Eccles railway station serves the town of

Eccles, Greater Manchester Eccles () is a town in the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England, west of Salford and west of Manchester, split by the M602 motorway and bordered by the Manchester Ship Canal to the south. The town is famous for the Eccles cake. ...

, England. It was opened on 15 September 1830 by the

Liverpool and Manchester Railway The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It was also the first railway to rely exclusively ...

(L&M).

Location

The station is next to the

M602 motorway The M602 motorway is a relatively short motorway, leading traffic into Salford, Greater Manchester, England, towards Manchester and by-passing the suburban town of Eccles. History The first section from Worsley to Eccles (now Junction 2) opene ...

and is 300 metres north of

Eccles Interchange Eccles Interchange is a transport hub in Eccles, Greater Manchester, England. It is composed of a bus station, and a single-platform Metrolink light rail station, the latter of which is the terminus of the system's Eccles Line. It opened on 21 ...

, a bus and Metrolink interchange. A short freight-only branch line diverges from the main line here, which descends into the

Manchester Ship Canal The Manchester Ship Canal is a inland waterway in the North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the Mersey Estuary at Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it generally follows the original routes of the river ...

docks at

Salford Quays Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom foll ...

to serve a Blue Circle

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

terminal. The branch now occupies the former slow lines formation, as the L&M was formerly quadruple track from here to Manchester (the

Manchester and Wigan Railway The Manchester and Wigan Railway refers to a railway in North West England, opened in 1864 and closed to passengers on 3 May 1969, which was part of the London and North Western Railway before the Grouping of 1923. This route was an alternat ...

route to and shared the tracks of the L&M to a point just west of the station here before diverging towards ). The old slow line platforms can just be made out, though they are fenced off and heavily overgrown (the lines themselves were mostly lifted in the early 1970s, apart from the docks branch). The substantial street-level buildings built by the

London & North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...

were also demolished in 1971, after being seriously damaged by fire.

Facilities

The station is staffed part-time, with a small ticket office (rebuilt in the summer of 2013) at street level. The ticket office is open in the morning and early afternoon six days per week (06:25 to 12:55 weekdays, 07:25 to 13:55 Saturdays, closed Sundays). A ticket machine is available outside these times and for collecting pre-paid tickets. There are basic shelters, digital information screens and timetable poster boards on each platform, along with a P.A system to provide automated train running announcements (the information screens, CCTV cameras & P.A. speakers were installed in September 2015). Step-free access is not possible to either platform, as they can only reached by staircases from the road above.

Services

Monday to Saturdays there is generally an hourly service from Eccles to via

Manchester Piccadilly Manchester Piccadilly is the principal railway station in Manchester, England. Opened as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of Manchester city ...

and eastbound and

Liverpool Lime Street Liverpool Lime Street is a terminus railway station and the main station serving the city centre of Liverpool. Opened in August 1836, it is the oldest still-operating grand terminus mainline station in the world. A branch of the West Coast ...

westbound. Extra trains run at peak periods, with a handful of services to/from

Manchester Victoria Manchester Victoria station in Manchester, England is a combined mainline railway station and Metrolink tram stop. Situated to the north of the city centre on Hunts Bank, close to Manchester Cathedral, it adjoins Manchester Arena which was ...

. A small number of through trains to and via Bradford Interchange also stop here on weekdays since the May 2019 timetable change. Since December 2022, a limited weekday peak only service operates between and . On Sundays, the service runs between Liverpool Lime Street and via Manchester Piccadilly and the Airport, though whilst Lime Street station was closed for remodelling in June and July 2018 a temporary timetable was in operation (with trains running between and Victoria only in the evening and at weekends). The station used to be served by North Wales services in the morning peak but this has now ceased. However, with the creation of the

MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by Peel Media; its principal tenants are media organisations and the Quayside MediaCi ...

complex in Salford Quays, a much more frequent pattern of services stopping at Eccles has now been reviewed.

References

External links

*Since 2005 the Friends of Eccles Statio
(FRECCLES)
have adopted the station to help improve the environment and lobby for better passenger services. *For a brief video history about the statio

{{Greater Manchester main railway stations Railway stations in Salford DfT Category E stations Former London and North Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1830 Northern franchise railway stations 1830 establishments in England Eccles, Greater Manchester

Location

Facilities

Services

See also

References

External links