Preston Brook railway station

Preston Brook railway station was a station on the Grand Junction Railway serving the villages of Preston Brook and Preston on the Hill in what was then Cheshire, England. It opened on 4 July 1837 when the line opened.^[1][2]

Preston Brook
Preston Brook railway station in 1839
General information
Location	Halton England
Coordinates	53.3203°N 2.6508°W / 53.3203; -2.6508
Grid reference	SJ 567 806
Platforms	2
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Grand Junction Railway
Pre-grouping	London and North Western Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
4 July 1837 (1837-07-04)	Opened
1 March 1948 (1948-03-01)	Closed to regular passenger services
April 1952	Closed to rail staff
1 September 1958	Closed to goods

The station is located in a cutting on the south side of the Warrington to Chester turnpike (which is now Chester Road, the A56). The road crossed the railway on an over-bridge, with a ramp down to the station building on the down, western, side of the tracks. Initially there were no platforms and a single storey hipped roof building.^[3]

By 1898 the station had platforms and the main building on the down platform had been enlarged, this platform was still accessed via a ramp. On the up platform there were some buildings, probably a shelter, and steps down from the road.^[a][5]

In the early days there were two mixed trains in each direction, times changed from year to year. ^[b][6][7]

The station closed to passengers and parcels on 1 March 1948 but it continued in use for railway workers until 1963.^[8] April 1952^[9]

Goods facilities were a little remote from the station being approximately 500 yards (460 m) south of the station, they consisted of a goods shed and several trans-shipment sidings between the mainline and the associated Manchester Ship Canal Company's Bridgewater siding to the east. The goods yard was equipped for general goods and livestock with a 1½ ton crane. The goods yard closed on 1 September 1958.^[10][11]

The line is still open, other than a station house, no substantive remains exist as of 2016.^[12][13]

Preceding station	Historical railways			Following station
Acton Bridge		London and North Western Railway Grand Junction Railway		Moore

References

Notes

1. Down trains usually headed away from the major conurbation, usually London, some railway companies ran 'up' to their headquarters location, in this case 'up' trains were going to Crewe and 'down' trains to Warrington Bank Quay.^[4]
2. Mixed trains at this time meant a mixture of first and second class carriages and that the train probably stopped at every station, by contrast first class trains has only first class carriages and stopped at only first class stations

Citations

1. Osborne & Osborne 1838, p. 43.
2. Drake 1838, p. 60.
3. Roscoe 1839, p. 98.
4. Simmons 1997, p. 548.
5. "Ordnance Survey 25 inch map Cheshire XXV.6 (Daresbury; Dutton; Hatton; Norton; Preston Brook)". National Library of Scotland. 1898. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
6. Drake 1837, p. 96.
7. Osborne & Osborne 1838, pp. 66-67 & 86.
8. Quick 2022, p. 374.
9. Disused Stations website by N.Catford
10. The Railway Clearing House 1970, p. 445.
11. Clinker 1961, p. 27.
12. NetworkRail. "Table 091 Map".
13. Wright, Paul. "Disused Stations: Preston Brook". Disused Stations. Retrieved 24 July 2016.

Bibliography

• Clinker, C.R. (1961). L.N.W.R. Chronology 1900 - 1960. Dawlish: David & Charles.
• Drake, James (1837). Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway from Birmingham to Liverpool & Manchester. Birmingham: James Drake.
• Drake, James (1838). Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway (1838). Moorland Reprints. ISBN 0903485257.
• Osborne, E.C.; Osborne, W. (1838). Osborne's guide to the Grand Junction, or Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester Railway (2nd ed.). London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co.
• Quick, Michael (2022) [2001]. Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology (PDF). version 5.04. Railway & Canal Historical Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 November 2022.
• Roscoe, Thomas (1839). The Book of the Grand Junction Railway:Being a History and Description of the Line from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester.
• Simmons, Jack (1997). "'up' and 'down'". In Simmons, Jack; Biddle, Gordon (eds.). The Oxford Companion to British Railway History From 1603 to the 1990s (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 548. ISBN 0-19-211697-5.
• The Railway Clearing House (1970) [1904]. The Railway Clearing House Handbook of Railway Stations 1904 (1970 D&C Reprint ed.). Newton Abbot: David & Charles Reprints. ISBN 0-7153-5120-6.