Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway

The Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway was a railway line that ran from Oswestry in Shropshire to Whitchurch, Shropshire, via Ellesmere and the Welsh borders. It was a constituent part of the Cambrian Railways.

Proposed to be formed from the amalgamation of a series of local regional railway companies, as a result the new company called Cambrian Railways (CR) proposed to base its headquarters in Oswestry. Using existing Parliamentary Act approval for development of a station, it proposed to build closer to the centre of the town than the existing Great Western Railway (GWR) station, which had opened in 1848. On completion, the CR station would complete the mainline for the London and North Western Railway, from Whitchurch on the Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway, to Welshpool in Mid-Wales.

The first connection to Oswestry was made from the south by the Oswestry and Newtown Railway, which operated its first train on 1 May 1860. After a legal tussle between the two competing companies, LNWR and GWR, Parliament authorised building the CR/LNWR sponsored Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway to Whitchurch in August 1861, driven by the need to regenerate Ellesmere. However, the proposed route was heavily fought over by land owners, with the eventual tracks running via Fenn's Moss, requiring additional civil engineering, support and drainage to overcome the local bog conditions. On 25 July 1864 the CR was formally created, allowing the first CR train to the run from Whitchurch into Oswestry two days later on 27 July 1864. A year later the coast lines joined the CR too. On grouping in 1923, Cambrian Railways became part of the Great Western Railway.

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