Mills Hill railway station is in the

Mills Hill Mills Hill is an industrial and residential area that lies on the common border of Middleton and Chadderton in Greater Manchester, England. It lies 1.3 miles east of Middleton town centre and 1.4 miles to the west of central Chadderton. It ...

area of Middleton in the

Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale The Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England. It is named after its largest town, Rochdale, The borough covers other outlying towns and villages with a population of 206,500 at the ...

, in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

, England. The station is 5¾ miles (9 km) north of

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 ...

on the

Caldervale Line The Calder Valley line (also previously known as the Caldervale line) is a railway route in Northern England between the cities of Leeds and Manchester as well as the seaside resort of Blackpool. It is the slower of the two main rail routes ...

. Mills Hill lies on Middleton's common boundary with

Chadderton Chadderton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, on the River Irk and Rochdale Canal. It is located in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Oldham, south of Rochdale and north-east of Manchester. Hi ...

, and thus serves both communities. During the temporary closure of the Oldham Loop line for its conversion to Metrolink light rail (2009–12) the station acted as an informal railhead for much of the borough of Oldham. With an annual patronage of 314,000 entries and exits per year Mills Hill station is the second busiest unstaffed railway station within Transport for Greater Manchester's area. It is due to this fact that TfGM are pushing for funding to be made available to improve accessibility at the station for disabled passengers. The station is second only to Greenfield Railway Station on the prioritized list for this funding.

History

The original station opened on 4 July 1839 before the completion of the branches to Middleton and Oldham, and closed on 11 August 1842 when these were opened. The current station opened on 25 March 1985 by

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 ...

at the same point as the original.

Services

Since the May 2018 timetable change, the service pattern here has been completely revamped (though the half-hourly basic frequency remains unaltered). All trains (apart from a small number of weekday peak and late evening workings) run to/from Rochdale only, with passengers for destinations further north having to change there. Southbound trains still run to Manchester Victoria, with most continuing on to and / via . On Sundays, an hourly service operates with trains running to via southbound and to Blackburn via Todmorden and northbound. As part of the Great North Rail Project by

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 ...

a ramp and lift will be installed for disabled access to the station.

Notes

References

*The Manchester and Leeds Railway by Martin Bairstow

External links

{{Greater Manchester railway stations Railway stations in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale DfT Category F1 stations Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1839 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1842 Railway stations opened by British Rail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1985 Northern franchise railway stations Middleton, Greater Manchester