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Crewe railway station

Coordinates: 53°05′20″N 2°25′59″W / 53.089°N 2.433°W / 53.089; -2.433
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Crewe
National Rail
Platforms 5 and 6 at Crewe.
General information
LocationCrewe, Cheshire East
England
Coordinates53°05′20″N 2°25′59″W / 53.089°N 2.433°W / 53.089; -2.433
Grid referenceSJ710547
Managed byAvanti West Coast
Platforms12
Other information
Station codeCRE
ClassificationDfT category B
Key dates
4 July 1837Opened
1867Rebuilt
1903-1907Platforms lengthened
1984-1985Remodelled[1]
Passengers
2017/18Increase 3.147 million
 Interchange Increase 1.551 million
2018/19Increase 3.305 million
 Interchange Decrease 1.508 million
2019/20Increase 3.401 million
 Interchange Decrease 1.408 million
2020/21Decrease 0.746 million
 Interchange Decrease 0.198 million
2021/22Increase 2.717 million
 Interchange Increase 0.802 million
Listed Building – Grade II
Feature1867 buildings at Crewe Railway Station
Designated30 August 2016
Reference no.1436435[2]
Location
Map
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Crewe railway station serves the town of Crewe, in Cheshire, England. It opened in 1837 and is one of the most historically significant railway stations in the world.[3][4]

Crewe station is a major junction on the West Coast Main Line and serves as a rail gateway for North West England. It is 158 miles north of London Euston and 243 miles south of Glasgow Central. It is located at the point where the lines to Manchester Piccadilly and North Wales diverge from this route, and is the last major station before the branch to Liverpool Lime Street diverges. It is also served by lines to Stoke-on-Trent and Shrewsbury.

Crewe railway station has twelve platforms and a modern passenger entrance containing a bookshop and ticket office. Passengers access the platforms via a footbridge, stairs and lifts. The platform buildings, which date from the 19th century, contain two bookshops, bars, buffets and waiting rooms. The last major expenditure on the station took place in 1984-1985 when the track layout was remodelled and the station facilities were updated.[1]

History

Early years

Crewe's location was chosen after Winsford, seven miles to the north, had rejected an earlier proposal, as had local landowners in neighbouring Nantwich, four miles away.[5]

Crewe station was the first station to have its own adjacent railway hotel: the Crewe Arms Hotel, built in 1838, and still in use.[6] It was the first to be completely rebuilt owing to the need for expansion. It was the also first to have completely independent rail lines built around it to ease traffic congestion.

The station opened on 4 July 1837 on the Grand Junction Railway.[7]: 46  The purpose was to link the four largest cities of England by joining the existing Liverpool and Manchester Railway with the projected London & Birmingham Railway. The first long-distance railway in the world, it ran from Curzon Street railway station in Birmingham to Dallam in Warrington, Cheshire, where it made an end-on junction with the Warrington and Newton Railway, a branch of the L&M.

Early image of the original Crewe station c. 1840.
Platforms five and six are used primarily for express traffic along the West Coast Main Line.
Crewe station looking NE and showing the six converging railway routes

The station was built in the township of Crewe, which formed part of the ancient parish of Barthomley. The township later became a civil parish in its own right, and, later still, was renamed Crewe Green to avoid confusion with the town of Crewe, which was adjacent to it. The station was at the point where the line crossed the turnpike road linking the Trent and Mersey and the Shropshire Union Canals. Since the land was bought from the Earl of Crewe, whose mansion stood nearby, and it was located in the township of Crewe, the station was called Crewe. The railway station gave its name to the town of Crewe that was actually situated in the ancient parish of Coppenhall. In 1936, the railway station was transferred from the civil parish of Crewe to the then municipal borough of Crewe.[8]

As soon as the station opened the Chester and Crewe Railway was formed to build a branch line to Chester and this company was absorbed by the GJR shortly before it opened to traffic in 1840. A locomotive depot was built to serve the Chester line, and to provide banking engines to assist trains southwards from Crewe up the Madeley Incline, a modest gradient which was a challenge to the small engines of the day.

By 1841, the Chester line was seen as a starting point for a new trunk line to the port of Holyhead, to provide the fastest route to Ireland, and the importance of Crewe as a junction station began to be established. This was given further endorsement when the Manchester and Birmingham Railway, a separate undertaking which had hoped to build a wholly independent line linking the two cities, shorter than the GJR, decided that it would be uneconomical to compete with that line over the greater part of its length, and decided to divert its own line to meet the GJR at Crewe. Teething squabbles between the companies delayed the running of through services for a while, and the M&B had to build a temporary station of their own, part of which survives today as an isolated platform next to the North Junction, at the start of the line to Manchester.

