Castleton railway station serves Castleton in the

Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale The Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in England. Its largest town is Rochdale and the wider borough covers other outlying towns and villages, including Heywood, Greater Manchester, Heywood, Littleb ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, England. It is 8¾ miles (14 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 c ...

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 ...

, with services operated by

Northern Trains Northern Trains, Trade name, trading as Northern, is a British train operating company that operates Commuter rail, commuter and Inter-city rail, medium-distance intercity services in the North of England. It is owned by DfT Operator for the Dep ...

History

The original station opened in 1839, at Blue Pits on the western side of the Rochdale-Manchester Road bridge. It was originally called ''Blue Pits for Heywood''. The current station opened on 1 November 1875. The

Liverpool and Bury Railway The Liverpool and Bury Railway was formed by an act of Parliament in 1845 to link Liverpool and Bury via Kirkby, Wigan and Bolton, the line opening on 20 November 1848. The line became the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's main line between ...

from (extended through from Bolton and beyond in 1848 to join the earlier M&L Heywood branch previously opened in 1841, which was worked by horses) used to join the main line at a triangular junction a short distance south of the station. This was at one time a busy passenger and freight route often used by trains avoiding the busy Manchester area, but was closed to passengers on 5 October 1970.
The station was also part of the

Oldham Loop Line The Oldham Loop Line was a suburban-line in Greater Manchester, England, used by trains that ran from Manchester Victoria to Rochdale via Oldham Mumps. Services on the line at the time of its closure were operated by Northern Rail. The line c ...

, on which there were through services to , via . This route was closed in 2009 and has now been converted for light rail use by

Manchester Metrolink Manchester Metrolink is a tram/light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. The network has List of Manchester Metrolink tram stops, 99 stops along of standard-gauge route, making it the Transport in the United Kingdom#Trams and light ra ...

Facilities

The station is not staffed, but a ticket machine is available. Shelters and passenger information screens are located on each platform and both have step-free access from the street; there are also staircases from Manchester Road bridge to both platforms.

Services

On Monday to Saturday daytimes,

operates a half-hourly service in each direction. The basic pattern is for trains to start at Rochdale, then stop at all stations to Manchester Victoria, then via Salford Central, Salford Crescent, Bolton and to Blackburn, with alternate trains continuing through to . On Sundays, the service pattern is hourly in each direction between Manchester Victoria, Rochdale, Todmorden, Burnley, Accrington and Blackburn. Southbound trains continue beyond Victoria to and , via Atherton.

East Lancashire Railway future

The western portion of this line was retained for freight traffic after passenger trains ceased (serving the coal depot at Rawtenstall until 1980 and subsequently to the Powell Duffryn wagon works); it now forms the link with the

East Lancashire Railway The East Lancashire Railway is a heritage railway line in North West England which runs between Heywood, Greater Manchester and Rawtenstall in Lancashire. There are intermediate stations at Bury Bolton Street, , Summerseat and Ramsbott ...

heritage route at . The heritage line plans to extend its services along and towards a possible new bay platform adjacent to the main station in the future,Minister steams in for talks on new line
'Bury Times'' news article; Retrieved 22 August 2013 subject to permission being granted 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 railway infrastructure manager, infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. ...

. The bay platform, named ''Castleton Village'', will be adjacent to the main station at Castleton, from where passengers could alight and change station sides directly to Northern Trains' services on the national network. Rochdale Council commissioned a study by transport consultants Mouchel in conjunction with the ELR regarding the proposals in 2010; their report covers the tourism and regeneration aspects of any such future development.

References

Citations

Sources

* Bairstow, Martin, ''The Manchester and Leeds Railway'' (1983), () * Marshall, John, ''Forgotten Railways: North-West England'' (1981), David & Charles (Publishers) Ltd, Newton Abbott. ()

External links

The Castleton and Heywood Masterplan 2010
Mouchel's report on potential ELR extension through to Castleton station. {{DEFAULTSORT:Castleton Railway Station Railway stations in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale DfT Category F1 stations Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway stations Railway stations served by Northern Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1875