavating the area, buried by a landslide in 1990 and found the edge of the foundations. Six of us moved around 25 tonnes of spoil with shovels and wheelbarrows and the footprint of the original building was revealed.”
The station never had a mains electricity supply installed and relies on oil lamps for lighting. Starting with a handful of lamps for the waiting room and platform, the collection is now outgrowing the current lamp room, originally the goods office in GWR days. The new building will house the lamp display as part of a small museum including a history of the station.
“Lamp man” Phil Harris got involved by accident. “I was cycling back to Bewdley with a friend, saw that Eardington was open, met Steve and got chatting,” he says. “I happened to mention that I restored vintage radios and lamps, he showed me the lamp room, and several Tilley lamps that they couldn’t get working, and asked if I knew how to fix them. So I just had to get involved.”
In the collection are indoor lamps for the waiting room, several Tilley lamps, four-sided platform lamps with the station name, and various specialist lamps, including some designed for track gangs, along with signalling lanterns, a light for level crossings and a floodlight.
Phil explains: “I like to get the lamps into original working condition, as they would have been on the railways at the time, not just museum pieces. I’m often asked by visitors if we would like an old lamp they have. We generally say yes – we’re always looking for more, and spare parts. Some items are available new, such as mantles, glass and preheaters for Tilley lamps. Some parts are harder to find, especially for the specialist lamps. If anyone has anything they’d like to donate we’d love to hear from them.”
Steve says they want to show how the station fitted into the local community.
“We’d like to demonstrate what the station used to do; the fact these heritage lines are real historic railways sometimes gets forgotten,” he says. “It’s a genuine Great Western branch line, and we want to tell the story of how it served the local community. We’ve actually got some original luggage here. One of the local farmers regularly ordered mail order books in the 1940s. You’d cut out and post a little coupon from the News of the World, and you’d get sent a book on kings and queens of England. We acquired some of these by pure fluke at a local auction, still in the original wrappers with ‘Via Eardington Station’ on the labels.”
Initial plans for stopping trains were postponed due to Covid and they had to work within the Office of Rail and Road stipulation that only trains which fit in the platform can use the station, limiting the length to four coaches. A “local” service has been added to steam gala timetables, between Bridgnorth and Hampton Loade.
The autumn steam gala and “diesel bash” showed the line’s newest station is very popular with enthusiasts. Large numbers of visitors enjoyed tea and cake, as well as the ambience of the small rural station. Steve summarises the progress so far, and their ongoing plans: “Things couldn’t have gone better and we’re starting a new exciting chapter in Eardington’s history. We’re looking forward to building on the progress we’ve made to bring the story of this fascinating country station to even more people.”