Round Oak railway station

Round Oak railway station served the town of Brierley Hill, in the West Midlands (historically Staffordshire), England. It was a stop on the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line.

Round Oak
General information
Location	Brierley Hill Metropolitan Borough of Dudley England
Coordinates	52.4886°N 2.1206°W / 52.4886; -2.1206
Grid reference	SO919878
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway
Key dates
1852	Opened[1]
1962	Closed[1]
Location

History

The station was opened in 1852. Two railways served it: originally the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and the South Staffordshire Railway, which later became the Great Western Railway and London, Midland and Scottish Railway (through amalgamation of the London and North Western Railway) respectively.

Preceding station		Disused railways		Following station
Harts Hill		Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway Later Great Western Railway, then British Rail Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton (1852-1962)		Brierley Hill
Harts Hill		South Staffordshire Railway Later LNWR, then LMS, finally BR South Staffs Line Dudley-Stourbridge Junction section (1852-1962)		Brierley Hill

Accident

Main article: Round Oak rail accident

In 1858, a coupling broke on an excursion train at the station and the rear portion rolled back down the gradient from Round Oak station towards Brettell Lane. It collided with another train, which was part of the same excursion; the train had already been safely divided once, due to its extreme length. 14 passengers were killed and 50 more were injured.

Closure

British Railways closed the station pre-Beeching in 1962 and plans for freight use were abandoned at the same time.

The site today

Goods trains continue to pass the site, for a few hundred yards northwards, to Round Oak Steel Terminal.

West Midlands Metro

A £1.1 billion, 15-year-long regeneration project will see the station become part of the local tram network with the line reopening between Walsall, Dudley Port, Dudley and the Merry Hill Shopping Centre for trams on one track and for freight on the other. Freight trains would continue on past Brettell Lane and onto the main line at Stourbridge Junction.^[2]

It was originally set to reopen as a through route in 2012, to run alongside the second phase of the Midland Metro; it is expected that trams will diverge from the line at around the location of Harts Hill. Due to open originally in a revised date of 2023, cost overruns have seen work put back with a currently planned opening date of 2025. However, as of July 2023, no funding of the section between Brierley Hill and the Merry Hill Centre has been made available.