Guide Bridge railway station

Guide Bridge National Rail

Guide Bridge railway station, with a TransPennine Express Class 185 Desiro unit passing through.
Location
Place Guide Bridge
Local authority Tameside
Grid reference SJ925975
Operations
Station code GUI
Managed by Northern
Number of platforms 2
DfT category E
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05   130,173
2005/06 Increase 154,264
2006/07 Decrease 147,375
2007/08 Increase 157,258
2008/09 Increase 208,760
2009/10 Increase 209,404
2010/11 Increase 247,980
2011/12 Increase 275,246
2012/13 Decrease 254,200
2013/14 Increase 275,970
2014/15 Increase 280,584
History
Key dates Opened 1841 (1841)
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Guide Bridge from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Guide Bridge railway station serves Guide Bridge in Audenshaw, Greater Manchester, England, and is operated by Northern. The station is 4¾ miles east of Manchester Piccadilly on the Glossop Line.

History

Guide Bridge junction in its 1912 context
Eastbound freight approaching Dewsnap Sidings at Guide Bridge East Junction in 1951
Guide Bridge station in 1967

Originally known as Ashton and Hooley Hill, it was renamed Ashton in February 1842 and became Guide Bridge in July 1845. It was built by the Sheffield, Ashton-Under-Lyne and Manchester Railway on its new line from Ardwick Junction, near to the Manchester and Birmingham Railway's terminus at Store Street, (now Piccadilly) to Sheffield, opening on 11 November 1841 as far as Godley Toll Bar and finally reaching Sheffield on 14 July 1845.

The station originally had a 4 platform configuration with a large office on the southern side. However, the southern (former fast line) platforms were decommissioned and the tracks lifted in 1984-5 as part of layout alterations associated with the changeover from 1500V DC to 25KV AC working on the Hadfield line, with demolition of the buildings following a few years later.[1] The area has been covered and used as access for the southern platform, but some evidence remains of the previous two tracks. The junction at the country end of the station was also remodelled in 2011 to allow Stalybridge line trains to cross the junction at 30 mph (max) rather than 15 mph as previously.

Tickets can be obtained at the ticket office on the south side.

With the electrification of the Manchester–Sheffield (via Woodhead) line in the early 1950s, Guide Bridge, already a major centre of railway operations, increased in importance. Express trains called here, as well as EMU trains between Manchester London Road and the north Derbyshire towns of Glossop and Hadfield. There were also Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) services from Manchester London Road (Piccadilly) to Macclesfield, Stockport Edgeley to Stalybridge and to Oldham (via the Oldham, Ashton & Guide Bridge Railway, which closed to passengers in 1959). The station was also where Express Trains to and from Manchester Central on the London Marylebone route, changed locomotive. Drawn by a Bo-Bo or Co-Co Electric Locomotive from Sheffield, a steam or in later years diesel Locomotive would take the train the final few miles to Manchester Central and vice versa. The Woodhead Line was busy with freight traffic, especially with coal traffic from South Yorkshire to Lancashire power stations. The station also accepted freight under British Railways "Passenger" freight service and had a licensed Buffet.

There was a large marshalling yard about a mile east of Guide Bridge at Dewsnap. There was also a stabling point immediately to the east of Guide Bridge station where engines could be fuelled. Guide Bridge was also where the local Retail Coal Merchants transferred Coal from British Rail Coal wagons, carefully weighed into One Hundredweight sacks for delivery to homes around Ashton, Audenshaw and Denton. Express passenger trains via the Woodhead line ceased operation on 5 January 1970, but Dewsnap sidings and Guide Bridge stabling point were busy until the final closure of the Woodhead Line (east of Hadfield) on 20 July 1981. The Class 76 electric locomotives were a frequent sight here, along with Class 25, Class 40 and numerous others classes of diesels.

The former TransPennine Express operator, Arriva Trains Northern, had plans to establish Guide Bridge as a major interchange station, coupled with hopes that the Woodhead line might re-open. Such aspirations seem to have fallen by the wayside, however, since First TransPennine Express took over the franchise.

