Wilmslow railway station

Wilmslow Add→{{rail-interchange}}
General information
Location	Borough of Cheshire East
Coordinates	53.327°N 2.226°W / 53.327; -2.226
Managed by	Northern
Platforms	4
Other information
Station code	WML
Key dates
1842	Opened
1959	Electrified

Wilmslow railway station is in Wilmslow, Cheshire, England. The station is 12 miles (19 km) south of Manchester Piccadilly on the Crewe to Manchester Line.

This station is a junction on the Crewe to Manchester Line 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Stockport with the Styal Line from Wilmslow to Manchester Airport, with some trains then continuing to Manchester.

The station has four platforms with disabled access to each, two waiting rooms, public toilets and also has a double-manned booking office below the platforms.

History

Both the Main Line and the Styal Line were electrified in 1959 as part of the West Coast Main Line electrification and modernisation programme with the construction and installation of a state of the art signal box and control centre near the end of the Styal Line down platform at Wilmslow and serving virtually the entire railway from Crewe to Manchester via both routes. The complexity of that installation was not repeated for the remainder of the electrification scheme, which had its control and signalling systems renewed in ways that were less highly automated.

In March 1997, the Provisional IRA exploded two bombs in relay boxes near this signal box, causing disruption to rail and road services. The railway reopened the following day. In April 2006, as part of the total renewal of the railway from Crewe to Cheadle Hulme near Stockport, the large 1959 signal box was demolished.

Large-scale resignalling of the line through Wilmslow was completed behind schedule in the Autumn of 2006.

Services

Monday to Saturday, there are five trains per hour northbound with Northern, Transport for Wales and Virgin Trains services stopping at Wilmslow en route to Manchester Piccadilly. One Northern service operates via the Airport (all stations via Heald Green), the remainder all run via Stockport. Since May 2018, some Northern services run beyond Piccadilly to either Liverpool Lime Street via Earlestown or Bolton and Wigan North Western.

Southbound Monday to Saturdays there are four trains per hour to Crewe. These consist of two Northern trains per hour that terminate at Crewe (local stopping service), an hourly Transport for Wales fast service that continues via Shrewsbury to Cardiff Central, Swansea and West Wales and an hourly London Euston bound Virgin Trains express service. There is also one local Northern train per hour that terminates at Alderley Edge.

A small number of CrossCountry services stop at Wilmslow on the route between Manchester Piccadilly and Bournemouth during peak times.

On Sundays, there are hourly main line services to South Wales and London but the local routes run less frequently i.e. hourly to Piccadilly via Stockport and Alderley Edge, two hourly to the Airport and Crewe.

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Crewe		CrossCountry Cross Country Network Limited Service		Stockport
		Virgin Trains West Coast Main Line
		Transport for Wales Rail Welsh Marches Line
Alderley Edge		Northern Crewe to Manchester Line		Handforth
		Northern Styal Line		Styal
				Manchester Airport
				Heald Green

Future high speed services

The economic case for High Speed 2 Phase 1 includes one train per hour each way stopping at Wilmslow, travelling between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly.

Further reading

• Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2014). Crewe to Manchester. Middleton Press. figs. 38-42. ISBN 9781908174574. OCLC 892047119.

External links

• Train times and station information for Wilmslow railway station from National Rail
• Crewe-Manchester Community Rail Partnership