Polesworth - Least Used Station In Warwickshire 

For a while, I believe from an article on Midlands Today, a retired man was travelling to Tamworth everyday from Polesworth and using his bus pass to get back home.

It’s February, it’s -5 degrees and the man noted for never being more than three feet from a cup of tea is drinking Coca Cola. And he’s drinking it outside😳

Here is what happened. In the 1980s there was a sparse local service between Nuneaton and Stafford. About 4 trains a day each way. They started from either Coventry or Rugby (this changed from time to time). There was also a local service between Stafford and Stoke. When the WCML was upgraded both these services stopped (replaced by road transport). This closed Atherstone, Polesworth, Norton Bridge, Wedgewood and Burslem stations. When the work was complete a Euston Crewe service was introduced. Atherstone and Stone stations reopened completely. Polesworth didn't have the new footbridge hence the current situation. Norton Bridge was demolished, Burslem and Wedgewood are still there but closed. The replacement bus still operates between Stoke and Stafford.Hope this helps.

'You Can't Return From Polesworth' sounds like some sort of moody blues-folk record...

So glad you've revisited here!. I go past it so many times when I visit my partner in MK from Stoke. That whole section of the Mainline is full of interesting stations. Wedge wood, Barlaston and the remnants of Norton Bridge (a lot of the Slow Euston trains still stop there when waiting to join the mainline from Crewe!. Always interested me. and happy birthday Geoff!

I think you could make the history of British railways very interesting without being boring with statistics. You bring these videos alive with your enthusiasm. You are a rare character indeed!

Every time I watch a least used Station video, all I can hear is the “Aspley Guise” theme song in my head. Thanks for sharing Geoff!

I love that this video exists 😂 my mum lives in one of those houses which is shown a couple of times in this video and it’s the only house I ever knew growing up! Moved down to Essex in 2013. I can safely say there are not 2.4 passengers per day on that 7:23 train 😂 it would have been a handy train for me, but I never got up that early 😂 we did catch some trains from there once upon a time though! And us kids used to go over the bridge when it was there, sit in the shelter on platform 2. We were all gutted when it was torn down! Would have been great for me to get to uni in Coventry on (changing at Atherstone or Nuneaton).

I met Nayson today he came into my workplace he was lovely

Suffering for your art. Much appreciated, and belated happy birthday.

Notice that the platform's been cleared of snow though. Someone must have come along in a van and done that.

Hello from Hobart Tasmania and a balmy 26 degrees celcius!. You are making me shiver just looking at you! I am wishing we still had trains here but I get my fix watching your great vids. Keep them going. I can only imagine what it is like in Corrour - where I was in July.

Who else needs to re-watch all the stations...?

Missed these! Thanks for braving the cold. (and glad I was in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 a fortnight ago and missed all this cold.)

Great video Geoff, as cold as it is, the Snow covered fields from the train window look beautiful as does Polesworth, very scenic. Great capture of the Class 70 and you were nearly right about the numbers of the London Northwestern Railways units, those are 350s, the 450s are on South West Trains 😊🌨❄☃️🚆

Gutted to have missed you in Nuneaton Geoff living half way between Nuneaton and Polesworth but next time you visit maybe. Great video as always and yes it is so cold here right now! :-)

Oh such fun, Thanks for linking to this on GrandT's TPF video..... Now I am going to have to go and find your video of the Request stop... on the Leamington line you said... Hilarious, but thanks.

Braving the cold and snow like that. That’s real dedication to duty. Sirs, I salute you!

My hometown is Nuneaton and I used to pass Polesworth everyday to get to college. Happy to see this video :3

Missed this series

After this video series is over, would you do the most used stations of each county?

Yes finally the least used station in Warwickshire my county, been waiting ages. I live in Warwickshire.

"That week in February..." Ha! A very long week lasting more than fourteen days. Hi, Nayson!

if you are complaining about how cold it is, than why dont you do up your jacket?

"So you're from nuneaton" Me from Coventry: bloody treacle towners

1:40 Hi Nayson!!

Watching this during an Australian summer is cooling me down !

Good to see Least Used Stations back again That train that went past at 10:22 I see them all the time when they go past Watford Junction

Just hearing the ‘Least used station’ song is enough to make me happy

I was relatively normal when I started watching this stuff. Now I find myself excited that I have been on trains that stopped at Bearley.

Geoff, that's what I call true dedication to the cause.

My Grandad started his railway career in at Nuneaton, started as a Lad Porter, worked his way through the grades and was a relieving Station Master when he and my Nanna emigrated out here to Australia

-5 is really not that cold. Its' been around -20 where I live the last days, and a few hours drive from here it was -42. That's Norway for you ;-) And, yes, I almost forgot. We have over a meter deep snow here......and a ninety minute drive to the nearest train station.

