Sunday 9 February 2014

MAJOR UPDATE TO THE DISUSED STATIONS SITE MIDDLEWICH ENTRY

Middlewich Station in 1963, three years after closure to passengers  Photo: H B Priestley

Subterranea Britannica's excellent site on disused British railway stations has updated its section on the old 1867/8 LNWR station in Middlewich and now provides many more photographs (including one of ours!) of the station  and its environs both in the past and in the present day, together with examples of tickets for journeys on the line, maps and timetables and a lot more information.
There's also a very valuable link back to this site for those wanting to read more about the re-opening campaign.
If we can get permission to 'borrow' some of these photographs, it will give us the opportunity to explain more about how the railway scene in Middlewich used to be and how the station was built and adapted over the years to cater for the town's needs including the carriage of livestock and, of course, salt.

Middlewich Station  in 2005 during construction of housing on the site of the station yard. Photo: Paul Wright
It's remarkable that in the second decade of the 21st Century the site of Middlewich Station is still so easily recognisable. This is partly because of the continuing existence of the Middlewich loop (hence the two tracks seen here) and the huge amount of infrastructure needed for the new signalling system which had been installed not long before Paul Wright took this picture.


Other updates to the disused stations site mean that we can, for the first time, take a look at the Sandbach-Middlewich-Northwich line's only other 'stations' - Billinge Green Halt (near Davenham) and Cledford Bridge Halt (adjacent to the road bridge in Cledford Lane),