Lichfield Trent Valley railway station

Lichfield Trent Valley
General information
Location	Lichfield
Managed by	London Midland
Platforms	3
Other information
Station code	LTV
History
Opened	1847

Lichfield Trent Valley is a split-level railway station on the outskirts of the city of Lichfield in Staffordshire, England. It has the IATA location identifier XQT. It is one of two stations in Lichfield, the other being Lichfield City in the city-centre.

Location

The station is not particularly near the city, being one mile from the city-centre. Nor, indeed is it near the River Trent. It is an example of a station built primarily to serve a railway junction.

Features

Facilities are basic - the original station building burned down in the 1990s, and the ticket office is now a temporary wooden building. Its low-level platforms are located on the Trent Valley Line section of the West Coast Main Line. The Fastest passenger services are run by Virgin Trains, although only a handful of peak time and weekend services call at the station. From December 2008 hourly services commenced in each direction thanks to the new London Midland semi-fast service between Euston and Crewe via Northampton and Stoke-on-Trent (Monday to Saturday daytime plus a limited Sunday service). During weekdays, the London Midland service are designed to connect with fast Virgin trains services at Rugby, offering a total journey time between Lichfield Trent Valley and London Euston of 1 hour and 35 minutes including the connection time.

A single platform at right-angles to the low-level station, accessible by a staircase from the latter, forms the high-level part of the station. This forms the northern terminus of the Cross-City Line, and is served by two trains an hour, every day of the week.

File:Lichfield Trent Valley South.jpg

A view of Lichfield Trent Valley looking south on the West Coast Main Line on 21 March 2007

File:Lichfield TV spur.JPG

The chord line between the low and high level lines, seen from platform 2

The route North of Lichfield on the high-level line, connected to the southbound WCML by a single track chord, runs via Alrewas to Wichnor Junction, near Burton upon Trent. Primarily a freight route, this line is also used by Virgin Trains to move trains from Birmingham to Bombardier's maintenance depot at Central Rivers, near Burton. The route is sometimes used as a means of diverting trains when engineering work takes place between Birmingham New Street and Tamworth.

The signal box was demolished over the weekend of 15 June 2008 as part of the West Coast upgrade.

1946 accident

On New Year's day 1946 it was the site of a points failure resulting in a fish train being diverted into a stationary passenger train resulting in the deaths of 20 people and injury of 21 more.

Main article: Lichfield rail crash

External links

• Rail Around Birmingham and the West Midlands: Lichfield Trent Valley station

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Tamworth		London Midland London - Crewe		Rugeley Trent Valley
Lichfield City		London Midland Cross-City Line		Terminus
Tamworth		Virgin Trains West Coast Main Line		Stafford
Stoke-on-Trent

Preceding station		Disused railways		Following station
Alrewas		South Staffordshire Railway Later LNWR, then LMS, finally BR South Staffs Line (1849-1964)		Lichfield City