Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway

On 4 July 1837, the Grand Junction Railway (GJR) opened, linking the four largest cities of England by joining the existing Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) with the projected London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR). The line, which was the first long-distance railway in the world, ran from Curzon Street railway station in Birmingham to Dallam in Warrington, Cheshire, where it made an end-on junction with the Warrington and Newton Railway, a branch of the L&M. Conceived as a through route, the GJR was not interested in serving towns en-route. Wolverhampton, for instance, was by-passed by half a mile because it did not lie on the intended route.

Having been turned down by Nantwich, a station was built in the township of Crewe which formed part of the ancient parish of Barthomley, on the junction of a turnpike road linking the Trent and Mersey and the Shropshire Union canals. As soon as the station opened it was seen to be at a useful point to begin a branch line to the county town of Chester, facilitated by the 1840 construction of the Chester and Crewe Railway, extended in 1841 to Holyhead to provide the fastest route to Ireland.

In 1845 the GJR merged with the L&BR and L&MR to form the London and North Western Railway Company, which until its demise in 1923 was the largest company in the world. The new company extended the Warrington line to Lancaster and Carlisle, the Manchester line to Leeds, and built a new line to Shrewsbury to join the now jointly financed with the GWR Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway, which provided connections to South Wales.

The immediate success of the route, particularly revenue from coal traffic, meant the line was authorised to be upgraded to double track, which was completed in 1862.

The line's success showed other operators the importance of access to Crewe, with the GWR sponsored Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway (OE&WR) proposed in 1860. Following ferocious arguments between the LNWR and GWR, Parliament authorised building the line in August 1861 with the Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway Act 1861 (24 & 25 Vict. c. ccxxiii).

The first phase was restricted to the Whitchurch-Ellesmere section, with the onward section to Oswestry held over for a year in case of new GWR route developments. Engineered by Robert and Benjamin Piercey, the civil engineering contractor was Thomas Savin.

Facilities at Whitchurch were expanded by the LNWR to allow for trains using the new line, with the stations staff numbers reaching over 100 between the two wars. Intermediate stations were built by the OE&WR at Fenn's Bank, Bettisfield and Welshampton. The first public passenger service left Ellesmere for Whitchurch on 4 May 1863, and construction of the Ellesmere-Oswestry section was completed one year later. The total cost of the line was £200,000.