Hello and welcome to the first video of 2024, and today we are kicking the year off with our annual visit to Stafford on the West Coast Mainline where you'll be seeing countless services from Avanti West Coast, London Northwestern Railway and Cross Country with freight from GBRF, DB Cargo UK, Colas Rail, DRS and Royal Mail. We also have various trains coming through on test courtesy of London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway.

Stafford station is a fairly large station and I used as a junction station for traffic travelling all over the country. Services from this station serve Manchester, Liverpool, Crewe and stations to the South of England. There are two lines meeting at this station, the main branch of the West Coast Mainline that goes via the Trent Valley and the second section that takes the line through the heart of Birmingham which allows for greater connections from Birmingham New Street.

The station was opened by the Grand Junction Railway in 1837. This was the first station to be built on the site, however it soon became inadequate because of the amount of passengers and trains using the station which then meant that a second station was built in 1844 which was then superseded by another station in 1862. Eventually all three getting replaced by the current station in 1962 to follow the modernisation of the West Coast Mainline.

My next film will be Part 2.

You can find me on Facebook through the group Tornado922, there you will find regular updates, videos and photos from all of my goings on throughout 2023.

You can also find me on Instagram through the name tornado922 where it isn't just rail related content that I produce.

You can now find me on TikTok under the name Tornado_922.