Stalybridge railway station

Stalybridge railway station serves Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the Huddersfield Line, 7+1⁄2 miles (12.1 km) east of Manchester Piccadilly and 8+1⁄4 miles (13.3 km) east of Manchester Victoria. The station is managed by TransPennine Express.

Stalybridge
Stalybridge railway station
General information
Location	Stalybridge, Tameside England
Coordinates	53°29′03″N 2°03′53″W / 53.4841°N 2.0647°W / 53.4841; -2.0647Coordinates: 53°29′03″N 2°03′53″W / 53.4841°N 2.0647°W / 53.4841; -2.0647
Grid reference	SJ958986
Managed by	TransPennine Express
Transit authority	Transport for Greater Manchester
Platforms	5
Other information
Station code	SYB
Classification	DfT category D
History
Opened	1845
Passengers
2017/18	1.150 million
2018/19	1.244 million
Interchange	0.162 million
2019/20	1.220 million
Interchange	0.111 million
2020/21	0.264 million
Interchange	20,372
2021/22	0.666 million
Interchange	82,337




Location

Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

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, which acted as the terminus of that company's line from Manchester Victoria 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. The Micklehurst Loop also diverged from the original 1849 Huddersfield & Manchester main line here - it was closed in October 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]

Michael Portillo visited the buffet bar in "Manchester Piccadilly to Silkstone Common", a 2017 episode of Great British Railway Journeys.^[4]

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.^[5]

Recent developments

This is a class 802 bound for Liverpool

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^[6] 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 electrification of the Leeds - Manchester trans-Pennine route which is currently ongoing and is scheduled to be finished in 2032. 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.^[7]

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,^[8] though the station had no steps previously as there were ramps to all platforms.

Services

TransPennine Express Class 68 at Stalybridge

TransPennine Express

A major change in calling pattern was implemented at the May 2018 timetable change, though the base 30-minute service frequency remained unchanged. Eastbound departures will now serve the intermediate stations on a "skip-stop" pattern en route to Huddersfield and Leeds (replacing the former Northern local service), with alternate trains continuing to Hull. Westbound trains will now all terminate at Manchester Piccadilly, with no regular service to Manchester Victoria and Liverpool (though connections will still be available at Piccadilly).^[9]

Since the winter 2022 timetable change, the frequency has been improved in both directions to three departures per hour - eastbound these run to Hull, Huddersfield (stopping) and Scarborough or Newcastle, whilst westbound there are two to Manchester Piccadilly and one to Liverpool Lime Street via Manchester Victoria.^[10]

Northern Trains

Since the May 2018 timetable change, all Northern Trains trains from Manchester Victoria now start and terminate here. The base frequency remains two per hour on weekdays and Saturdays, with one of them continuing to Bolton and Southport (the latter since the summer 2019 timetable change).^[11]

An hourly service runs on Sundays.

The "parliamentary service" from Stockport

A parliamentary train still travels along the whole Stockport-Stalybridge Line, which for many years was in one direction only and with no return service. An attempt was made to close the line to passenger services in the early 1990s (the service having been drastically cut in May 1989 after the re-routing of TransPennine Express services from Manchester Victoria to Manchester Piccadilly), 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 ran on a Friday as the 09:22 Stockport to Stalybridge;^[12] however, from the start of the summer 2018 timetable, the service shifted to Saturday and operates in both directions. The new southbound train left at 08:46 for Stockport and returns from there at 09:45, arriving back at Stalybridge around 20 minutes later.

Preceding station	National Rail	Following station
Manchester Piccadilly	TransPennine Express North TransPennine	Huddersfield
Manchester Victoria	TransPennine Express North TransPennine	Mossley
Ashton-under-Lyne	Northern Trains Huddersfield Line	Terminus
Guide Bridge	Northern Trains Stockport–Stalybridge line Parliamentary service	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

References

^ "Home - Pub Heritage Site". pubheritage.camra.org.uk.
^ . Archived from the original on 14 July 2014.
^ Milne, Andy (3 May 2012). "Honourable outcome". Railstaff. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
^ "Beerhouses | Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys visits Stalybridge Buffet Bar". from the original on 4 March 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
^ "£1.5m refit is on track". Tameside Advertiser. 8 December 2008. from the original on 26 December 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
^ Refurbishment of Stalybridge Station begins Archived 16 January 2013 at archive.today Rail.co news article; Retrieved 2012-08-30
^ Haddon, Mike (February 2013). Pigott, Nick (ed.). "New look at Stalybridge". The Railway Magazine. Horncastle: Mortons Media Group. 159 (1342): 78. ISSN 0033-8923.
^ Major Engineering Work at Stalybridge Station Archived 3 June 2014 at archive.today Accessed 2014-06-03
^ North Route Timetables - Major changes from 20 May 2018 8 May 2018 at the Wayback Machine TransPennine Express website news article; Retrieved 7 May 2018
^ Table 39 National Rail timetable, December 2019
^ Table 39 & 82 National Rail timetable, December 2019
^ Table 78A National Rail timetable, May 2017