Welcome to the website of Church Stretton and District Rail Users’ Association.
On this website you will find information on us, as well as a potted history of the local railway, information on planned steam excursions through Church Stretton and useful links to other websites.
Rail Reform Plans, 2025
A Railways Bill will soon be put before Parliament that will reform Great Britain’s railway system. This will impact on our services through Church Stretton. A paper has been prepared, outlining how it might affect us, and you can download it from here: Rail Reform Plans. The Town Council would be very interested to hear your views on the plans.
Penalty Fare Zone
Please note that Church Stretton is now part of TfW’s Penalty Fare Zone. The zone now extends from Manchester to Cardiff, and also includes most of the South Wales network. Within this zone, a Penalty Fare is £20 or twice the full single fare to the next station, whichever is the greater. Note that this is different to the West Midlands zone (Shrewsbury to Birmingham) which has a £100 Penalty Fare structure, which is also applicable on TfW trains on that route. The Heart of Wales line is not in the zone.
The Penalty Fare Zone requires that everyone boarding a train has already purchased a valid ticket for the intended journey. In practice, therefore, you will have already purchased a ticket online or from one of the station ticket machines. The most likely group of passengers that this will affect is those that are unable to purchase a ticket by card – the cash purchaser. In these cases, passengers must obtain, from the ticket machine, a Promise to Pay Notice (PTP), which shows your intention to pay for your journey, by cash. On boarding the train with your PTP, you must pay (using cash only) at the earliest opportunity.
Of course, if the machine is unable to issue the specific ticket you require (e.g. a concession ticket), then you will likewise not be able to obtain a PTP, and must therefore board the train and pay the conductor; this is the only occasion where it is acceptable to board a train without ticket nor PTP.
To obtain the PTP from the machine, you need to proceed through the normal ticket selection route, then select the Promise to Pay option, instead of actually paying. The machine then issues the PTP. Note that it is best to obtain your PTP immediately before travelling, as they are only valid for 4 hours.
TfW have a web page on this subject, which attempts to answer all your questions.
Contacting Transport for Wales (TfW)
Please follow this advice from TfW when contacting them for any reason:
To help ensure that all enquiries/complaints are logged, and trackable cases created, TfW asks that members of the public always get in contact with them via our Customer Relations department. A webform is available at tfw.wales/contact-us (click here) with options available to ensure that the enquiry/complaint goes to the right team. They can also be reached 24/7 by phone on 03333 211202. Alternatively, you may contact them via WhatsApp on 07790 952507 (0700-2000 Monday to Friday, 0800-2000 Saturday, 1100-2000 Sunday).
Do keep a note of those numbers on you, so you have them to hand if you’re out travelling.