Hazel Grove railway station

Hazel Grove
Hazel Grove railway Station
Location
Place	Hazel Grove
Local authority	Stockport
Grid reference	SJ919867
Operations
Station code	HAZ
Managed by	Northern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	D
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	0.574 million
2011/12	0.610 million
2012/13	0.625 million
2013/14	0.673 million
2014/15	0.658 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	Transport for Greater Manchester
History
Key dates	Opened 1857
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Hazel Grove from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Hazel Grove railway station is on the Stockport to Buxton / Sheffield line, serving the village of Hazel Grove, Greater Manchester, England. It was built for the Stockport, Disley and Whaley Bridge Railway by the London and North Western Railway and opened on 9 June 1857. From 1923 until 1948 it was owned by the London Midland and Scottish Railway and following nationalisation it was operated by the London Midland Region of British Railways.

At one time there was another station in the village (Hazel Grove (Midland)), on the Midland Railway's line from New Mills South Junction to Manchester Central via Cheadle Heath, which opened in 1902, but it was less conveniently situated and closed in 1917.

The line was extremely expensive to build with extensive earthworks. The navvies were accommodated in specially-built houses near the Rising Sun pub, which still exist, and are known as the "Navvy Mansions". The line from Edgeley Junction (just south of Stockport) to Hazel Grove was electrified in 1981 on the 25 kV AC overhead system. This allowed EMUs on the route from Altrincham via Sale to serve the station until that line was closed for conversion to Manchester Metrolink operation in late 1991 (though electric services to and from Piccadilly continued thereafter).

The station has two side platforms, linked by a footbridge and lifts and has a signal box on the Buxton-bound platform. This controls the junction between the Buxton line and the chord linking it to the route through Disley Tunnel towards Sheffield at the country end of the station and also a pair of carriage sidings at the Stockport end used for stabling trains that terminate here. Ticket barriers are in operation.

The station in the 1900s

Services

Today Hazel Grove is served by two trains per hour to/from Manchester Piccadilly – the hourly Manchester Piccadilly to Buxton and the hourly Preston to Hazel Grove DMU services.^[1] Only a few of the local DMU services between Manchester and Sheffield go via Hazel Grove – most travel via New Mills Central. Few services from Buxton now continue past Manchester Piccadilly and those that do (currently seven services in total) operate in the early morning and evening business peak periods – these start/terminate at Clitheroe, Kirkby, Wigan North Western, Blackpool North, Bolton, Wigan Wallgate and Barrow-in-Furness. On Sundays there are trains to/from Southport that start or terminate here. Whilst the line to Hazel Grove is electrified, Electric Multiple Units are no longer used on any timetabled services, the last regular evening working having ended at the December 2014 timetable change. The units that used to run services on the route are now used to provide an extra hourly stopping service between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. Since October 2015, the Preston service finishing/starting from here now runs through to Blackpool North^[2] (to replace the weekday service from Liverpool Lime Street that is now operated by EMUs).

The single-track Hazel Grove Chord opened in 1986. This allowed trains to/from Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly to access the former Manchester Central – New Mills South Junction line just south of Hazel Grove station and thus provides a faster route between Manchester and Sheffield than the former route via Romiley and New Mills Central. The chord also enables Sheffield trains to serve Stockport and run to/from Liverpool Lime Street.

References

1. Northern Rail Timetable 20: Buxton - Hazel Grove - ManchesterNorthern Rail; Retrieved 2014-09-25
2. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 82

• Radford, B., (1988) Midland Though The Peak Unicorn Books
• Harrison, P., (2006) Striking A Chord With Electric

External links

• Train times and station information for Hazel Grove railway station from National Rail
• Railscot – Hazel Grove

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Chinley		Northern Hope Valley Line		Woodsmoor
				Stockport
Middlewood		Northern Buxton Line		Woodsmoor
Terminus		Northern Buxton Line or Hazel Grove-Southport		Woodsmoor
Chinley		East Midlands Trains Liverpool-Norwich Limited Service		Stockport

Coordinates: 53°22′40″N 2°07′21″W / 53.3777°N 2.1226°W