I'm not sure there were through services via Gobowen before closure.
Whitchurch-Oswestry-Welshpool was originally Cambrian, with Gobowen-Oswestry being a GWR branch shuttle (occasionally through to Chester/Birkenhead).
The pattern didn't change much after grouping/nationalisation.
Hasn't the A483 taken over the trackbed in places south of Llanymynych?
There are probably river/canal bridges to rebuild too, not to mention the heritage incumbents on the remaining track.
But Shrewsbury is the undoubted regional transport hub. I don't give it much chance.
It's also another cross-border line with all the complications that brings.
I had the pleasure of a trip over the route on an excursion from Manchester to Barmouth in 1962 (out via Dolgellau, back via Oswestry).
It also included Mouldsworth-Helsby for good measure.
Not a bad day out.
I have the 15 June to 13 September 1959 Working Timetable for the Oswestry and Chester districts. As you say, the vast majority of the passenger services between Oswestry and Gobowen were just the shuttle workings. In the summer of 1959 there was one through working each day to Oswestry from Wrexham and a rail motor to Oswestry from Chester. There was also a weekday Gobowen to Welshpool. In the opposite direction there was a single through working to Birkenhead and two to Wrexham, one of those being a rail motor.
In addition there was a passenger working in each direction that used the Llanfyllin branch stock and locomotive, but it is not listed as a through working. I therefore assume the train (or at least the stock) sat in Oswestry after arrival from Gobowen/Llanfyllin to form a later onward journey because this also seems to have happened with a number of services on the Whitchurch to Welshpool route, which terminated at Oswestry with the stock being left in the through platform roads and used for a separate onward journey later. I read somewhere a while back that this meant the centre road through Oswestry station came in useful as a result for freight workings.
Never actually saw any passenger workings at Oswestry, it had been freight only for some time before I was born. Never actually lucky enough to see the stone train workings through Oswestry, even though I grew up there (I was 10 when the last one ran). I do remember seeing them reverse at Gobowen though, both before and after South Box closed. Gobowen is also where I witnessed a JCB 'shunting' coal wagons in the yard at Gobowen!