In 1842 the GJR decided to move its locomotive works from Edge Hill in Liverpool to Crewe, siting the works to the north of the junction between the Warrington and Chester lines. To house the workforce and company management the town of Crewe was built by the company to the north of the works.

London & North Western Railway

In 1846 the GJR merged with the London and Birmingham to form the London and North Western Railway Company, which until its demise in 1923 was the largest company in the world. The new company extended the existing lines to Holyhead, the Warrington line to Lancaster and Carlisle, the Manchester line to Leeds, and built the new Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway to Shrewsbury to join the joint GWR owned Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway, which provided connections to South Wales. The North Staffordshire Railway built a line from Stoke-on-Trent, joining the LNWR from the South East. Crewe was the centre of a wide-ranging railway network, and freight-handling facilities grew up to the south of the station.

To cope with the increase of traffic, the station was rebuilt in 1867 (according to WH Chaloner), the buildings facing each other on the present platforms 5 and 6 dating from this time, and built under the supervision of William Baker.[2] The listing by English Heritage describes them as:

mirrored design with bowed projections for the platform inspectors' offices, the 'greybeard' keystones and vivid polychromy ... one of the best pieces of mid-C19 platform architecture designed anywhere on the LNWR network, and as rare surviving examples nationally of buildings of a major junction station of this period.

At the same time the works was redeveloped and enlarged and the town also enlarged under the leadership of John Ramsbottom, a Stockport man who had become Locomotive Superintendent. Locomotive construction, hitherto divided with Wolverton (on the London and Birmingham Railway) was concentrated at Crewe. Ramsbottom also built a steelworks, the first in the world to make large-scale use of the Bessemer process, as only the LNWR required enough steel to keep a Bessemer plant continuously occupied. He also introduced mass-production techniques, whereby as many parts as possible were identical between one engine and another.

Crewe station around 1900.

Ramsbottom retired in 1871 and was succeeded by the legendary Frank Webb, a colourful and controversial figure who was known as 'The Uncrowned King of Crewe'.

By the 1890s a survey revealed 1,000 trains passing within a 24-hour period. Half of these were freight trains which did not need to call at the station, so the company decided to build a separate four-track railway line passing to the west of the station, joining the existing lines beyond the north and south junctions, burrowing beneath them and avoiding them completely. Plans for the "independent lines" were approved in 1895 and construction lasted from 1896[9] to 1901. Over 1,000 labourers were employed on what was known as the "big dig" at a cost about £500,000[10] (equivalent to £68,560,000 in 2023).[11] This undertaking also included a marshalling yard to the south of the station at Basford Hall, a revolutionary 'tranship shed' which allowed fast transfer of freight from wagons to road vehicles under cover. The station was enlarged between 1903[12] and 1907, by providing eight through platforms each a quarter of a mile long. The cost of the improvements was £1,000,000[13] (equivalent to £133,620,000 in 2023).[11]

London, Midland and Scottish Railway

View northward on Platform 4 in 1962, with an English-Electric Type 4 to the left, and a 6P "Jubilee" to the right
View northward from the footbridge at the north end of the station in 1958

In 1923 the LNWR became part of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway group. Crewe remained the major centre for locomotive construction. In 1938-39 the signal boxes at North and South Junctions were completely reconstructed as massive concrete structures to withstand air raids, and remained in use until the resignalling project in 1985. The North Junction signal box can now be visited as part of the Crewe Heritage Centre. Although the railway station is virtually synonymous with the town of Crewe, it was not actually incorporated within the borders of the borough of Crewe until the late 1930s, as it lies about 1 mile to the south east of the actual town centre.

With the exception of two new signal boxes and associated greatly improved colour light signalling, track circuiting and electrically operated track points, train operation at Crewe changed little in over fifty years. The trains did become longer and heavier and were hauled by larger engines, which required increased supplies of water to be taken on board before departure, but the number of passenger trains using Crewe Station and the method of operation did not vary greatly despite the passage of two world wars. Trains continued to divide at Crewe with the front portion for Manchester and the rear for Liverpool. The station pilot engine always had a pair of restaurant cars in a bay platform ready to attach to a morning service to London. Always there were extra coaches waiting to be attached to overcrowded trains. In addition to passengers there were vast quantities of mail, parcels and even live animals and birds of all descriptions transported in specially designed transit crates. When necessary the station staff had to feed and water these special passengers, which travelled in copious luggage vans.

