Bolton Crook Street railway station

Bolton, Crook Street
Location
Place	Bolton, Greater Manchester
Area	Bolton
Coordinates	53°34′24″N 2°25′52″W / 53.5734°N 2.4312°WCoordinates: 53°34′24″N 2°25′52″W / 53.5734°N 2.4312°W
Grid reference	SD716088
Operations
Original company	Bolton and Leigh Railway
Pre-grouping	London and North Western Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
History
1 August 1871	Opened as temporary terminus
28 September 1874	Closed to passengers[1]
1 October 1967	Closed for freight
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
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LNWR Lines to Bolton
Legend
Deansgate Goods Bolton Great Moor St Bolton Crook Street Original alignment shown in green Rumworth & Daubhill Daubhill 1831 Plodder Lane Shed Plodder Lane Chequerbent Chequerbent 1831 Little Hulton Wigan Wallgate Manchester-Southport LYR Walkden High Level Walkden Low Level Atherton Bag Lane Wigan NW Manchester & Wigan Rly Atherleigh Westleigh Worsley Leigh Plank Lane Bridgewater Canal Tyldesley Loopline Monton Green Pennington Eccles Kenyon Junction Lime St-Manchester Chat Moss Line

Bolton Crook Street passenger station was a purely temporary facility within the Bolton Crook Street goods yard, devised by the LNWR for use while their nearby Great Moor St station was demolished and rebuilt. It was used as such from August 1871 to September 1874, after which it reverted to use solely for goods.

The temporary passenger station's exact location within the goods yard is believed to be the goods shed on the eastern side of Chandos Street.^[2]

Sources differ on whether Great Moor St station reopened in September 1874^[3] or April 1875.^[4] The original service to Kenyon Junction was provided continuously from 1831 to 1954, but the new, additional service to Manchester via Roe Green did not start until 1 April 1875, when it ran from Great Moor Street. It is therefore possible that Crook St handed the Kenyon Junction traffic to the new Great Moor Street station in 1874.

Accident

On 16 March 1918 a goods train from Little Hulton "ran away" on the falling gradients towards Bolton. An alert signalman diverted it into Crook Street depot where it crashed through buffer stops, crossed cobbled land, crashed through a boundary wall and into the cellar of a house on Crook Street. The crew had jumped clear and, remarkably, no-one was hurt.^[5]

Closure

After a long period of decline Crook Street goods depot was finally closed to all traffic on 1 October 1967.^[6]

The site has been redeveloped in the years since and by 2015 no trace of its railway origins could be seen.

References

1. Holland 2001, p. 19
2. Holland 2001, p. 19
3. Holland 2001, p. 19
4. Butt 1995, p. 38
5. Dart 2010, p. 72.
6. Holland 2001, p. 151

Sources

• Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Patrick Stephens. ISBN 1-85260-508-1.
• Dart, Maurice (2010). Images of Lancashire and Cheshire Railways: Classic Photographs from the Maurice Dart Railway Collection. Wellington, Somerset: Halsgrove. ISBN 978-0-85704-056-5.
• Sweeney, Dennis J. (1996). A Lancashire Triangle Part One. Leigh: Triangle Publishing. ISBN 0-9529333-0-6.
• Holland, Bert (2001). Plodder Lane for Farnworth. Leigh: Triangle Publishing. ISBN 0-9529333-6-5.

External links

• The neighbouring station via Disused Stations UK
• The goods yard on a 1948 OS map via npe maps
• The goods yard on an 1885 series OS map overlay via National Library of Scotland
• The station and line via railwaycodes

Preceding station	Disused railways			Following station
Terminus		London and North Western Railway Bolton and Leigh Railway		Daubhill Line and station closed