I was a pupil at Polesworth Nethersole Middle School in the 1980s, which had a playing field against the WCML. I was always on the lookout for the 86s/87s/90s flying by!

After a journey from hell getting back from Stafford to Rugeley, I thought I watch Geoff video to cheer me up, and it did :) Thanks for the great video Geoff, really great

My grandparents used to live just up the road. I remember seeing the 'naked' spoil tip in the 70's that became the Pooley Hall Country Park. My grandad told me there used to be a colliery (Pooley Hall) right next door from 1895 until 1965 when it closed. There used to be a branch line that linked onto the WCML from the colliery, near where the canal wharf is now.

If only that clip had survived. It would have been a sure winner for the outtakes compilation.

My own planned train journey into London today came to a chilly halt thanks to ice and loss of power. Ran back to the station we left, on the wrong side, and disembarked a nice warm train into a chilly cold station. This weather is no fun at all. And I haven't been on a train in months. Better luck next time, I hope!

Interesting video! It would be good to see Polesworth get a propper train service again!

I love this channel.

As someone from Bearley, there is actually quite a lot of history behind the station! It's of course a shadow of it's former self, and there's now neither a shop nor a pub within reach of it, but I imagine you can drag up a lot of interesting stuff about it. You can get to Birmingham direct from it though (Once a day I think), which has only been a thing for maybe the last 6 or 7 years!

Class 350s and 450s are identical externally, so good identification from Geoff - the 350s are AC electric and 450s DC (in fact the first few 350s were actually being built as 450s and were changed over)

The train you went on... I've seen that exact train at my local station in London Midland days.

It's winter, Geoff. -5 is pretty warm for 52 degrees of northern latitude. Also, please send that snow over to Poland if you've got surplus.

At what point in the journey of learning do you realize that a pair of gloves would be useful?

It might have been cold when you filmed this but at least there wasn’t a lot of snow. Once went trainspotting in 3 ft of snow and a wind chill of -5. Waited for about 3 hours then decided to leave.

Love your vids Jeff keep up your good work

Might you try again with Park Street in Hertfordshire, hopefully this time getting the train instead of the replacement minibus?

I lived in Polesworth when there were still two platforms in use, and the signal box was still in use. I also had the dubious honour of turning up to watch a few trains go by on the night the footbridge was removed. Still have some photograph's (somewhere) from inside the signal box as I befriended one of the signalmen there. Can't understand why the station is so neglected as the area is ever increasing in size....

Your alarm sounds like the sound effect movies use when text explaining where the scene is happening scrolls across the bottom. :)

Geoff:It's like top gear! Me:WOT

Geoff: "It's -5" Me (A Canadian): "Thats cute"

Polesworth is on the West Coast mainline where Pendolinos tear past at full speed. It is in Warwickshire near the Staffordshire border between Tamworth and Atherstone, and close to the M42 Birmingham to Nottingham motorway.

That alarm tone literally gives me anxiety

Did that ticket machine sign say 'tickets to any UK destination'? Northern Ireland?

I grew up in Polesworth and back in the 70s and 80's the station could be quite busy in both directions. Mainly, the route between Polesworth and Birmingham, changing at Tamworth. I remember the bridge being taken down and had an idea it was due to some disagreement, but in their wisdom it finally killed off the service.

Advice from a Canadian: invest in gloves.

There is a potential purpose for returns to Polesworth - split ticketing with a season ticket from Polesworth. Probably still useless but who knows? (I've seen a real suggestion of using a return from Pilning to Cardiff with an England-only Britrail pass.)

About the Yellow lines. I think they started in the 70s and the instruction was stay behind Yellow line High Speed Train passing. This was a boast that we had the experimental high speed train . At the time I used to change trains at Wigan NW.

Bearley's my station!

There used to be a station building there that was a smaller version of the Atherstone building designed by Livock . There are protest passengers that catch the train from polesworth just to push the passenger numbers up.

I have an original 'Polesworth' target sign, which I purchased from Collectors Corner in Euston many years ago.

Bearley!!! I get the train calling there most mornings!

I see that you used a proper "London tissue" at the end there!

Regarding the return journey for nuneaton to polesworth, the route you would need to take for the return journey is take the 0723 train from polesworth to tamworth then get the 0803 train from tamworth to nuneaton. Interestingly enough it costs £5.80 for an anytime day return even though it is impossible to do without getting off at polesworth due to only having one train a day.

