Woodley railway station serves the suburb of Woodley in Stockport,

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The station is east of Manchester Piccadilly on a branch of the Hope Valley Line to Rose Hill Marple. It is situated where the A560 road from Stockport to Gee Cross, near Hyde, crosses over the railway line.

History

The station was opened on 5 August 1862 by 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 ...

; it became a junction later when a line from Stockport Tiviot Dale, the

Stockport and Woodley Junction Railway The Stockport and Woodley Junction Railway was incorporated on 15 May 1860 to build a railway from Stockport Portwood to a junction with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's (MS&LR) authorised Newton and Compstall line at Woodle ...

, reached the suburb in 1865. The station subsequently became jointly owned and operated by the MS&L, Great Northern Railway and

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...

, as part of the

Cheshire Lines Committee The Cheshire Lines Committee (CLC) was formed in the 1860s and became the second-largest joint railway in Great Britain. The committee, which was often styled the Cheshire Lines Railway, operated of track in the then counties of Lancashire a ...

system. The Stockport route closed to passengers in January 1967, although a short section at the eastern end remains in use today for goods traffic, serving a Tarmac stone terminal and waste recycling plant at

Bredbury Bredbury is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, east of Stockport and south-west of Hyde, Greater Manchester, Hyde. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 16,721. It i ...

. From 1866, a second link from Apethorne Junction to the north gave an east-facing link to the Woodhead Line, at Godley Junction; it was used heavily for many years by trans-Pennine freight traffic, mainly coal from the South Yorkshire coalfields to Fiddlers Ferry power station. This link was closed in 1982, soon after the Woodhead route itself, and is now a

shared-use path A shared-use path, mixed-use path or multi-use pathway is a path which is 'designed to accommodate the movement of pedestrians and cyclists'. Examples of shared-use paths include sidewalks designated as shared-use, bridleways and rail trails. A ...

Services

On Mondays to Saturdays, there is generally a half-hourly stopping service northbound to Manchester Piccadilly and southbound to Rose Hill Marple; the service is more limited in the evenings. There is no Sunday service. A normal service operates on bank holidays. In July 2020, Northern informed local residents that services between Manchester and Rose Hill Marple would not operate between early-September and mid-December 2020; this was due to the train operating company's staff shortages from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This left Rose Hill Marple, Hyde North and Hyde Central, as well as Woodley, without a train service for around four months. Regular services have been restored since.

Railway Clearing House map of the Woodley area

The railway line from Hyde through Woodley to Romiley and Marple is shown as being owned by the Great Central and Midland Railways joint committee. The line from Stockport (Tiviot Dale) through Woodley is shown to be owned by the

Notes

References

* * Marshall, J (1981) ''Forgotten Railways North-West England'', David & Charles (Publishers) Ltd, Newton Abbott.

External links

Railway stations in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport DfT Category F2 stations Former Great Central and Midland Joint Railway stations Northern franchise railway stations 1862 establishments in England {{GreaterManchester-railstation-stub