Les's Railway Stations

Les's Railway Stations Railway Stations I've Visited.
(4)

23/05/2026

CAPENHURST Railway Station serves the village of Capenhurst & its substantial industrial facilities, in Cheshire, England. It also serves outer suburbs of Ellesmere Port. On the former GWR main line from London Paddington to Birkenhead Woodside it is now on the Wirral Line of the Merseyrail network, 5+1⁄4 miles north of Chester.

The station has platform CCTV, a 24-space car park & a cycle rack with 10 spaces as well as secure cycle storage for 20 cycles. Each platform has a waiting shelter with seating. There are departure & arrival screens, on the platform, for passenger information. There is access, to each platform, for passengers with wheelchairs or prams. However, cross-platform access, within the station, is by staircase only.
Capenhurst is 1 of 4 stations on the Merseyrail network that is unstaffed, the others being Bache, Little Sutton & Overpool. Passengers must purchase tickets from the Ticket Vending Machine located on the Chester-bound platform; the machine can issue tickets to any destination on the rail network. Passengers failing to purchase a ticket will be liable for a Penalty Fare if they board a Merseyrail service without obtaining a valid ticket. This station became part of the Merseyrail Penalty Fares Area on 15/6/2009.

Trains between Chester & Liverpool call at Capenhurst every 30 minutes every day (including Sunday). The quarter-hourly service on the Chester line does not benefit Capenhurst since alternate trains run through the station non-stop between Hooton & Bache in each direction. These services are all provided by Merseyrail's fleet of Class 777 EMUs.

CHURCH STRETTON Railway Station serves the town in Shropshire, England. It's on the Welsh Marches line, 12+3⁄4 miles sou...
20/05/2026

CHURCH STRETTON Railway Station serves the town in Shropshire, England. It's on the Welsh Marches line, 12+3⁄4 miles south of Shrewsbury; trains on the Heart of Wales line also serve the station. All services are operated by Transport for Wales, which also manages the station.
The station is the highest point of the line between Shrewsbury & Craven Arms and is the highest station in Shropshire; on the northbound platform, a small plinth notes the station's altitude: 613 ft above sea level.

The station opened on 20/4/1852, as part of the newly created Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway. It was originally to the north of what is now Sandford Avenue & the old station building still remains, but is no longer in railway use. Sandford Avenue had been called Lake Lane for centuries & became Station Road with the arrival of the railway in the town, before becoming Sandford Avenue in 1884. The original station building was designed by Thomas Mainwaring Penson.
In 1914, the station was relocated just to the south of the Sandford Avenue road bridge. New station buildings were erected, but these were demolished in 1970 with the station having become unstaffed in 1967. Today, the only station structures in use are 2 passenger shelters on the platforms & a footbridge.

The station has 2 platforms, 1 for northbound services (platform 1) & the other for southbound services, with a footbridge crossing the line connecting the 2. The shelters were replaced & electronic information displays were installed in 2011. CCTV was also installed &, together with the new shelters, has reduced anti-social behaviour. In 2013, a ticket machine was installed on platform 1.
There are 2 small areas for car parking/dropping off on either side of the line: 1 can be accessed from Sandford Avenue (the B4371), the other from Crossways, off the A49.

The general off-peak service in trains per hour is:
1 tp2h to Manchester Piccadilly, via Shrewsbury & Crewe
1 tp2h to Cardiff Central
1 tp2h to Carmarthen, via Cardiff Central & Swansea; some services continue to Fishguard Harbour, Milford Haven or Pembroke Dock
5 tpd to Holyhead.
5 tpd to Llanelli & Swansea via Llandrindod.

The station has a large number of passengers using it considering the town has a population of just 5,000 and is the eighth most-used station in Shropshire. The high usage can be explained by two reasons: the town is a popular tourist destination and many of its inhabitants travel to Shrewsbury and Ludlow for employment, education and shopping.

The track through the station is prone to flooding when heavy rain occurs as, although at the apex of the line, it is at the bottom of the valley in which Church Stretton lies & is effectively a saddle point. In the wet autumn of 2000, the space between the 2 platforms filled with water & train services had to be cancelled along the line.
Following serious flooding of the railway in 2000, the signal box at Church Stretton, to the north of the Sandford Avenue bridge, was "switched out" & closed in 2004. The set of points at the station lay defunct before being removed in 2009, together with the box (built 1872) & all signals. Control of the line has been transferred to Marsh Brook signal box to the south.

The station has been adopted by local volunteers who maintain it, including the garden areas behind both platforms. In 2008, a group of volunteers transformed the unattended station gardens & won the Station Gardens of the Year competition 2 years later. In 2011, a tree sculpture depicting 2 owls was carved by David Bytheway. There is also a Church Stretton Rail Users' Association. The main passenger footbridge connecting the 2 platforms was renovated & painted in 2013.

The town is served by 3 bus routes:
435 between Shrewsbury & Ludlow, operated by Minsterley Motors; this connects the town with nearby villages including All Stretton, Dorrington, Leebotwood, Little Stretton & Marshbrook
580 between Shrewsbury & Cardington, also operated by Minsterley Motors
780 Long Mynd & Stiperstones Shuttle, operated by Boultons of Shropshire.
Bus services run to/from Beaumont Road, 300 yards from the station.

WOODSMOOR railway station is on the Buxton Line in Woodsmoor, a suburb of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It was...
18/05/2026

WOODSMOOR railway station is on the Buxton Line in Woodsmoor, a suburb of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It was opened by British Rail in 1990.
The station is 1⁄2 mile (800 m) from Stepping Hill Hospital.

The station has a staffed ticket office on platform 1, which is staffed on a limited basis (weekday a.m peak only, 07:10 – 10:10). At other times tickets can be purchased from an automated ticket machine situated by the ticket office. There are standard waiting shelters on each side, whilst train running details are provided via CIS displays, automated announcements and timetable poster boards. Level access is only available to platform 1 (towards Stockport & Manchester).

Two Northern trains per hour operate northbound to Manchester Piccadilly and southbound to Hazel Grove during Monday to Saturday daytime, with one train per hour continuing to Buxton.[2] Sunday services are hourly between Manchester Piccadilly and Buxton.
Through running north of Manchester ceased temporarily as part of a major timetable change in May 2018. Through running resumed in May 2019 with an hourly service running from Hazel Grove to Blackpool North. Through running was stopped again in December 2022.
Hope Valley Line trains towards/from Chinley or Sheffield do not stop here.

DAVENPORT Railway Station serves the Davenport suburb of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. The station is 7 miles ...
16/05/2026

DAVENPORT Railway Station serves the Davenport suburb of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. The station is 7 miles south-east of Manchester Piccadilly on the Buxton Line.

It was opened by the Stockport, Disley and Whaley Bridge Railway on 1/3/1858, as a result of a complaint from Colonel William Davenport, a local landowner, that the company had not honoured its initial promise to provide a station at Bramhall Lane (which was, at that time, just outside the boundary of Stockport Borough). A small passenger station was opened and named Davenport. Trade was slight & it closed in September 1859, to be reopened on 1/1/1862.

Davenport station has been typically served by trains on the Buxton line between Manchester Piccadilly & Buxton. However, through running north of Manchester has operated on services at times during the early 21st century. It ceased temporarily as part of a major timetable change in May 2018; resumed in May 2019 with an hourly service running from Hazel Grove to Blackpool North, & running was stopped again in December 2022.

The station has a ticket office at street level, which is staffed in the mornings through until early afternoon, 6 days per week (closed all day Sunday). At all other times, tickets must be bought on the train or prior to travel. Waiting shelters are provided at platform level on each side, whilst train running information is offered by means of CIS displays & timetable posters. No step-free access is available to either platform, as each 1 is linked to the ticket office & road via staircases.

GATLEY Railway Station is a stop on the Styal Line, in Greater Manchester, England. It serves the suburb of Gatley in th...
14/05/2026

GATLEY Railway Station is a stop on the Styal Line, in Greater Manchester, England. It serves the suburb of Gatley in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport.

Gatley station was opened by the London & North Western Railway in 1909; it was first known as Gatley for Cheadle, before being renamed Gatley on 6 May 1974.
When the Styal line was electrified in 1960, there was a half-hourly electric service (Monday - Saturday) between Manchester Oxford Road and Alderley Edge operated by Class 304 electric multiple units. Services were extended to Altrincham, when the electrification was upgraded to 25 kV AC in 1971, and operated in this way until the line between Altrincham and Cornbrook Junction was transferred to Manchester Metrolink in 1990.
When Manchester Airport station opened in 1993, the Monday to Saturday service pattern was two trains per hour to Manchester Piccadilly, with two trains per hour in the opposite direction: one to Manchester Airport and the other continued onto Crewe. Sunday services consisted of obe train per hour to Manchester Airport, with one service every two hours continuing to Alderley Edge and one to Manchester Piccadilly.
Gatley station reopened on 28 January 2007, after reconstruction of the platforms and work to replace the ramp access to them. Electronic train service information screens were introduced in 2010 on each platform. In 2018, Arriva Rail North introduced ticket machines, which are on the northbound platform and at the bottom of the ramp for the southbound platform.
Work to extend the platforms at the station was completed in March 2023.

