The northern part of the line is suburban in nature, and has a regular and busy commuter service into central Birmingham.

[1] The original plans for the line were promoted by an independent company; the Birmingham, North Warwickshire and Stratford Railway, which received royal assent for its authorising act of Parliament, the Birmingham, North Warwickshire, and Stratford-upon-Avon Railway Act 1894 (57 & 58 Vict.

Construction began in September 1905, the line was opened to goods traffic on 9 December 1907, and to passengers on 1 July 1908.

[2] The NWL connected to the existing main line into Birmingham at Tyseley, and ran south to Bearley, where it connected to the pre-existing single track Hatton to Stratford-upon-Avon branch line, which had been opened in 1860 by the Stratford on Avon Railway.

It thus placed the Great Western in a position to compete with the Birmingham to Bristol route of the Midland Railway.

It proved so successful that larger railcars with more seating and no buffet had to be introduced to cope with demand, and even this had to be augmented by a normal locomotive hauled service.

This time the proposal was to close the line between Henley-in-Arden and Bearley junction, and to divert Stratford trains via Solihull.

As part of this scheme, terminating services from Birmingham were extended from Shirley to the next station, Whitlocks End, by the addition of a new turnback facility.

Park and ride facilities were added at Whitlocks End to encourage commuters to drive there, in order to reduce traffic congestion at Shirley station.

The current daytime service level, is two trains per hour between Birmingham Snow Hill and Whitlocks End, one of which continues to Stratford.

[11] On summer Sundays, a steam service, the "Shakespeare Express" is operated by Vintage Trains between Birmingham and Stratford.

Called the "Avon Rail Link",[12] the scheme (supported as a freight diversionary route by DB Schenker[13]) would make Stratford-upon-Avon station a through station once again with improved connections to the South, and would open up the possibility of direct services to Oxford and Worcester via Evesham.