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Aston railway station serves the districts of Aston and Nechells in Birmingham, England. The passenger entrance is on Lichfield Road. The station is on the Cross-City Line and the Chase Line. The station is situated adjacent to and above the Lichfield Road (A5127), crossed by a bridge as the railway line, part of the original Grand Junction Railway, opened in 1837, is on an embankment through what was "pastoral parkland" at the time of its construction.〔Biddle, G. ''Britain's Historic Railway Buildings'', Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2003, p.333.〕 The line also crosses the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, just south of Lichfield Road, on a bridge which is all that remains of a longer viaduct of ten arches, described as "one of the most beautiful structures on the line of the Grand Junction".〔Webster, N.W. ''Britain's First Trunk Line - The Grand Junction Railway''. Bath: Adams and Dart, 1972, p. 62.〕〔''Osborne's Guide to the Grand Junction Railway''. Birmingham: E.C. and W. Osborne, p110.〕 The section of the viaduct crossing Lichfield Road, immediately south of the station, was replaced by a steel bridge in 1906.〔Bartlam, N., ''The Little Book of Birmingham''. Stroud: The History Press, 2011, p. 126.〕 ==History== The route of the Grand Junction Railway, sweeping in a wide arc from Perry Barr through Aston to its terminus at Vauxhall, was dictated by the refusal of James Watt the younger, the tenant of Aston Hall, to allow the railway to encroach upon Aston Park in the grounds of the Hall as planned in the Grand Junction's Act of 1833. The line was originally intended to enter Birmingham through a mile-long tunnel under the high ground on which the park is situated.〔Webster, pp. 61-2.〕〔Webster, N.W. ''Joseph Locke - Railway Revolutionary''. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970, pp.75-6〕 In clause IV of a second Act of 1834, the Grand Junction was forbidden from :enter(ing) upon or into, take, injure or damage, for the purposes of this Act...any Part of a certain Park lying within the parish of ''Aston-juxta-Birmingham'' in the County of ''Warwick'', and ''Handsworth'' in the County of ''Stafford'', known by the name of ''Aston Park''...〔''An Act to enable the Grand Junction Railway Company to alter and extend the Line of such railway, and to make a Branch therefrom to Wolverhampton in the County of Stafford; and for Purposes relating thereto.'' 4 Wm. 4 cap.55.〕 In 1846, the Grand Junction was one of several railways which were merged and incorporated into the London and North Western Railway (LNWR).〔Steel, W.L. ''The History of the London and North Western Railway''. London: The Railway and Travel Monthly, 1914, p.132.〕 Aston was opened by the LNWR in 1854 and became a junction in 1862 when a line was opened to by the same railway.〔R.Lea, ''Steaming up to Sutton''. Sutton Coldfield: Westwood Press, 1984.〕〔''Railways of the West Midlands - A Chronology 1808-1954'' London: Stephenson Locomotive Society , 1954, p.28.〕 In 1880 the LNWR opened a line from Aston to on the Birmingham to line which also gave access to the Metropolitan Carriage and Wagon Company's works (later Metro-Cammell) at Saltley, reached by a short branch from what the LNWR termed Washwood Heath Junction at the point where the Aston-Stechford line passed over the Midland Railway from Birmingham to Derby.〔http://warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrwhg456.htm〕〔Christiansen, R. ''A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain - Vol. 7: The West Midlands''. David and Charles, 1973, p. 224.〕 The new line was also used for the Wolverhampton portions of some London expresses and also to provide through carriages between Euston and Walsall.〔Reed, M.C. ''The London and North Western Railway''. Penryn: Atlantic, 1996, p.134.〕 In the same year, the LNWR opened a line for freight traffic from Aston to Windsor Street goods depot.〔''Railways of the West Midlands - A Chronology 1808-1954''. London: Stephenson Locomotive Society , 1954, pp.40-41.〕 The latter line closed in 1980.〔Cobb, M.H. ''The Railways of Great Britain - A Historical Atlas'', Vol.1. Shepperton: Ian Allan, 2003.〕 The LNWR's Aston locomotive depot ("Aston Shed") was opened in 1883 in the area between the Aston to Birmingham and the Aston to Stechford lines and with an entrance on Long Acre, Nechells. It was closed in 1965, by then under British Railways ownership.〔http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/aston_shed.htm〕 The station became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923. It then passed to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. When Sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by Regional Railways on behalf of the West Midlands PTE, for whom British Rail had been running the trains since the PTE's inception. In 2011, London Midland, the current operators of the station, proposed a major reduction in the opening hours of the ticket office, with complete closure at weekends.〔http://www.londonmidland.com/download/41850.9/ticket-office-hours-a-f/〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aston railway station」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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