Shotton railway station

Infobox UK station
name = Shotton


caption = The Low Level platforms at Shotton.
code = SHT
manager = Arriva Trains Wales
locale = Shotton
borough = Flintshire
lowusage0405 = 162,455
lowusage0506 = 163,974
lowusage0607 = 168,317
platforms = 4
years =
events = 1890

Shotton railway station serves the town of Shotton, Flintshire, Wales. It is situated where the Borderlands Line crosses the North Wales Coast Line. All passenger services are operated by Arriva Trains Wales, who manage the station. It is split into two sections: "High Level" (on the Borderlands Line) and "Low level" (on the North Wales Coast Line). Each section has two platforms, so there are four platforms altogether. It is staffed on a part-time basis (weekday & Saturday mornings only), with a ticket office on the Bidston-bound platform.

The high and low level tracks cross at right angles.

History

The town gained its first railway as early as 1848 with the opening of the Chester and Holyhead Railway, but the railway company didn't provide a station to serve it. The town had to wait until 1890 for its first station, when one was built by the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay Railway as the northern end of their "Hawarden Loop" line from Buckley. It connected there to the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's line from Chester Northgate via Hawarden Bridge. The link to Bidston was added by the North Wales and Liverpool Railway in 1896, whilst the LNWR built two wooden platforms on the main line to Holyhead in 1907 to give the town access to trains along the coast to Crewe and Rhyl/Llandudno/Bangor & Holyhead and allow interchange with the Wrexham line.

The Beeching cuts of the 1960s saw the low level platforms closed on 14 February 1966 and services to Chester Northgate withdrawn on 9 September 1968 [http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/c/chester_northgate/index.shtml] , leaving only the Wrexham - Bidston line to serve the high-level platforms. The loss of the link to Chester proved unpopular however and BR eventually agreed to restore it by re-opening the low level platforms. Trains began calling again in August 1972 after new platforms had been built (the slow lines that served the original platforms having been removed in the late sixties as an economy measure).

Shotton High Level

The high level of the station is on the Borderlands Line and consists of two platforms - 3 & 4. Services operate every 60 minutes in each direction (Monday-Saturday daytime) on the Borderlands line, between Wrexham Central and Bidston (where passengers can change for Liverpool). The frequency drops to two-hourly in the evenings and infrequently (six trains each way) on Sundays. To the north of the station on the Borderlands line is Hawarden Bridge over the River Dee.

hotton Low Level

Trains operate approximately every hour on the North Wales Coast Line, usually between Manchester Piccadilly and Llandudno, although some trains may run from Crewe instead of Manchester, or continue to Holyhead instead of Llandudno. On Sundays, services are infrequent and usually start from Crewe.

References

*Baughan, P.E (1980) "A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain; Volume XI: North and Mid Wales". David & Charles (Publishers) Ltd, Newton Abbott. ISBN 0 9465 3759 3.

External links

* [http://www.nwrail.org.uk/nwhist.htm History of the North Wales Coast Line]
* [http://www.penmorfa.com/Wrexham/history.html History of the Borderlands Line]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/fl/shotton/history10.html History of Shotton]

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