Wilmslow railway station

Wilmslow railway station is in Wilmslow, Cheshire, England, 12 mi south of Manchester Piccadilly on the Crewe to Manchester Line.

This station is a junction on the Crewe–Manchester line 6 mi south of Stockport with the Styal line from Wilmslow to Manchester Airport, with some trains then continuing to Manchester.

The station has four platforms with disabled access to all but platform 1, the northbound Styal line platform, two waiting rooms, public toilets and also has a double-staffed booking office below the platforms.

History
Both the Main Line and the Styal line were electrified in 1959 as part of the West Coast Main Line electrification and modernisation programme with the construction and installation of a state of the art signal box and control centre near the end of the Styal line down platform at Wilmslow and serving virtually the entire railway from Crewe to Manchester via both routes. The complexity of that installation was not repeated for the remainder of the electrification scheme, which had its control and signalling systems renewed in ways that were less highly automated.

In March 1997, the Provisional IRA exploded two bombs in relay boxes near this signal box, causing disruption to rail and road services. The railway reopened the following day. In April 2006, as part of the total renewal of the railway from Crewe to Cheadle Hulme near Stockport, the large 1959 signal box was demolished.

Large-scale resignalling of the line through Wilmslow was completed behind schedule in the Autumn of 2006.

Services
Monday to Saturday, there are five trains per hour northbound with Avanti West Coast, Northern Trains and Transport for Wales services stopping at Wilmslow en route to Manchester Piccadilly. One Northern Trains service operates via Manchester Airport (all stations via Heald Green), the remainder all run via Stockport. Since May 2018, some Northern Trains services run beyond Piccadilly to either Liverpool Lime Street via Earlestown or Southport via Bolton.

Southbound Monday to Saturdays there are four trains per hour to Crewe. These consist of two Northern Trains trains per hour that terminate at Crewe (local stopping service), an hourly Transport for Wales fast service that continues via Shrewsbury to Cardiff Central, Swansea and West Wales and an hourly London Euston bound Avanti West Coast express service. There is also one local Northern Trains train per hour that terminates at Alderley Edge.

On Sundays, there are hourly main line services to South Wales and London but the local routes run less frequently i.e. two trains per hour to Manchester Piccadilly - one via Stockport and one via Manchester Airport continuing to Liverpool Lime Street via Chat Moss. Southbound there is an hourly local stopping service to Crewe. The service from Liverpool Lime Street terminates here.

Future high speed services
The economic case for High Speed 2 Phase 1 includes one train per hour each way stopping at Wilmslow, travelling between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly.