Hawarden Bridge railway station () is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

near

Shotton, Flintshire Shotton is a town and community in Flintshire, Wales, within the Deeside conurbation along the River Dee, joined with Connah's Quay, near the border with England. It is located 5 miles (8 km) west of Chester and can be reached by road ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. It is situated on the Borderlands line north of Wrexham Central, on the north side of

Hawarden Bridge Hawarden Bridge (; ) is a railway bridge over the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, near Shotton, Flintshire, Shotton, Flintshire, Wales. It was built by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (which later became the Great Central Railw ...

over the River Dee. The station and all trains serving it are operated by

Transport for Wales Transport for Wales (TfW; ; ) is a not-for-profit company owned by the Welsh Government and managed at arms length by its appointed board. TfW oversees the Transport for Wales Group (TfW Group) consisting of itself and its subsidiaries: Trans ...

History

The station was opened by the LNER on 22 September 1924 as ''Hawarden Bridge Halt'', adjacent to the John Summers

steelworks A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-fini ...

. The station was renamed as ''Hawarden Bridge'' in 1954 when it was upgraded. The station was considerably busier in times past, being the nearest to the triangular junction with the former line to and Mickle Trafford as well as the steel plant. The Chester line closed to passengers in September 1968, but remained open for freight until June 1992 (it is now a footpath and cycleway) whilst the shutdown of much of the works in 1980 (with the loss of 6,000 jobs) led to a significant decline in use of the station. The

signal box A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

to the north of Dee Marsh Junction remains in use to control access to the remnants of the former Shotwick Sidings for the dispatch of finished steel products. The sidings were once used by heavy trains of iron ore from Bidston Dock in Birkenhead bound for the sidings Shotwick. An industrial park and rail-connected paper mill now occupy part of the old Shotton works site, whilst the rolling mill there is still operational receiving steel coil for processing from South Wales by rail. The signal box also acts as the 'fringe' to the Merseyside Integrated Electronic Control Centre at Sandhills. It is situated immediately to the north of the

railway swing bridge that last opened in 1960.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed and only has basic amenities (CIS screens, waiting shelters and timetable poster boards on each platform). Step-free access is available to both platforms, but transfer between them requires the use of a barrow crossing. The Chester Millennium Greenway cycle route runs adjacent to the station and provides access to the northbound platform. The route also connects the station to Shotton.

Services

Previously the station saw an infrequent service, with the only trains calling during the morning and evening peak periods towards Wrexham Central southbound and

Bidston Bidston is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. Administratively, it is a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of th ...

northbound. Services were enhanced in May 2013 when Arriva Trains Wales introduced a Sunday service at the station - with all passenger services (every 90 minutes) stopping at the station (on request). Services were further enhanced a decade later in December 2023, where now all services on the line will stop (on request), giving a service approximately every 45 minutes Monday to Saturday daytimes (dropping to two-hourly from mid evening and approximately every 90 minutes on Sundays).

References

Bibliography

External links

{{Flintshire railway stations Railway stations in Flintshire DfT Category F2 stations Former London and North Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1924 Railway stations served by Transport for Wales Rail Railway request stops in Great Britain