Greenbank railway station

Winter scene at Hartford & Greenbank in 1962

The station was built by the West Cheshire Railway, a constituent of the Cheshire Lines Committee (CLC)[1] and opened to passengers on 22 June 1870.[2] The CLC continued to operate both goods and passenger services from the station, unaffected by the railway grouping of 1923, until the railway nationalisation of 1948. The station name was Hartford and Greenbank until 7 May 1973 when British Railways renamed the station Greenbank,[3] to avoid confusion with the nearby Hartford station on the West Coast Main Line. Greenbank was served by CLC trains from Manchester Central via Northwich to Chester Northgate. From the closure of Manchester Central on 5 May 1969 & Chester Northgate on 6 October that year, trains from Greenbank were diverted to Manchester Oxford Road and the LNWR & GWR Joint Chester station, previously Chester General.

CLC trains were headed by locomotives in LNER livery. A link to LMS service was made by a shuttle service to Acton Bridge using LMS stock (this normally continued via Northwich, Middlewich & Sandbach to Crewe). This service was nicknamed "The Dodger", but was withdrawn in 1942.

Greenbank signal box

The station is unstaffed (though there is a self-service ticket machine provided) and has a free car park. There is a public phone box opposite the station and a row of shops nearby. The Greenbank public house is next to the station and Mid Cheshire College is about 440 yards (400 m) away, with a Sainsbury's store opposite the college. The main station buildings are on the north-west side of the line and are presently used as a Christian church. Waiting shelters are provided on each side and train running details are offered via digital CIS displays, telephone and timetable posters. Step-free access is provided to both platforms.[4]

The signal box is situated to the north of the station - this supervises the line from Cuddington through to Plumley and the various branches & siding connections from it (including the line to Sandbach and the now-disused link into the defunct Brunner-Mond chemical works at Winnington).

Hartford's main station is about one mile (1.6 km) to the west along the main A559 road - a 20-minute journey on foot or 5 minutes by car or taxi. Trains are available from there to Liverpool Lime Street, Runcorn, Winsford, Crewe and Birmingham New Street.

The service to and from Manchester Piccadilly and Chester on weekdays and Saturdays is basically hourly (with a couple of weekday peak period extras to/from Stockport).[5]

On Sundays, the trains run every two hours each way and the eastbound service runs through to Southport via Bolton & Wigan Wallgate.

The majority of trains used on the line are Class 142 or Class 150, together with the occasional Class 156.

Notes

Bibliography

• Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2013). Chester Northgate to Manchester. Middleton Press. figs. 32-35. ISBN 9781908174512. OCLC 892704846.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Greenbank railway station.

• Train times and station information for Greenbank railway station from National Rail
• Mid-Cheshire Community Rail Partnership

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Cuddington		Northern Trains Mid-Cheshire Line		Northwich