Greenbank railway station

Greenbank National Rail
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*
2012/13 Increase 172,340
2013/14 Increase 177,430
2014/15 Increase 185,278
2015/16 Increase 209,350
2016/17 Increase 230,598
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 This service was nicknamed "The Dodger", but was withdrawn in 1942.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 is unstaffed (though there is a self-service ticket machine provided) and 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. Waiting shelters are provided on each side and train running details are offered via digital CIS displays, telephone and timetable posters. Step-free access is provided to both platforms.[4]

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).

Hartford's main station is about one mile (1.6 km) to the west along the main A559 road - a 20-minute journey on foot or 5 minutes by car or taxi. 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).[5]

On Sundays the trains run every two hours each way and the eastbound service runs through to Southport via Bolton & Wigan Wallgate.

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

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Awdry 1990, p. 241
  2. ↑ Butt 1995, p. 114
  3. ↑ Butt 1995, p. 109
  4. ↑ Greenbank station facilities National Rail Enquiries; Retrieved 14 March 2017
  5. ↑ Table 88 National Rail timetable, December 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

Further reading

  • Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2013). Chester Northgate to Manchester. Middleton Press. figs. 32-35. ISBN 9781908174512. OCLC 892704846.
Preceding station National Rail Following station
Cuddington   Northern
Mid-Cheshire Line		   Northwich

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

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