Mouldsworth railway station

Mouldsworth
Location
Place	Mouldsworth
Local authority	Cheshire West and Chester
Grid reference	SJ512707
Operations
Station code	MLD
Managed by	Northern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	28,626
2011/12	31,552
2012/13	31,870
2013/14	31,646
2014/15	29,940
History
Key dates	Opened 22 June 1870
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Mouldsworth from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Mouldsworth railway station serves the village of Mouldsworth in Cheshire, England. It is managed by Northern.

Train services run between Manchester Piccadilly and Chester.

History

The station & railway here first opened in 1869 for goods and 1870 for passengers, on the line from Northwich to West Cheshire Junction (near Helsby); the extension line from here to Chester was added in November 1874 (1 May 1875 for passengers).^[1]

Services used to run to the CLC terminus at Chester Northgate, but this closed in October 1969.^[1] Trains henceforth used a connection onto the former Birkenhead Joint Railway main line at Mickle Trafford (where the two lines ran adjacent to each other) to reach Chester General. As part of this rationalisation work, the Mouldsworth to Mickle Trafford section was also reduced to a single line. In the opposite direction, the closure of Manchester Central earlier that year saw eastbound services diverted to start/terminate at Manchester Oxford Road.

The station used to be a request stop but this status was removed at the spring 2011 timetable change.

The signal box here was decommissioned and demolished in 2006,^[2] control of the line then passing to Mickle Trafford box. The West Cheshire Railway line from Helsby closed to passengers as long ago as May 1875 (following the opening of the Chester line), but once carried significant volumes of oil & petrochemical traffic from the refineries near Stanlow and Thornton towards Crewe and points south via Middlewich. A change in distribution methods at the refinery led to this all but disappearing by the end of 1990. A few months later, a major fire seriously damaged the signal box at Helsby West Cheshire Junction and this led to the immediate closure of the line on 14 September 1991.^[3][4] The disused track remained intact until 1995, when it was lifted. The old formation is still just visible at the western end of the station, but it is now heavily overgrown & inaccessible.

Services

There is a basic hourly service in each direction Monday to Saturday, with two additional weekday peak trains to and from Stockport. On Sundays there is a two-hourly service each way, with eastbound trains running through to Manchester, Wigan Wallgate and Southport.^[5]

References

1. Disused Stations - Chester NorthgateDisused Stations; Retrieved 14 February 2016
2. Signalling Alterations 2006 www.signalbox.org; Retrieved 2008-12-17
3. Disused Stations - Manley Retrieved 19 November 2013
4. "Mouldsworth to Helsby memories" Sallery, Dave North Wales Coast Railway Notice Board November 2012; Retrieved 10 November 2016
5. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 88

External links

• Train times and station information for Mouldsworth railway station from National Rail
• Mid-Cheshire Community Rail Partnership

Coordinates: 53°13′55″N 2°43′55″W / 53.232°N 2.732°W