On 22 October 2006, a fire gutted the waiting room, footbridge and ticket office.[2] The fire has subsequently been attributed to arson and caused around £1m of damage to the station,[3] necessitating the demolition of the footbridge. This has not been rebuilt, necessitating a lengthy walk out of the station and along the adjacent main road to change platforms. A new single-storey ticket office has though been provided as part of a £1.7million revamp of the station, along with improved lighting, an extended car park with 140 spaces, CCTV cameras and cycle storage lockers. The new facilities were commissioned in December 2014, with an official opening attended by the Minister of State for Transport Baroness Kramer.[4]

In January 2009, the previously free car parking was abolished, with a daily charge of £3 being introduced. As a result, the once busy car park largely fell quiet. A subsequent review was taken, following complaints from neighbouring residents, with backing of local councillors over the re-distribution of cars once parked on the ample station facility to the surrounding residential streets with charging dismissed soon afterwards.

Future

This station was proposed as being a possible stop of the railway company Grand Central Railway service running between London Euston and Bradford Interchange. However, due to the need to substantially rewrite the 2008 WCML timetable, in order to accommodate the additional services, the application was withdrawn in August 2008.

The levels of service on the Trans-Pennine route are likely to decrease in the next few years for the new Northern Hub proposals, with most long distance services diverted to run via their pre-1989 route via Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Victoria and the planned Ordsall Chord to reach Manchester Piccadilly (or onwards to Liverpool Lime Street via Chat Moss). Some trains will though continue to run through Guide Bridge - these will serve the most local stations between Stalybridge and Manchester Piccadilly (calling at Guide Bridge, Gorton and/or Ashburys).

Services

The current service at Guide Bridge consists of a half-hourly Manchester Piccadilly-Hadfield EMU service (increasing to every 20 minutes during weekday peak periods) and a half-hourly (DMU) service between Piccadilly and Rose Hill Marple (see Northern Rail timetables 22 and 24 for details).[5][6] There is a limited service after 19:00 each evening to Rose Hill, whilst the Glossop service drops to hourly after 21:00. Early morning, rush hour and late evening services start or terminate at Glossop.

On Sundays, there is a half-hourly service to Hadfield but no service on the Rose Hill line.

The Stockport-Stalybridge Line DMU service, which had been an hourly operation, was almost entirely withdrawn when TransPennine services between Manchester and Leeds were re-routed from Manchester Victoria to serve Manchester Piccadilly in 1989. here was for a time a 16:08 Friday only "service" from Stalybridge to Guide Bridge whilst weekend engineering work was taking place in the Stockport area (in 2004),[7] but currently the once-weekly "parliamentary" service on the route operates in the other direction (leaving Stockport at 9:22 and calling at 9:36, on Fridays only). This train is also unusual in that it arrives at Guide Bridge on the Manchester-bound platform before changing tracks after departure.

TransPennine trains are routed through Guide Bridge but do not stop there.

See also

References

  • Radford, B., (1988) Midland Though The Peak Unicorn Books
  1. ↑ Guide Bridge Station in 1989, showing disused southern platforms & buildings Whatley, Peter, Geograph.org; Retrieved 2014-06-02
  2. ↑ "Railway station damaged in blaze". BBC News. 2006-10-22. Retrieved 2006-10-24.
  3. ↑ "Reward to catch station arsonists". BBC News. 21 November 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
  4. ↑ "Guide Bridge train station's new look is unveiled after £1.7m revamp" Cox, Charlotte; Manchester Evening News article 19 December 2014, Retrieved 27 February 2016
  5. ↑ Northern Rail Timetable 22, Manchester to New Mills Central/Rose Hill, December 2015 - May 2016 Northern Rail website Accessed 27-02-2016
  6. ↑ Northern Rail Timetable 24, Manchester to Hadfield & Glossop, December 2015 - May 2016Northern Rail; Retrieved 27-02-2016
  7. ↑ "Ghost Train In Reverse Gear". Manchester Evening News. 28 May 2004. Retrieved 2008-08-08.

External links

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Coordinates: 53°28′28″N 2°6′46″W / 53.47444°N 2.11278°W / 53.47444; -2.11278

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