Railways of Shropshire - National Rail Services

National Rail Services

National Rail services in Shropshire are centred about Shrewsbury station (all other 'national rail' stations in Shropshire have a direct train service to Shrewsbury, which is the county town), which is managed by Arriva Trains Wales. The station is at the junction of the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line, Shrewsbury to Chester Line, the Welsh Marches Line (between Cardiff and Manchester) and the Cambrian Line (towards Welshpool). Craven Arms station is at the junction between the Welsh Marches Line and the Heart of Wales Line, although services on the Heart of Wales Line begin at Shrewsbury, rather than Craven Arms itself. There are direct train services from Shrewsbury (and elsewhere in the county) to the cities of Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff, as well as the port at Holyhead where regular ferries to Dublin depart.

There are no electrified railways in the county (unless you count the funicular Bridgnorth Cliff Railway), despite the surrounding railway nodes of Crewe, Chester and Wolverhampton all being electrified. This has meant that since the mid-1990s rail privatisation there has been a reluctance to establish a direct service to London by the cross-country railway companies (previously British Rail ran direct trains from Shrewsbury to London), notably Virgin Trains, who previously ran services to London from the county in 2000. There was a direct service to London Marylebone, provided by the open-access company Wrexham & Shropshire, which operated from 28 April 2008 to 28 January 2011 and used diesel locomotives.