page_title: Wolverhampton railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Wolverhampton railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: 1987 Sculpture of a horse by Kevin Atherton, located on platforms 2/3 at Wolverhampton railway station
context_page_description: Wolverhampton railway station in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England is on the Birmingham Loop of the West Coast Main Line. It is served by Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Transport for Wales and West Midlands Trains services, and was historically known as Wolverhampton High Level.
context_section_description: The first station named Wolverhampton had opened on the edge of the town centre in 1837 on the Grand Junction Railway, this station was renamed Wednesfield Heath in 1855, shortly after the present station was opened, and then was closed in 1873.
  On 12 November 1849, the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway opened a temporary terminus to its line, at a location very close to the present station.
  The present station was opened on 1 July 1852 by the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stour Valley Railway, a subsidiary of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR); it was named Wolverhampton Queen Street. The only visible remnant of the original station is the Queen's Building, the gateway to Railway Drive which was the approach road to the station. The building was originally the carriage entrance to the station and was completed three years before the main station building. Today, it forms part of Wolverhampton bus station.
  Two years later, on 1 July 1854, the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OWWR) opened a second station, located behind the older station on lower ground, which became known as the Wolverhampton Low Level station from April 1856, the other becoming known as Wolverhampton High Level from 1 June 1885.
  From 1923, the LNWR was amalgamated into the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), and in 1948 it became part of the London Midland Region of British Railways.
  Services over the former Grand Junction Railway line to Walsall (and thence to Lichfield City and Burton-on-Trent) ended in January 1965, this route being the only one from here to fall victim to the Beeching Axe.
  The present Wolverhampton station dates from 1964-67 when the High Level station was completely rebuilt by the architect Ray Moorcroft as part of the modernisation programme which saw the West Coast Main Line electrified. It consisted of three through platforms (the present platforms 1, 2 and 3).  As part of this scheme, most services on the OW&WR route from Shrewsbury were diverted here from Low Level (though a few peak-hour trains continued to serve the latter until March 1968); these then continued to Birmingham New Street via the Stour Valley line rather than via the ex-GWR line to Birmingham Snow Hill as before.  In the 1980s, a parcels siding was converted into a south-facing bay platform (the present platform 5), and a new north-facing bay was constructed (the present platform 6).
  In 1987 twelve different horse sculptures by Kevin Atherton, titled Iron Horse, were erected between New Street station and Wolverhampton, including one at the southern end of platforms 2 and 3.
  More recently (in 2004), a new through platform (platform 4) was constructed on the site of infrequently-used sidings. This has greatly enhanced the capacity of the station. A new footbridge was also constructed, to allow access to the new platform but also to improve access to the existing ones.  A proposal for a more comprehensive redevelopment of the station and surrounding area was announced on 18 October 2006.
   Work on this is expected to be completed in September 2020 and will include an extension of the Midland Metro.
  Management of the station transferred from Virgin Trains West Coast to West Midlands Trains franchise in April 2018.
caption: One of Kevin Atherton's Iron Horse sculptures, at Wolverhampton station.
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