Woodley railway station

Woodley railway station serves the suburb of Woodley in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. The station is 9+1⁄4 miles (14.9 km) east of Manchester Piccadilly on a branch of the Hope Valley Line to Rose Hill Marple. It is situated where the A560 road from Stockport to Gee Cross, near Hyde, crosses over the railway line.

Woodley
Woodley railway station in 2009
General information
Location	Woodley, Stockport England
Grid reference	SJ939925
Managed by	Northern Trains
Transit authority	Greater Manchester
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	WLY
Classification	DfT category F2
History
Opened	1862
Passengers
2017/18	63,554
2018/19	78,852
2019/20	87,502
2020/21	10,082
2021/22	40,892
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

History

The station was opened on 5 August 1862 by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway; it became a junction later when a line from Stockport Tiviot Dale, the Stockport and Woodley Junction Railway, reached the suburb in 1865. The station subsequently became jointly owned and operated by the MS&L, Great Northern Railway and Midland Railway, as part of the Cheshire Lines Committee system.^[1]

The Stockport route closed to passengers in January 1967,^[2] although a short section at the eastern end remains in use today for goods traffic, serving a Tarmac stone terminal and waste recycling plant at Bredbury.

From 1866, a second link from Apethorne Junction to the north gave an east-facing link to the Woodhead Line, at Godley Junction; it was used heavily for many years by trans-Pennine freight traffic, mainly coal from the South Yorkshire coalfields to Fiddlers Ferry power station. This link was closed in 1982, soon after the Woodhead route itself, and is now a shared-use path.

Services

On Mondays to Saturdays, there is generally a half-hourly stopping service northbound to Manchester Piccadilly and southbound to Rose Hill Marple; the service is more limited in the evenings. There is no Sunday service. A normal service operates on bank holidays.^[3][4]

In July 2020, Northern informed local residents that services between Manchester and Rose Hill Marple would not operate between early-September and mid-December 2020;^[5] this was due to the train operating company's staff shortages from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This left Woodley, along with Rose Hill Marple, Hyde North and Hyde Central, without a train service for around four months. Regular services have been restored since.

Railway Clearing House map of the Woodley area

 

1909 map showing (right) the station and junction layout at Woodley

The railway line from Hyde through Woodley to Romiley and Marple is shown as being owned by the Great Central and Midland Railways joint committee. The line from Stockport (Tiviot Dale) through Woodley is shown to be owned by the Cheshire Lines Committee.

References

1. Marshall, p.20
2. Butt, p.220
3. "Timetables and engineering information for travel with Northern". Northern Railway. May 2023. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
4. Table 96 National Rail timetable, May 2023
5. "Save the Rose Hill Marple Service to Piccadilly". William Wragg MP. Retrieved 27 July 2020.

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
• Marshall, J (1981) Forgotten Railways North-West England, David & Charles (Publishers) Ltd, Newton Abbott. ISBN 0-7153-8003-6

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Woodley railway station.

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

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Romiley		Northern Trains Hope Valley Line Mondays-Saturdays only		Hyde Central

53°25′46″N 2°5′34″W / 53.42944°N 2.09278°W / 53.42944; -2.09278