Smestow Valley Nature Reserve and the Wolverhampton and Kingswinford Railway

Smestow Valley Nature Reserve follows part of the path of the former Wolverhampton and Kingswinford Railway – a short lived railway that ran between the Great Western Railway’s Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton line at Oxley Junction and the same railway’s Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton line at Kingswinford Junction. The line operated for only forty years, between 1925 and 1965, with only seven of those as line carrying passengers. Today the path of the railway is a pleasant route to walk or cycle from a point about a mile and a half from the city centre, right out to the south-western edge of the city and beyond.