Blakedown railway station

Blakedown
General information
Location	Blakedown, Wyre Forest England
Grid reference	SO880787
Owned by	Network Rail
Managed by	West Midlands Trains
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	BKD
Classification	DfT category F1
Key dates
1852 ? ?	Opened as Churchill Renamed Churchill & Blakedown Renamed Blakedown
Passengers
2019/20	99,500
2020/21	38,914
2021/22	60,810
2022/23	72,972
2023/24	88,008
Location
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Blakedown railway station serves the English village of Blakedown, Worcestershire. It was opened as Churchill in 1852, later becoming known for a time as Churchill & Blakedown after the two villages became a single parish.

The station is unstaffed, with only a basic shelter on each platform. There is a level crossing immediately to the west of the platforms, and in the absence of a footbridge or subway this is also the only method for passengers to cross the tracks.

The platforms were lengthened in the 1990s to allow longer trains to call. This is because Blakedown is within the Birmingham commuter band and over the twenty years between 1998 - 2018 usage of the station has increased by 147%. Currently there is a proposal to develop a car park on an adjacent field site to cater for further anticipated growth.^[1]

Since August 2012 the signalling system has been altered, with the former signal box having been closed and control of the nearby crossing and signals transferred to the Saltley Rail Operating Centre. The old signal box was then acquired by the Churchill and Blakedown Historical Society for its headquarters and was shifted across the road to a site adjoining the station in 2016.^[2]