History of Wellington Station

A comprehensive history can be found in the brilliant website of Wellington LA21 (Wellington Local Agenda 21). For the full story: go here but here is a snippet:

Rail services commenced between Shrewsbury, Wellington and Stafford on the 1st June 1849, although delays in the construction of Oakengates tunnel ensured that no through traffic reached Wolverhampton until November, when two locomotives, ‘Salopian’ and ‘Wrekin’, pulled 50 carriages of passengers from Shrewsbury to celebrate the event. Ordinarily, the price of fares for paying passengers would have ensured that many townsfolk only had limited opportunities to use the new facilities. At one shilling and four pence, a second class ticket to Shrewsbury alone would have been beyond the means of many Wellingtonians, while a ticket from Shrewsbury to London cost the equivalent of an average weekly wage for many workers!