Greenbank railway station

Greenbank

Location
Place	Hartford, Cheshire
Local authority	Cheshire West and Chester
Grid reference	SJ644728
Operations
Station code	GBK
Managed by	Northern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	108,442
2011/12	116,812
2012/13	172,340
2013/14	177,430
2014/15	185,278
History
Original company	West Cheshire Railway
Pre-grouping	Cheshire Lines Committee
Post-grouping	Cheshire Lines Committee
22 June 1870	Station opened to passengers as 'Hartford & Greenbank'
7 May 1973	Name changed to 'Greenbank'
National Rail – UK railway stations

* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Greenbank from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Greenbank railway station serves the village of Hartford, Cheshire as well as the Greenbank and Castle areas of Northwich, Cheshire, England. The station is situated on the A559 road from Northwich to Chester.

History

Winter scene at Hartford & Greenbank in 1962

The station was built by the West Cheshire Railway, a constituent of the Cheshire Lines Committee (CLC)^[1] and opened to passengers on 22 June 1870.^[2] The CLC continued to operate both goods and passenger services from the station, unaffected by the railway grouping of 1923, until the railway nationalisation of 1948. The station name was Hartford and Greenbank until 7 May 1973 when British Railways renamed the station Greenbank,^[3] to avoid confusion with the nearby Hartford station on the West Coast Main Line. Greenbank was served by CLC trains from Manchester Central via Northwich to Chester Northgate. From the closure of Manchester Central on 5 May 1969 & Chester Northgate on 6 October that year, trains from Greenbank were diverted to Manchester Oxford Road and the LNWR & GWR Joint Chester station, previously Chester General.

CLC trains were headed by locomotives in LNER livery. A link to LMS service was made by a shuttle service to Acton Bridge using LMS stock (this normally continued via Northwich, Middlewich & Sandbach to Crewe). This service was nicknamed "The Dodger", but was withdrawn in 1942.

Facilities

Greenbank signal box

The station has a free car park. There is a public phone box opposite the station and a row of shops nearby. The Greenbank public house is next to the station and Mid Cheshire College is about 440 yards (400 m) away, with a Sainsburys store opposite the college. The main station buildings are on the north-west side of the line and are presently used as a Christian church. The signal box is situated to the north of the station - this supervises the line from Cuddington through to Plumley and the various branches & siding connections from it (including the line to Sandbach and the now-disused link into the defunct Brunner-Mond chemical works at Winnington).

The station is also an interchange for Hartford's main station, which is about one mile (1.6 km) to the west. Trains are available from there to Liverpool Lime Street, Runcorn, Winsford, Crewe and Birmingham New Street.

Services

The service to and from Manchester Piccadilly and Chester on weekdays and Saturdays is basically hourly (with a couple of weekday peak period extras to/from Stockport).^[4]

On Sundays the trains run every two hours each way and the eastbound service runs through to Southport via Bolton & Wigan Wallgate. There is no ticket office, ticket machine or PA system. There is an information screen on both platforms

The majority of trains used on the line are Class 142 or Class 150, together with the occasional Class 156.

References

Notes

↑ Awdry 1990, p. 241
↑ Butt 1995, p. 114
↑ Butt 1995, p. 109
↑ Table 88 National Rail timetable, May 2016

Bibliography

Awdry, Christopher (1990), Encyclopedia of British Railway Companies, Guild Publishing CN8983
Butt, R.V.J. (1995), The Directory of Railway Stations, Patrick Stephens, ISBN 1-85260-508-1

Gallery

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Greenbank railway station.

Train times and station information for Greenbank railway station from National Rail
Mid-Cheshire Community Rail Partnership

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Cuddington		Northern Mid-Cheshire Line		Northwich

Railway stations in Cheshire

West Coast Main Line	Crewe Winsford Hartford Acton Bridge Warrington Bank Quay Runcorn

Crewe to Manchester Line	Crewe Sandbach Holmes Chapel Goostrey Chelford Alderley Edge Wilmslow Handforth

Styal Line	Alderley Edge Wilmslow Styal

Crewe to Derby Line	Crewe Alsager

Stoke to Manchester Line	Congleton Macclesfield Prestbury Adlington Poynton

Buxton Line	Disley

Mid-Cheshire Line	Ashley Mobberley Knutsford Plumley Lostock Gralam Northwich Greenbank Cuddington Delamere Mouldsworth Chester

Manchester to Liverpool Line	Glazebrook Birchwood Padgate Warrington Central West Warrington (proposed) Sankey Widnes Hough Green

Ellesmere Port to Warrington Line	Ellesmere Port Stanlow and Thornton Ince and Elton Helsby Frodsham Runcorn East Warrington Bank Quay

Wirral Line	Chester Bache Capenhurst Hooton Little Sutton Overpool Ellesmere Port

Welsh Marches Line	Crewe Nantwich Wrenbury

Borderlands Line	Neston

Shrewsbury to Chester Line	Chester Lache (proposed)

Coordinates: 53°15′05″N 2°32′02″W / 53.25139°N 2.53389°W / 53.25139; -2.53389

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/13/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.