Stalybridge railway station

Stalybridge
Stalybridge railway station
Location
Place	Stalybridge
Local authority	Tameside
Coordinates	53°29′03″N 2°03′53″W / 53.4841°N 2.0647°WCoordinates: 53°29′03″N 2°03′53″W / 53.4841°N 2.0647°W
Grid reference	SJ958986
Operations
Station code	SYB
Managed by	TransPennine Express
Number of platforms	5
DfT category	D
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	1.036 million
2011/12	1.118 million
2012/13	1.028 million
2013/14	1.105 million
2014/15	1.086 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	Transport for Greater Manchester
History
Key dates	Opened 1845
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Stalybridge from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Stalybridge railway station serves Stalybridge, Greater Manchester. It lies on the Huddersfield Line, 7½ miles (12 km) east of Manchester Piccadilly and 8¼ miles (13 km) east of Manchester Victoria. The station is managed by TransPennine Express.

History

Stalybridge station was built by the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway and opened on 23 December 1845. There was a Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway station adjacent but this closed in 1917. The main function of the station was as a junction for the Stockport-Stalybridge Line, which allowed passengers from London and the South to transfer to the Huddersfield Line. This role has been lost since it is now possible for passengers to change at Manchester Piccadilly station. The Micklehurst Loop also diverged from the original 1849 Huddersfield & Manchester main line here - it was closed in 1966, but the disused tunnel it used to pass below the town's northern suburbs can be seen alongside the original one that is still used today by trains heading to and from Yorkshire.

Facilities

Stalybridge Buffet Bar on platform 4.

The station has an entrance block with a ticket office. Ramps and a passenger subway lead up to the platforms. The station is one of very few to retain its original buffet, the 1998 refurbishment of which won awards from CAMRA and English Heritage.^[1] At the 2008 Tameside food and drink festival it was voted best bar.^[2]

Following further refurbishment in 2012 Lord Pendry of Stalybridge, who often uses the buffet bar and contributed over half of the £6,000 costs, unveiled a plaque to mark the works.^[3]

In a £1.5m overhaul of the station, which began in 2007, the platforms were raised and the toilets, information services and shelters on the westbound platform were improved. In December 2008 the new entrance was completed.^[4]

Recent developments

Construction work, on platform 3, to add lifts to the station subway.

Further work to expand the station was completed in 2012 - this saw major alterations to the track layout (including the opening of two new platforms) and signalling, with control of the latter passing to the Manchester East signalling centre at Stockport. The project cost £20 million^[5] as the station closed on Sundays throughout the summer of 2012 followed by a nine-day line blockade at the end of October but gives improved operational flexibility and reliability, allowed the line speed through the station and junction to be increased to 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) and left it ready for the proposed electrification of the Leeds - Manchester trans-Pennine route in 2022. The two new platforms were opened on 5 November 2012; the former platform 1 was renumbered 4, and a new bay on the northern side is Platform 5.^[6]

An Access for All scheme, funded by the Department for Transport, gave easier access to all of the platforms. Lifts were built to give step-free access to the entire station,^[7] though the station had no steps previously as there were ramps to all platforms.

Services

A First TransPennine Express Class 185 arrives at platform 4.

TransPennine Express: There is generally a half-hourly service daily westbound to Manchester Piccadilly, with one per hour onwards to Liverpool Lime Street and eastbound twice-hourly towards Leeds and beyond (to either Scarborough or Hull) with extra trains to and from Manchester Piccadilly during peak hours.^[8]

Northern: Monday to Saturday daytimes there are two trains per hour from Stalybridge to Manchester Victoria, one of which continues to Wigan Wallgate westbound and an hourly local service to Huddersfield eastbound. Evenings and Sundays there is an hourly service in each direction.

There are services to Newcastle and Middlesbrough each day.

The parliamentary service from Stockport

One train a week still travels along the whole Stockport-Stalybridge Line, in one direction only, with no return service. An attempt was made to close the line to passenger services in the early 1990s but closure was refused by the Department of Transport which ordered that a regular service continue. The train is the only one to call at Denton and Reddish South. The train runs on Friday as the 09:22 Stockport to Stalybridge.

Gallery

• 

  The new station entrance

• 

  The old station entrance

• 

  View from Platform 2 towards Huddersfield

• 

  Construction work on new platforms, October 2012

• 

  An EWS Class 66 passes platform 3, with a goods service

References

1. Heritage Pubs, National Inventory
2. Edition 47 of Tameside Citizen Online
3. Milne, Andy (3 May 2012). "Honourable outcome". Railstaff. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
4. "£1.5m refit is on track". Tameside Advertiser. 2008-12-08. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
5. Refurbishment of Stalybridge Station begins Rail.co news article; Retrieved 2012-08-30
6. Haddon, Mike (February 2013). Pigott, Nick, ed. "New look at Stalybridge". The Railway Magazine (Horncastle: Mortons Media Group) 159 (1342): 78. ISSN 0033-8923.
7. Major Engineering Work at Stalybridge Station Accessed 2014-06-03
8. Great Britain eNRT December 2015 - May 2016 Edition, Table 39

External links

• Train times and station information for Stalybridge railway station from National Rail

Tameside Lines
Legend
Oldham Lines to Oldham Oldham Lines to Saddleworth Mossley Micklehurst Loop Park Bridge Micklehurst Oldham Road Staley and Millbrook Manchester Lines North to Manchester Droylsden Stalybridge Ashton Charlestown Ashton West Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton Moss Metrolink | L&NWR Ashton Park Parade Audenshaw Dukinfield and Ashton Droylsden Dukinfield Central Cemetery Road Metrolink to Manchester Guide Bridge Hooley Hill Fairfield Manchester Lines South to Hyde Road Flowery Field Manchester Lines North to Manchester Hyde North Denton Hyde Central Stockport Lines to Stockport Newton for Hyde to Marple Godley Hattersley Broadbottom Glossop lines to Glossop & Hadfield

Micklehurst Loop
Legend Standedge Tunnel Diggle Butterhouse tunnel Uppermill Friezland Royal George tunnel Micklehurst Staley and Millbrook Stalybridge

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Manchester Piccadilly		TransPennine Express North TransPennine		Huddersfield
Ashton-under-Lyne		Northern Rail Huddersfield Line		Mossley
Ashton-under-Lyne		Northern Rail Huddersfield Line or Kirkby-Stalybridge		Terminus
Terminus		Northern Rail Huddersfield Line		Mossley
Guide Bridge		Northern Rail Stockport-Stalybridge Line Friday only		Terminus
Disused railways
Terminus		London and North Western Railway Micklehurst Line		Staley and Millbrook Line and station closed
Dukinfield and Ashton Line and station closed		London and North Western Railway Stalybridge Junction Railway		Terminus