British Railways

In the early 1900s, the station gained an extra six platforms to cope with traffic. However, as part of a major resignalling project in 1985, five of these platforms were taken out of use, with only Platform 12 (pictured) remaining.

In 1948 the LMS was nationalised as British Railways, London Midland Region. Nationalisation greatly facilitated the modernisation of British Railways and, after a false start developing new improved steam engines, electrification came, along with diesel power and fixed-formation air-braked trains. These changes had a significant effect on Crewe station. Notably, the variation in station use caused firstly by the electrification in stages of the West Coast Main Line between 1959 and 1974 and secondly by the general end of steam traction on Britain's railways. Following the completion of electrification in 1974, trains did not need to change locomotives at Crewe, except for the London to Chester and Holyhead service. Many locomotive hauled trains were replaced by electric or diesel multiple unit trains, with much faster turn-round times. Additionally, two local branch lines had closed, which resulted in fewer trains terminating at Crewe. However, compensating for the decline of local passenger traffic, the reduction in mail and parcels traffic and the total elimination of livestock carriage, came the great increase in inter-city passenger traffic and the need for even faster, smoother and more efficient handling of passenger trains.

In 1963 the architects to the London Midland Region of British Railways provided a Porte-cochère at the passenger entrance on Nantwich Road. It was constructed of eight laminated wood Hyperbolic paraboloid shells.[14] This was replaced between 1983 and 1985 with the current steel structure.

The main entrance to Crewe station, dating from the 1980s refurbishment.

In 1985 in a £14.3 million scheme, the track layout was modernised and simplified, eliminating many points and crossings and allowing 80 mph (130 km/h) running[15] over the North Junction. At the same time all but one of the six 1902 extension platforms were taken out of use. Four Class 40 locomotives were reallocated to this work in 1985, and were renumbered as 97405–97408 for the engineering duties.

Present day

In 2007 Network Rail published a proposal to replace the existing Crewe station with a new station located approximately 1 mile to the south. A "Crewe Town" station was also proposed nearer the town centre on the Chester line, with a shuttle service to the new main station.[16][17] In 2009 the station was identified as one of the ten worst category B interchange stations for mystery shopper assessment of fabric and environment.[18]

The proposal to move the station was abandoned in 2010 and instead the current building was renovated.[19] Cheshire East Council implemented a regeneration master plan for Crewe, which included the station.[20]

In 2011 Cheshire East Council purchased the former Royal Mail depot and Weston House for £2.75 million.[21] The council demolished the two buildings and created a new entrance to the station,[22][23] as well as a 244 space car park, at a cost of £7 million.[24] The construction work was undertaken by Balfour Beatty.[24] The new entrance has step-free access & connects passengers to the station through an underground walkway. There is a ticket vending machine at this entrance, as well as unmanned ticket barriers.

The Weston Road entrance, added in 2014.

In August 2016 the station buildings of 1867 were added to the National Heritage List for England as a Grade II listed building. The structures included in the listing comprise two station buildings on separate platforms, and two screen walls, one to the east and the other to the west of the station.[2]

With seven train companies calling, Crewe is tied with Doncaster for the highest number of companies calling at a UK station.

Accidents and incidents

On 7 November 1980 two freight trains collided at Crewe railway station.[25]

Future

In January 2013, it was announced that the existing Crewe station would be a stop on the western branch of the planned HS2 high-speed rail route.[26]

A new platform will be built on the Manchester independent lines to the west of the station, meaning that services will not have to cross the West Coast Main Line from Manchester Piccadilly or the Marches Line to South Wales.[27]

Following the Crewe Hub consultation, which ran from July to October 2017, it is planned that up to 5 to 7 trains per hour will stop at Crewe; plans for a new service to Manchester via Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent and Macclesfield are also proposed. This will be made possible by extending the existing platform 5 to 400 metres, allowing services to split and serve these additional destinations. It is also planned that a new transfer deck will be built; this will allow passengers to change between the proposed new Manchester independent lines platform and the existing Crewe station.[28] [29]

Schematic layout

Rail network in the Crewe area
Legend
 West Coast Main Line
Coal Yard Junction
Crewe Works
North Wales Coast Line
Crewe–Manchester line
Crewe Electric Depot
Crewe North Junction
Salop Goods Junction
Crewe
Crewe Diesel Depot
Welsh Marches line
Crewe South Junction
Crewe Gresty Bridge Depot
Crewe–Derby line
South Yard
Crewe Carriage Sheds
Basford Hall Yard
Basford Hall Junction
West Coast Main Line

Current services

During the day, there are 16 trains passing through every hour (with additional less frequent services). As a summary, in trains per hour (tph):

Avanti West Coast[30][31]

London Northwestern Railway[32]

Northern[33]

Transport for Wales[34]

East Midlands Railway[35]

Caledonian Sleeper[36]

CrossCountry also operate 1 train per day between Manchester Piccadilly and Bournemouth—most of these trains instead go via Macclesfield.

