Macclesfield railway station is a main line station serving the

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

town of

Macclesfield Macclesfield is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Bollin in the east of the county, on the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east ...

. It lies on the Stafford to Manchester branch of the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. Facilities at the station include ticket sales, a kiosk, a waiting room and public toilets. Before the bus station was relocated and rebuilt in 2004, the railway and bus stations were sited very close to each other. It is one of the three stations that provide access to the

Middlewood Way The Middlewood Way is an 11-mile (16 km) shared use path in north-west England, between Macclesfield () and Rose Hill, Marple (); it was opened on 30 May 1985 by Dr David Bellamy. It serves the needs of walkers, dog walkers, cyclists, jogg ...

, which follows the route of the former

Macclesfield, Bollington and Marple Railway The Macclesfield, Bollington and Marple Railway (MB&MR) was an railway line between Macclesfield and Marple, England. The route was opened jointly by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) and the North Staffordshire Railway ...

History

The

London and 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 ...

(LNWR) opened the line between

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and Macclesfield on 19 June 1849. On this date the

North Staffordshire Railway The North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) was a British railway company formed in 1845 to promote a number of lines in the Staffordshire Potteries and surrounding areas in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire. The company was based i ...

(NSR) completed the

Congleton Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The town is by the River Dane, south of Manchester and north of Stoke on Trent. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 26,482. Top ...

to Macclesfield section of its main Macclesfield - Stoke - Norton Bridge line. A new joint station, managed by a committee of both companies, was opened at Hibel Road a month later, replacing the temporary LNWR station at Beech Bridge. During the 1860s, the North Staffordshire Railway collaborated with the

Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) was formed in 1847 when the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway joined with authorised but unbuilt railway companies, forming a proposed network from Manchester to Grimsb ...

(MS&LR) to construct a

joint railway A joint railway is a railway operating under the control of more than one railway company: those companies very often supplying the traction over the railway. United Kingdom There are many examples of joint railway working in the United Kingdom. ...

between Macclesfield and

Marple Marple may refer to: Places * Marple, Greater Manchester, a town close to Stockport, in England ** Marple Bridge, a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, in Greater Manchester ** Marple railway station in Marple, Greater Manches ...

near Manchester. For the North Stafford this would provide a route to Manchester independently of the LNWR. For the MS&LR it would provide a link to

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

and the south. The joint railway was constituted as the

(MB&M). It was opened throughout to a second, temporary Macclesfield station for passengers on 2 August 1869 and to goods on 1 March 1870. The MB&M then constructed its own permanent Macclesfield station called Macclesfield Central. It was just south of the LNWR station, which was renamed Macclesfield Hibel Road for clarity. The new MB&M station was connected to the rest of the joint line for goods on 3 April 1871 and opened for passengers on 1 July 1873. It closed to all traffic south of Rose Hill in January 1970. On 7 November 1960,

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways closed Macclesfield Hibel Road. Macclesfield Central was vastly remodelled and is now called simply Macclesfield station. As with other stations on the West Coast Main Line, Macclesfield station was rebuilt in the

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

style of architecture - the beauty of the building was perceived to be its very functionality, and its design follows the

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

approach. The station won the "Best Kept Station in Cheshire Award" for 2007, but was reported in summer 2011 to be "distinctly shabby", with peeling paintwork. There are three platforms but only two are in regular use, the up platform for services to Manchester and the down platform to Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham. Platform 3 sees a small number of services. Evidence of a fourth platform can be seen, on which a Network Rail building now exists.

Accidents and incidents

*On 26 July 1971, an

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

departed from the station against signals and was derailed by trap points.

Services

Macclesfield is served by

Avanti West Coast Avanti West Coast is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by FirstGroup (70%) and Trenitalia (30%) that operates the West Coast Partnership franchise. During November 2016, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced the Inter ...

CrossCountry CrossCountry (legal name XC Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the Cross Country franchise. The CrossCountry franchise was restructured by the Department for Transport (DfT) ...

and

Northern Trains Northern Trains, branded as Northern, (legally Northern Trains Limited) is a State-owned enterprises of the United Kingdom, publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT) ...

services.

and

operate an hourly service northbound, with some peak time extras, to ; and

has two services an hour, giving Macclesfield four northbound trains per hour. Southbound, there are also four trains per hour. One is to , operated by

; one to , operated by

; one to via and ; and one to , operated by

. Sunday services are similar, but the local stopping service operated by

is limited, with only 6 services to and 5 to . It is planned for Macclesfield to get one High Speed 2 service from London per hour once High Speed 2 becomes operational.

Notes

Citations

References

External links

{{coord, 53.2595, N, 2.1217, W, type:railwaystation_region:GB, display=title Macclesfield Railway stations in Cheshire Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1873 Railway stations served by CrossCountry Northern franchise railway stations Railway stations served by Avanti West Coast Articles containing video clips Former London and North Western Railway stations Stations on the West Coast Main Line DfT Category C1 stations