The station lies on the A560 Gatley Road and has a car park. The ticket office and waiting room, on the Manchester-bound platform, are only open in the morning.

Gatley station is served by two train operating companies, which provide the following general off-peak service in trains per hour/day (tph/tpd):

Northern Trains:
2 tph to Manchester Airport
1 tph to Manchester Piccadilly
1 tph to Crewe
1 tph to Liverpool Lime Street
1 tph to Lancaster, via Preston; of which:
most continue to Barrow-in-Furness
others continue to Windermere.
On Sundays, there is 1 tp2h in each direction between Manchester Airport and Liverpool Lime Street.

TransPennine Express:
1 tpd to Manchester Airport.
On Sundays, there is 1 tph in each direction between Manchester Airport and Redcar Central, with occasional extensions to Saltburn.

NEW MILLS NEWTOWN railway station serves the Newtown area of New Mills, in Derbyshire, England. It is located 14+1⁄4 mil...
12/05/2026

NEW MILLS NEWTOWN railway station serves the Newtown area of New Mills, in Derbyshire, England. It is located 14+1⁄4 miles south east of Manchester Piccadilly on the Buxton line. It also serves as an interchange with the Hope Valley Line, with New Mills Central being 15 minutes' walk away across the Goyt Valley.

The station was built in 1857 on the Stockport, Disley and Whaley Bridge Railway line, which was extended by the London and North Western Railway in 1863 to connect with the Cromford and High Peak Railway and run to Buxton.
New Mills Newtown had quite a substantial goods yard, including an elevated signal box of LNWR type 5/6 design, a large three-storey warehouse including basement, and a crane and wharf; these were all built by the LNWR. Recently, the last remaining evidence of this goods yard was demolished; these were the stables for what were meant to be the railway's horses, but ended up being used for many other horses in New Mills.
There is also a three-span wrought-iron footbridge that connects Redmoor to its other half; the end of which has steps leading down to the children's park on Chapel Street. This is built on five brick columns, which support a three-span bridge because one end is held by the steps and the other is supported by the Chalkers Snooker Club embankment. The others are in close alignment holding an otherwise flimsy thin iron bridge.

The station has retained a booking office, on platform 1, which is normally staffed from 06:40 to 13:10 on weekdays only. There are also two ticket machines on both platforms.
There are stone waiting shelters on both platforms, train running information on CIS boards and announcements. Step-free access is available to both platforms, which are also linked by the pedestrian footbridge.

There is generally one train per hour between Manchester Piccadilly and Buxton, via Stockport; trains run every two hours each way on Sundays.

07/05/2026

What are the only 3 WELSH Railway Stations that feature the words 'NORTH', 'EAST', 'SOUTH' or 'WEST' in their name?
Also. which of the 4 directional names do NOT feature in the name of any Welsh railway station.

04/05/2026

EBBW VALE PARKWAY's a station on the Ebbw Valley Railway in Wales. The station opened on 6/2/2008 when services to/from Cardiff Central commenced after 46 years of being a freight-only line. A northwards extension of the line to a new terminus at Ebbw Vale Town opened on 17/52015, which accounts for the drop in usage in 2015–16. A direct service to Newport was expected to commence in 2018 following double-tracking & re-signalling works between Aberbeeg_Crosskeys but this has now been pushed back to 2021.
The station has been built on the site of the former Victoria station in the Victoria area of the Ebbw Vale conurbation. It consists of a single platform adjacent to Glan Ebbw Terrace, close to the A4046 Station Rd.

Today, the current service is 2 trains per hour consisting of 1 to Cardiff Central & 1 to Newport, both calling at Llanhilleth, Newbridge, Crosskeys, Risca, Rogerstone & Pye Corner. The journey times to Cardiff is approx 50 minutes. Occasional services continue beyond Cardiff to Swansea, Bridgend or Maesteg.
Services are usually operated by Class 150 or 153 Sprinter units.

Demand for travel to/from the station was seriously under-estimated by the promoters of the line's reopening, even though the service provided was to Cardiff only & not to Newport as well, as originally assumed. For example, in 2008–09, usage at the station was forecast to be 50,000, for journeys on the lines to Cardiff & to Newport, but was actually about 250,000, for journeys on the line to Cardiff only. Part of the reason for the demand under-forecast was the requirement that no demand from regeneration of the former steelworks area should be assumed.

The station is a 1.8 miles from Ebbw Vale bus station, which is the terminus for a number of Stagecoach South Wales services to Cardiff, Abergavenny, Brynmawr, Tredegar, & other nearby villages.

