Ardwick railway station in Ardwick,

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 ...

, England, is about one mile (1.5 km) south-east of

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 ...

, in an industrial area of east Manchester. Plans to close the station permanently were scrapped in 2006 due to increasing activity in the area. The station has just one train in each direction calling on Monday to Friday in the winter 2019–20 timetable. These trains have additionally called at the station on Saturdays from May 2018.

History

It was opened by the

Sheffield, Ashton-Under-Lyne and Manchester Railway The Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway was an early British railway company which opened in stages between 1841 and 1845 between Sheffield and Manchester via Ashton-under-Lyne. The Peak District formed a formidable barrier, and ...

in 1842 and became part of the

Manchester, Sheffield & 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 ...

during mergers in 1847. That company changed its name to the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

in 1897. The station became a junction between the

London, Midland & Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...

and the

London & North Eastern Railway London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

under the

Grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...

of 1923, and passed to the

London Midland Region of British Railways The London Midland Region (LMR) was one of the six regions created on the formation of the nationalised British Railways (BR), and initially consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) lines in England, Wales and Northern Irela ...

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948. When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by

Regional Railways Regional Railways was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982 that existed until 1997, two years after privatisation. The sector was originally called ''Provincial''. Regional Railways was the most subsidised (per pas ...

under arrangement with the Greater Manchester PTE until the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industr ...

. Ardwick rail depot, opened 2006 for the Class 185 DMU fleet is a short distance to the east. From 1878 to 1902 there was also an Ardwick stop shown on

Crewe–Manchester line The Crewe–Manchester line is a railway line in North West England, running between Crewe and Manchester Piccadilly. It is a spur of the West Coast Main Line. History The line was built by the Manchester and Birmingham Railway Company, which d ...

timetables for collection of Manchester tickets on down trains.

Non-closure

In its draft Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) for the North West,

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

proposed the closure of Ardwick, but the closure proposals were dropped from the final report published on 1 May 2007. Proposals to close Ardwick and two other stations in Greater Manchester were shelved after residents and passenger groups persuaded Network Rail that long-term development could improve the business case for keeping the stations open. Ardwick is unstaffed and has a single

island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...

on the electrified line to Glossop and Hadfield. Access is from a footbridge, with no wheelchair access. It is immediately adjacent to the main 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 ...

, and the two routes join just north of the station. It has a peak-hour-only service of one train inbound from New Mills Central to Manchester in the morning, and one train outbound to Rose Hill Marple in the evening (Monday – Saturday only). The only station from which a direct daily return to Ardwick is possible (without changing) is therefore Romiley, which is called at by both services. The lines passing through the station are all intensively used by non-stop trains and this, coupled with its location in a largely non-residential area, accounts for its infrequent service. In 2004–2005 financial year only 285 passengers used the station, or fewer than one per day, increasing to 358 in 2005–2006. More recently, passenger numbers have increased to a little under 1000 per year, even with the skeleton service provided.

Services

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) ...

operate 2 train a day the 16:54 to (Monday-Friday) and the 06:37 to (Monday-Saturday). There is no service on a Sunday. https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/travel/timetables

Notes

References

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External links

{{Greater Manchester main railway stations Railway stations in Manchester DfT Category F2 stations Former Great Central Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1842 Northern franchise railway stations 1842 establishments in England