Castleton railway station

Castleton National Rail
Location
Place Castleton
Local authority Rochdale
Grid reference SD883106
Operations
Station code CAS
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*
2010/11 Increase 0.127 million
2011/12 Increase 0.153 million
2012/13 Decrease 0.150 million
2013/14 Decrease 0.144 million
2014/15 Increase 0.148 million
History
Key dates Opened 1875 (1875)
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Castleton from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Castleton railway station serves Castleton in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. It is 8¾ miles (14 km) north of Manchester Victoria on the Caldervale Line operated and managed by Northern.

Services

On Monday to Saturday daytimes, there is a half-hourly service in each direction. Two per hour southbound to Manchester Victoria, with hourly extensions to Wigan Wallgate and two per hour northbound to Todmorden, with one of these continuing on to Leeds via Hebden Bridge and Brighouse and the other to Blackburn via Burnley. There are no longer any through services to Manchester via Oldham, this is due to closure of the Oldham Loop Line which has been converted for light rail use by Manchester Metrolink.

Evenings see the same half-hourly pattern but with trains to Leeds via Bradford Interchange rather than via Dewsbury; on Sundays there is an hourly service to Manchester Victoria and to Blackburn.[1]

History

The original station opened in 1839 at Blue Pits on the other side of the Rochdale-Manchester Road bridge. It was originally called Blue Pits for Heywood. The current station opened on 1 November 1875. The Liverpool and Bury Railway from Bolton (extended through from Bolton and beyond in 1848 to join the earlier M&L Heywood branch previously opened in 1841) used to join the main line at a triangular junction a short distance south of the station. This was at one time a busy passenger & freight route often used by trains avoiding the busy Manchester area, but was closed to passengers on 5 October 1970.[2]

Facilities

The station is not staffed, but there is a ticket machine available. Shelters and passenger information screens are located on each platform and both have step-free access from the street (there are also staircases from Manchester Road bridge to both platforms).[3]

East Lancashire Railway Future

The eastern portion of this line was retained for freight traffic after passenger trains ceased (serving the coal depot at Rawtenstall until 1980 and subsequently to the Powell Duffryn wagon works) and it now forms the link with the East Lancashire Railway heritage route at Heywood.[4] The heritage line plans to extend its services along and towards a possible new bay platform adjacent to the main station in the future,[5] subject to permission being granted by Network Rail.

The bay platform (named Castleton Village) will be adjacent to the main station at Castleton, from where passengers could alight and change station sides directly to Northern Rail services on the national network. Rochdale Council commissioned a study by transport consultants Moucel in conjunction with the ELR regarding the proposals in 2010 - their report which covers the tourism and regeneration aspects of any such future development can be downloaded from the ELR website.

Preceding station   Proposed Heritage railways Following station
Terminus   East Lancashire Railway   Heywood
Line closed, station open

Notes

  1. GB National Rail Timetable May - December 2016, Table 41
  2. Marshall, p.45
  3. Castleton (Manchester) station facilities National Rail Enquiries; Retrieved 30 November 2016
  4. Your Heywood - Heywood Railway Station www.heywood-lancs.co.uk; Retrieved 2013-08-22
  5. Minister steams in for talks on new lineBury Times news article; Retrieved 2013-08-22

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Castleton railway station.
Preceding station National Rail Following station
Mills Hill   Northern
Caldervale Line or
Todmorden/Rochdale-Wigan Wallgate/Kirkby
  Rochdale
Disused railways
Heywood
Line closed, station open
  Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway   Rochdale
Line and station open

Railways in Rochdale

Legend
 Past, present and future 
Rossendale Lines
to Bacup
Calderdale Lines
to Calderdale
Broadley
Littleborough
Shawclough
and Healey
Smithy Bridge
Wardleworth

Rochdale
Newbold
Rochdale
Town Centre
Kingsway
Business Park
Milnrow
East Lancs Rly
to Bury
Newhey
Broadfield
Oldham Lines
to Oldham
East Lancashire RailwayHeywood
Castleton
Mills Hill
Middleton
Manchester Lines North
to Manchester

Coordinates: 53°35′31″N 2°10′42″W / 53.5919°N 2.1783°W / 53.5919; -2.1783

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/30/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.