Preceding station   National Rail National Rail   Following station
Transport for Wales
Terminus
Transport for WalesTerminus
TerminusNorthern
TerminusEast Midlands Railway
London Northwestern Railway
London Northwestern Railway
West Coast Main Line Liverpool–Birmingham
TerminusLondon Northwestern Railway
Avanti West Coast
Avanti West Coast
WCML Manchester–Crewe–London
Avanti West Coast
WCML Liverpool–London
Avanti West Coast
WCML Edinburgh/Glasgow/Blackpool–Birmingham–London
CrossCountry
Limited Service
Caledonian Sleeper
Highland Sleeper
Northbound only
  Historical railways  
Worleston
Line open, station closed 		  London & North Western Railway
Chester and Crewe Railway 		  Terminus
Minshull Vernon
Line open, station closed 		  London & North Western Railway
Grand Junction Railway 		  Basford
Line open, station closed
Terminus   London & North Western Railway
Shrewsbury and Crewe Railway 		  Gresty
Line open, station closed
  Great Western Railway
Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway 		 
Terminus   North Staffordshire Railway
Crewe to Derby line 		  Radway Green and Barthomley
Line open, station closed
  Future services  
Manchester Airport High Speed   TBA
High Speed 2 		  Birmingham Interchange
or Birmingham Curzon Street
Warrington Bank Quay   TBA
Northern Powerhouse Rail-High Speed 2 Link 		  Birmingham Curzon Street
or Birmingham Interchange

