Kidsgrove railway station

Kidsgrove railway station serves the town of Kidsgrove in Staffordshire, England. The station is 7.5 miles (12.07 km) north of Stoke-on-Trent. The station is served by trains on the Crewe–Derby line which is also a community rail line known as the North Staffordshire line. The station is owned by Network Rail and managed by East Midlands Railway.

Kidsgrove
General information
Location	Kidsgrove, Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme England
Grid reference	SJ837543
Managed by	East Midlands Railway
Platforms	4
Bus routes	95 Biddulph to Audley[1]
Bus operators	D&G Bus[1]
Other information
Station code	KDG
Classification	DfT category E
Key dates
9 October 1848 (1848-10-09)	Opened as Harecastle[2]
2 October 1944	renamed Kidsgrove Central[2]
18 April 1966	renamed Kidsgrove[2]
Passengers
2019/20	0.236 million
2020/21	54,796
Interchange	5,812
2021/22	0.189 million
Interchange	19,602
2022/23	0.224 million
Interchange	16,881
2023/24	0.244 million
Interchange	21,075
Location
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

History

A freight train from the Crewe line in the mid-1960s just before the withdrawal of steam

The present station was opened 9 October 1848 by the North Staffordshire Railway as Harecastle and was during the early years of the North Staffordshire era variously called Harecastle Junction, Kidsgrove Junction. Kidsgrove Junction, Harecastle before settling upon Harecastle in 1875.^[2] Between 1885 and 1886 and 1923 and 1924 it was called Harecastle for Kidsgrove.^[2] In 1944 it was renamed Kidsgrove.

In British Rail days it was known as Kidsgrove Central when the town had three stations, the other two were Kidsgrove Liverpool Road and Market Street Halt on the old North Staffordshire Railway's Potteries Loop Line (all three stations were opened by the North Staffordshire Railway). It is situated on the Manchester branch of the West Coast Main Line at the junction where the line from Stoke-on-Trent divides for Crewe and Manchester Piccadilly.

It is just north of the Harecastle Tunnels on the Trent and Mersey Canal and the Harecastle railway tunnel and 1965 railway diversion.

Services

Services at Kidsgrove are operated by East Midlands Railway using Class 170 DMUs, London Northwestern Railway using Class 350 EMUs and Northern Trains using Class 323 and 331 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:

• 2 tph to Crewe
• 1 tph to Stafford^[3]
• 1 tph to Newark Castle via Derby and Nottingham^[4]
• 1 tph to Stoke-on-Trent only
• 1 tph to Manchester Piccadilly via Macclesfield^[5]

On Sundays, the station is served by an hourly service between Crewe and Stafford and 6 trains per day between Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. The first Manchester-bound train on a Sunday extends to Manchester Oxford Road. Hourly Sunday services operate between Crewe and Derby after 14:00 only.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Longport or Stoke-on-Trent		East Midlands Railway Crewe–Derby line		Alsager
Alsager towards Crewe		London Northwestern Railway Stafford–Crewe		Longport towards Stafford
Stoke-on-Trent		Northern Trains Stafford–Manchester line		Congleton
	Historical railways
Alsager Road Line open, station closed		North Staffordshire Railway Crewe–Derby line		Chatterley Line and station closed
Mow Cop and Scholar Green Line open, station closed		North Staffordshire Railway Stafford–Manchester line
Lawton Line and station closed		North Staffordshire Railway Sandbach to Stoke Line