The Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway was a railway company that constructed a line from Whitchurch via Ellesmere to Oswestry. Most of the line was in Shropshire but part entered Flintshire, now Wrexham County Borough. It was seen as a link from the local railways around Newtown to the London and North Western Railway, breaking the local monopoly of the Great Western Railway. It opened as a single line in 1863 and 1864. Throughout the construction period it was short of money, and was paid for by the contractor, who took shares. Sporadically through its life it became a useful part of a through route for mineral trains, but it never developed greatly.
The railway was amalgamated on 25 July 1864 with three other railways, the Oswestry and Newtown Railway, the Llanidloes and Newtown Railway and the Newtown and Machynlleth Railway, to form Cambrian Railways. Cambrian Railways was in turn amalgamated into the Great Western Railway on 1 January 1922.
It was the scene of a serious derailment of an excursion train at Welshampton in 1897.
The line closed in 1965.