The station was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1867. It was called Rowley Regis & Blackheath up until 1968. The station had a goods yard though this closed in 1963. The station is in a cutting with a ticket office at road level and ramps down to the platforms.
The station is managed by West Midlands Railway, who provide up six trains an hour in each direction. Chiltern Railways also stop at Rowley Regis in peak hours with a number of their services to and from London Marylebone.
View down the line, both platforms have modern canopies and bus shelters
Station sign
Ramp down to the platform
The main station building can be seen atop the bridge in the background
Manchester Piccadilly is the largest station in Manchester and one of the busiest interchange stations outside of London.
TPE 185 148 will shortly be departing for Cleethorpes
Information
Type:
National Rail
(West Coast Main Line, Welsh Marshes Line and other local and regional lines), Manchester Metrolink
Station code:
MAN
Opened:
1842
Platforms:
14 (+ 2 Metrolink)
The station was opened as Store Street in 1842 by the Manchester & Birmingham Railway [1]. At opening it had only two platforms. Within a couple of years it was owned by the London & North Western Railway following amalgamations and the station was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847. The station was also served by the Manchester, South Junction & Altrincham Railway after 1849. The MSJ&AR later became the Great Central Railway and finally the LNER after 1923, the LNWR became the LMS.
By the 1850s the station was becoming overcrowded and the station was rebuilt and expanded in 1862 with the original trainshed roof built. However the respite did not last long and there was another rebuild and expansion in the early 1880s. The next rebuild came in 1960 [2] as part of the modernisation and electrification of the West Coast Main Line, the station was also renamed Manchester Piccadilly [3]. Much of the station was changed with one of the only (virtually) untouched parts being the Victorian trainshed roof.
Manchester Piccadilly gained two tramstops on the new Manchester Metrolink in 1992, the tramstops are in what was once the station's undercroft. The station was refurbished in 2002.
Manchester Piccadilly hosts a mixture of intercity, regional and local services. Twelve of the fourteen platforms terminate at the station while two are through platforms (the former MSJ&AR platforms) for services to North Wales, Scotland and Liverpool via Manchester Oxford Road. The station hosts services by a number of companies including Northern, Trans Pennine Express and Cross Country though is managed by Network Rail.
Northern 142 020 and 029 rest at Manchester Piccadilly
Northern 319 368 has arrived
View from the footbridge
Passengers walk towards the concourse
Northern 142 061 departs
[1] Steven Dickens, Chester to Manchester Line through time (Amberley, 2016) p. 90 [2] David Lawrence, British Rail Architecture 1948-97 (Crecy, 2018) p. 106 [3] Dickens p. 93
Winsford is a stop on the West Coast Main Line in Cheshire between Crewe and Hartford.
LNWR 350 369 departs, bound for Liverpool
Information
Type:
National Rail
(West Coast Main Line)
Station code:
WSF
Opened:
1837
Platforms:
2
The station was opened by the Grand Junction Railway in 1837 as one of it's original stations. Later the station became part of the London North Western Railway. The station has been the scene of a number of accidents, two with major loss of life. Twenty four people died when two trains collided at Winsford in 1948. Eighteen died in an accident at the nearby Coppenhall Junction in 1962 in another collision.
The station is managed by London Northwestern Railway with hourly trains in each direction. The station has a staffed ticket office. Access between the platforms is via the footbridge or the road bridge which crosses the railway at the end of the platforms.
Belper is a stop on the Midland Main Line in Derbyshire near Derby and in between Duffield and Ambergate.
Information
Type:
National Rail
(Midland Main Line)
Station code:
BLP
Opened:
1840
Platforms:
2
The original Belper station was opened in 1840, in a different location to the current station [1]. The original station was just over a kilometre to the South of the town centre but this proved unpopular with townsfolk.
In 1878 the Midland Railway built the current station in it's current location in a cutting in the town centre. The old station site remained in use for goods traffic until 1979.
Belper station became unmanned and the original station buildings demolished in 1973 replaced by the usual modern shelters. The station was refurbished in 2005 with new shelters and passenger information screens [2].
Most trains to Belper are on the Matlock-Nottingham or Newark Castle Derwent Valley route operated by East Midlands Trains. There are also a couple of peak time trains to Sheffield and London St Pancras.
EMT 156 413 departs for Matlock
An EMT Meridian passes through
General platform view
Station sign
View from the footbridge
EMT 153 326 arrives heading for Derby
[1] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Derby to Chesterfield (Middleton Press, 2017) Fig. 36 [2] Ibid. Fig. 43
Long Buckby is a stop on the West Coast Main Line in Northamptonshire between Rugby and Northampton.
Information
Type:
National Rail
(West Coast Main Line)
Station code:
LBK
Opened:
1881
Platforms:
2
Long Buckby, serving the village of the same name, was opened by the London & North Western Railway in 1881. Nowadays it is a station on the Northampton Loop of the West Coast Main Line, the line through Long Buckby was electrified in the 1960s.
Originally the station has wooden station buildings with canopies on both platforms. However nowadays it just has the ubiquitous bus shelters.
The station is on an elevated section of track and has a part-time ticket office in a cabin at the bottom of one of the ramps down to ground level. Long Buckby is served by up to three trains an hour on the WCML between Birmingham New Street and London Euston. On Sundays there are also hourly services to Crewe and Stoke-on-Trent.
LNWR 350 377 heading North
A Euston bound service is approaching
Bridge over the road, the station entrance is visible just beyond