Platform Use

  • Platform 1 - Northern Trains stopping services to and from Manchester Piccadilly and occasionally Avanti West Coast northbound services to Manchester Piccadilly and Avanti West Coast southbound services to London Euston.
  • Platform 2 - Extra capacity.
  • Platform 3 - East Midlands Railway services to and from Derby.
  • Platform 4 - West Midlands Trains (London Northwestern) services to and from London Euston.
  • Platform 5 - Avanti West Coast northbound services to Manchester Piccadilly and southbound to Birmingham New Street and London Euston, West Midlands Trains services to Birmingham New Street, Transport for Wales services to Cardiff, CrossCountry services to Bournemouth and Bristol Temple Meads.
  • Platform 6 - Transport for Wales services northbound to Manchester Piccadilly and southbound to Cardiff and beyond. Some Avanti West Coast northbound services to Preston and Glasgow Central and southbound to London Euston also use this platform along with a CrossCountry service to Manchester Piccadilly.
  • Platform 7 - West Midlands Trains (London Northwestern) services to London Euston via Rugeley Trent Valley
  • Platform 8 - Transport for Wales stopping services to and from Shrewsbury.
  • Platform 9 - Transport for Wales services to Chester and Holyhead.
  • Platform 10 - Extra capacity.
  • Platform 11 - Avanti West Coast northbound services to Blackpool, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Chester and North Wales. West Midlands Trains (London Northwestern) northbound services to Liverpool Lime Street.
  • Platform 12 - Extra capacity and usually used for railtours.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Jonhson, E.M. (2022). Manchester to Crewe part three Sockport &Wilmslow. Burnage: E.M. Johnson. p. 147. ISBN 9781399922586.
  2. ^ a b c Historic England, "1867 buildings at Crewe Railway Station (1436435)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 26 August 2016
  3. ^ "Opening of the Grand Junction Railway". London Evening Standard. England. 5 July 1837. Retrieved 7 June 2018 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  4. ^ Guardian newspaper article, The beauty of Crewe (6 December 2005). Retrieval Date: 10 August 2007.
  5. ^ "Crewe History". Crewe Chronicle. 29 July 2008. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  6. ^ "Crewe Station gets its first-ever official ghost tour". BBC News. 7 January 2011. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  7. ^ Drake, James (1838). Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway (1838). Moorland Reprints. ISBN 0903485257.
  8. ^ Chambers (2007, pp. 76, 94); Dunn (1987, p. 26); Ollerhead (2008, pp. 7, 10, 16). "Crewe (near Wybunbury)". GENUKI (UK & Ireland Genealogy). Retrieved 3 February 2009.. The unusual relationship between the town of Crewe and the civil parish of Crewe, mediated by the railway station, is described in the following riddle: "The place which is Crewe is not Crewe, and the place which is not Crewe is Crewe."Curran et al. (1984, p. 2).
  9. ^ "Railway Extensions at Crewe". Derby Daily Telegraph. England. 18 March 1896. Retrieved 5 December 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  10. ^ WH Challoner's Social & Economic Development of Crewe 1780-1923 [full citation needed]
  11. ^ a b UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  12. ^ "Extending Crewe Station". Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser. England. 26 May 1903. Retrieved 5 December 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  13. ^ "Crewe' Million Pound Station". Lancashire Evening Post. England. 3 June 1907. Retrieved 5 December 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  14. ^ Lawrence, David (2018). British Rail Architecture 1948-97. Crecy Publishing Ltd. p. 73. ISBN 9780860936855.
  15. ^ Kelly, Peter (August 1984). "Crewe: the seven-week shutdown". Rail Enthusiast. EMAP National Publications. pp. 23–24. ISSN 0262-561X. OCLC 49957965.
  16. ^ "Station could be moved". BBC News. 2 July 2008.
  17. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 12 July 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. ^ "£50m revamp for 'worst stations'". BBC News. 17 November 2009. Retrieved 17 November 2009.
  19. ^ King, Emma (15 June 2010). "Crewe station revamp scrapped by coalition Government". The Sentinel. Archived from the original on 21 June 2010. Retrieved 13 October 2010.
  20. ^ "Crewe Vision". Sandbach: Cheshire East Council. Archived from the original on 13 September 2010. Retrieved 12 October 2010.
  21. ^ "£6.5m plan for Crewe Railway Station on track". Stoke Sentinel. 9 August 2013. Archived from the original on 3 July 2015. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  22. ^ "Cheshire East News (September 2012); downloaded from". Archived from the original on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
  23. ^ "Crewe railway station revamp to get under way". BBC News. 1 October 2012. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
  24. ^ a b Wilson, James (2 July 2014). "New £7million railway exchange unveiled in town". Crewe Chronicle. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  25. ^ Jonhson, E.M. (2022). Manchester to Crewe part three Sockport &Wilmslow. Burnage: E.M. Johnson. p. 150. ISBN 9781399922586.
  26. ^ "HS2: High-speed rail route phase two details announced". BBC News. 28 January 2013. Retrieved 28 January 2013.
  27. ^ "Policy paper. Operations: HS2 Phase 2a information papers". Department for Transport. UK Government. 12 January 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  28. ^ Smale, Katherine (13 March 2018). "Transfer deck to be built over Crewe station". New Civil Engineer. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  29. ^ "Crewe Hub. Consultation Response" (PDF). Department for Transport. UK Government. March 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  30. ^ "Scheduled timetable book for 11 December 2022 to 20 May 2023" (PDF). London: Avanti West Coast.
  31. ^ "Scheduled timetable book for 21 May 2023 to 9 December 2023" (PDF). Avanti West Coast.
  32. ^ "Train timetables and schedules – Crewe". London: London Northwestern Railway.
  33. ^ Table 93 National Rail timetable, December 2022
  34. ^ Table 77 & 131 National Rail timetable, December 2022
  35. ^ "Train timetables – Crewe". East Midlands Railway. London.
  36. ^ "Caledonian Sleeper Timetable". Caledonian Sleeper. Inverness: Scottish Rail Holdings.

Bibliography

  • Chambers, S (2007), Crewe: A history, Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore, ISBN 978-1-86077-472-0
  • Curran, H; Gilsenan, M; Owen, B; Owen, J (1984), Change at Crewe, Chester: Cheshire Libraries and Museums
  • Dunn, F. I. (1987), The ancient parishes, townships and chapelries of Cheshire, Chester: Cheshire Record Office and Cheshire Diocesan Record Office, ISBN 0-906758-14-9
  • Langston, K (2006), Made in Crewe: 150 years of engineering excellence, Horncastle, Lincolnshire: Mortons Media Group, ISBN 978-0-9552868-0-3
  • Ollerhead, P (2008), Crewe: History and guide, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7524-4654-7
  • Youngs, F. A. (1991), Guide to the local administrative units of England. (Volume 1: Northern England), London: Royal Historical Society, ISBN 0-86193-127-0

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crewe railway station.
  1. ^ https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/media/3150/download?inline
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