Rose Hill Marple railway station

Infobox UK station
name = Rose Hill Marple


code = RSH
manager = Northern Rail
locale = Marple
borough = Stockport
lowusage0405 = 70,667
lowusage0506 = 73,497
lowusage0607 = 70,943
platforms = 1
pte = Greater Manchester
zone =
start = 2 August 1869

Rose Hill Marple railway station is one of two stations serving Marple, in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, the other being Marple railway station.

It is the terminus of a spur of the Hope Valley Line, with services to Manchester Piccadilly calling at Romiley, Woodley, Hyde Central, Hyde North, Guide Bridge, Fairfield and Ashburys.

The station is one of the three which provide access to the Middlewood Way.

History

The station opened on 2 August 1869.

It was built on the Macclesfield, Bollington and Marple Railway, with dual tracks and thus two platforms. The second, Southbound platform, now removed, had simply a waiting shelter. The remaining station building previously provided an indoor waiting area and was only recently brought back into use in 2007 with a new ticket window operating weekday mornings.

In 1970, the route South to Bollington and Macclesfield closed to all traffic, the majority of travellers between Macclesfield and the City of Manchester preferring to use the faster West Coast Main Line route via Stockport instead. Rose Hill Marple itself avoided a similar fate, however, due to its high levels of commuter traffic toward Manchester Piccadilly [Marshall, J (1981) "Forgotten Railways North-West England", David & Charles (Publishers) Ltd, Newton Abbott. ISBN 0 7153 8003 6, pp.30] .

Subsequent diesel services to and from Manchester Piccadilly originally alternated between the two available routes - one train running via Bredbury, followed by a train travelling via Hyde and Guide Bridge. In the late 1990s, however, the services to the two railway stations in Marple were streamlined, with all Rose Hill services now running via Hyde and all Marple services running via the more direct Bredbury line.

Current Services

Monday to Saturday daytimes there is an hourly service to Manchester Piccadilly via Hyde, with a few peak period additional trains. The evening service from the station is limited (just one departure after 19.15 in the 2007/8 timetable) and there is no Sunday service [http://www.northernrail.org/travel/timetables/287300] .

Most services are operated with British Rail Class 142 'Pacer' Diesel Multiple Units.

Though the station is closer to Marple town centre and has a highly-populated residential catchment area, since the cut-back of services from two to one per hour, many travellers favour the alternative Marple railway station on Brabyn's Brow for its more generous timetable of three trains per hour on weekdays, provided due to its onward connections to New Mills Central and Sheffield [http://www.northernrail.org/travel/timetables/283000] .

Return tickets to and from Rose Hill Marple and Marple railway stations are priced identically and allowed to be interchangeable by train operating company Northern Rail, allowing, for example, a passenger with a return ticket to Manchester Piccadilly from Rose Hill Marple to return instead to the nearby Marple station.

From 3 September 2007 the station acts as the terminus for the hourly 375 local bus service between Marple and Mellor, with buses connecting with trains to and from Manchester Piccadilly. This bus service is operated by Stagecoach Manchester.

Current Facilities

Rose Hill Marple is officially designated as a 'Park & Ride' station [http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/rsh/details.html] and, upon a resurfacing and small extension of its car parking facilities, was advertised as such through flyers in the local area in 2005 in a bid to attract more travellers who might otherwise have driven to their destination or used the more frequent services from nearby Marple station.

Since 2007 the station building has a staffed ticket window on weekday mornings for the first time in over 10 years, with payment possible via cash or debit/credit card. The covered area provides a shelter from bad weather with a three-seater standard-issue Northern Rail bench and a single Metro newspaper distributor.

Though toilets are not provided at the station, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council provides public conveniences a few yards along Railway Road, the station's access road, at the entrance to Middlewood Way, a "linear park" and trail for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders, which follows the line's previous route to Macclesfield. The initial section of this route was tarmacked and given street lighting in 2006 to encourage its use by residents of local residential developments in reaching the station and Stockport Road.

In addition to exposed railings around the station area, three secure bicycle lockers are provided at the North end of the platform, which require a 'BLUC' key for use [http://www.stockport.gov.uk/content/transportstreets/greentravel/cycling/bluc] .

Future

As part of Manchester's Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) bid, which would see a weekday peak time congestion charge introduced on roads into the city centre, Rose Hill Marple is among the stations listed to receive station improvements and improved services from the proposed £3bn injection into the region's public transport [http://www.gmfuturetransport.co.uk/] .

Rose Hill Marple has been touted as a suitable terminus for a new Metrolink tram service to the area, with possible routes being either a simple conversion of the existing line to Manchester or a new link into Stockport town centre via Bredbury and Portwood. The latter would provide an Eastern extension from the proposed Western link into Stockport town centre from Didsbury, linking together many towns in the borough along the Goyt and Mersey rivers [http://www.stockport.gov.uk/content/business/regeneration/?a=5441] . Despite heavy road traffic from private cars and buses, the local centres of Marple, Romiley and Bredbury have never been linked to their borough centre of Stockport by a direct rail route.

References

External links