You can distinguish the old and new bits of Nuneaton Station quite easily, especially from the footbridge!!

I live in polesworth and I never even knew there was a train station😭😭

I wounder what there would say if you brought a return ticket from Nuneaton to Polesworth I have just check it on the Trainline app it says to Travel to Tamworth from Polesworth then catch a train heading South to Nuneaton

I remember catching the train to/from Polesworth when I lived in Atherstone

Maybe they could build an underpass at Polesworth. You said this in the ATS episode at Briech, Network Rail not affording a higher footbridge there. That makes me wonder what is more expensive, a bridge or an underpass? Maybe they could do a special case with bidirectional running on the northbound tracks through the statuon, they'd just need to install some points either side the station.

Have you considered going on Interrail, and doing a least used station in every country in western Europe?

I had a proper early morning stomach turn when I heard that alarm sound.

You would have thought for a couple of quid they could have made a footpath from the bridge to platform 2.

I was at the station watching the bridge being removed by crane the night it came down. Also spent many an hour in the old signal box, back in the day when the signalman wouldn't get the sack for affording such a welcome...

Being a Brit living abroad the UK sucks at coping with this weather, just make winter tyres compulsory during these months like the nordics, USA and Canada

Is that The Chase Hotel at the beginning? If I’ve spotted that from the trees I’ll be so happy

Polesworth is basically a suburb of Tamworth, which has a fairly busy Station and a direct line to Birmingham. (The area is a commuter belt of Birmingham)

Might you venture a bit further north and do Pontefract Baghill! I had a go myself along with Hoscar, but your style would be much better!

You should come to Burton on Trent . At the height of brewing in the town with at least 5 brewers in the town it was boasting Britain's largest private owned railway network . In fact Burton had more railway tracks than roads in the town centre

Thanks for another great video in this series. Simple format, works really well. I just wish that people would talk to one another's face when having a conversation instead of talking to the camera, we watch the conversation, we can't get involved. Hey ho.

Welcome to Nuneaton... but I had hoped the least used would have been Bermuda Station, Nuneaton - but at least it has 1 train every hour on the Nuneaton-Coventry line.

I find gloves help in the cold. So (I hear you almost asking) how do you operate a mobile - with your nose, of course!

Warwickshire - exciting place for a video, everybody is dying to know and thus go there and learn more about it. BUT least used station in Warwickshire! Wow, are we lucky. WHO woulda thought there would be a station not used for such a EXCITING PLACE! This man is truly a visionary - he KNOWS... what THE people WANT! I've heard him been referred to as the Steve Jobs in certain professional circles. He express the Joie de vive, the true renaissance man. Oui Oui THEY SELL RETURNS WHEN IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO /*ACTUALLY*/ RETURN. HA! MADNESS!

So, if there is only one train a day going in only one direction.... how do people using this train get back home??? Or does the population of the village go down by 2 every day, because they never return? :D

Well done for going out in the cold

Hopefully by the time you return to Warwickshire, Kenilworth Station will have (finally!) opened (or should that be reopened given it's on the same site as its predecessor [well, except the platforms are a couple of hundred metres North of where they originally were, the new station's on the old station's goods yard]?)

I felt cold watching this

have you done anything potters bar or any where in hertfordshire

Whats the music Geoff uses in these vids???!!!

I’m up for doing Worcestershire, Shropshire or Herefordshire if you doing them Geoff 👌🏼

I am puzzled as to why they did not connect the platforms from the bridge you were standing on with a simple footpath?

Had -13*C and wind gusts a few mornings ago... Usally get about 0*C in the winter here on the Swedish west coast, they had -39*C in Lapland a few nights ago. Don't know the reason to want to spend the winters north of the 53 pararell

why don't they put some steps down to platform 2 from the road bridge?

What was west coast station which closed after privatisation?

At some point will you do least used station in Staffordshire?

Hi Geoff, you looked so cold! I was wondering though why they don't connect platform two (platform for trains to Nuneaton) to that road bridge you were stood on as that would then allow at least a return trip to be made?

I guess you weren't wearing gloves because they make it difficult to operate the camera. The answer is "glittens" -- fingerless gloves with a mitten covering that you can fold back to operate the camera. They work really well.

that is such a real pain living opposite a train station and only having one train service a day that must be a real pain in the ass

There is a road bridge not far away? Why don't they use it to provide access to the second platform? A one-direction one-per-day service is ridiculous...

So they don't use the other direction because they removed the Footbridge but there is an Carbridge rigth next to the station were they could build a path to the other platform and it would be totaly fine and you could have at least one train back in the evening or even better one each direction mornig and evening.