The station is closest served by the bus stop at Waunlwyd on the A4046. There are bus connections from here to nearby communities such as Cwm, the Garden Festival Shopping site, Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan and Ebbw Vale Town itself.

A plaque commemorates MP Peter Law, who died in 2006, in honour of his work to re-open the line.

27/04/2026

From CARDIFF CENTRAL 3 train operating companies run the following services in trains per hour/day (tph/tpd):

TfW:
Local commuter services on the Valleys & Cardiff Local Routes, the local urban rail network.
Regional services predominantly within South Wales & West Wales to destinations including: Newport, Swansea, Ebbw Vale Town, Carmarthen, Milford Haven, Pembroke Dock, Maesteg & Cheltenham Spa via Chepstow, typically on an hourly or 2-hourly frequency.
1 tph to Manchester Piccadilly, via Hereford, Shrewsbury & Crewe
1 tp2h to Holyhead, via Shrewsbury, Wrexham General, Chester & the North Wales Coast Line; of which:
2 tpd on weekdays are premium services to Holyhead, known as the Premier Service
Irregular boat trains to/from Fishguard Harbour, connecting with the Stena Line ferry to Rosslare Harbour in Ireland.

GWR:
2 tph to London Paddington, via Newport, Bristol Parkway, Swindon & Reading; of which:
1 tph to Swansea; of which:
1 tp2h continues to Carmarthen
1 tph to Portsmouth Harbour, via Bristol Temple Meads
1 tph to Taunton, via Bristol Temple Meads; of which:
most continue to Exeter St Davids, Plymouth or Penzance.

CrossCountry:
1 tph to Nottingham, via Gloucester, Birmingham New Street & Derby
2 tpd to Birmingham New Street
1 tpd to Edinburgh Waverley.

18/04/2026

BRISTOL TEMPLE MEADS's the oldest/largest railway station in Bristol, England. From there, you can go to BEDMINSTER, KEYNSHAM or LAWRENCE HILL It is located 118 miles away from London Paddington. It is an important transport hub for public transport in the city; there are bus services to many parts of the city & surrounding districts, with a ferry to the city centre. It is the busiest station in South West England, & the 5th busiest in Southern England outside of London. Bristol's other major station, Bristol Parkway, is a more recent station on the northern outskirts of the conurbation.

GWR operates main line services between Bristol Temple Meads & London Paddington, some of which continue beyond Bristol to Weston-super-Mare or Taunton. The company also operates other routes through Bristol such as between Cardiff Central & Portsmouth Harbour, Cardiff Central & Taunton including extensions as far as Penzance, Worcester Foregate Street/Gloucester & Westbury/Weymouth, & Severn Beach and Weston-super-Mare. As of 2024, a trial of Saturday-only direct services to Oxford is underway.

Regular CrossCountry services run south to Paignton, Plymouth and Penzance & north to Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Derby, Leeds, Newcastle & Edinburgh. A limited number of services operate to other destinations in the north such as Glasgow Central and Aberdeen.

REDLAND Railway Station is on the Severn Beach Line & serves the districts of Cotham/Redland in Bristol, England, UK. It...
17/04/2026

REDLAND Railway Station is on the Severn Beach Line & serves the districts of Cotham/Redland in Bristol, England, UK. It is 3.3 miles from Bristol Temple Meads. Its 3-letter station code is RDA. As of 2015, it is managed by GWR, which is the 3rd franchise to be responsible for the station since privatisation in 1997. They provide all train services at the station, mainly a train every 30 minutes in each direction.
The line through Redland was opened in 1874 by the Great Western & Midland Railways as part of the Clifton Extension Railway. The station itself was opened in 1897 following a petition by local residents. There were 2 platforms, with the main station building on the Bristol-bound platform & smaller facilities on the opposite platform. No goods facilities were provided. The main station building, although no longer in railway use, is the only original station building left on the line. In 1903 the station had 11 staff.
The Severn Beach Line declined over the latter half of the 20th century, with passenger numbers falling significantly. All station staff were withdrawn in 1967, with the line through the station reduced to single track in 1970, with the 2nd platform taken out of use. Services had decreased to 10 per day each direction by 2005, but have since increased to a train every 30 minutes in each direction.

All services at Redland are operated by GWR using Class 166 Turbo DMUs.
The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:
2 tph to Bristol Temple Meads of which 1 continues to Weston-super-Mare
2 tph to Avonmouth of which 1 continues to Severn Beach
On Sundays, there is an hourly service between Bristol Temple Meads & Severn Beach with 1 train per day to & from Weston-super-Mare.
Services previously ran every 40 minutes in each direction but were increased to half-hourly in the December 2021 timetable change.

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