 Although the line was a busy route for the NSR for traffic to and from Birmingham and the south; the amount of local traffic carried was low and passenger services were never intensive.Passenger services on the line were, as a wartime measure, reduced in 1941 to a single train per day from Stoke which had no corresponding return journey.In 1947 all stopping passenger services between Stone and Colwich were withdrawn and Great Haywood along with the neighbouring station, , closed.