Poulton-le-Fylde railway station

Poulton-le-Fylde National Rail

Poulton-le-Fylde station sign in 2013
Location
Place Poulton-le-Fylde
Local authority Wyre
Coordinates 53°50′54″N 2°59′26″W / 53.8484°N 2.9906°W / 53.8484; -2.9906Coordinates: 53°50′54″N 2°59′26″W / 53.8484°N 2.9906°W / 53.8484; -2.9906
Grid reference SD349395
Operations
Station code PFY
Managed by Northern
Number of platforms 2
DfT category E
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11 Increase 0.418 million
2011/12 Increase 0.449 million
2012/13 Increase 0.459 million
2013/14 Increase 0.481 million
2014/15 Increase 0.509 million
History
15 July 1840 Original station opened
1896 New station on realigned route
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Poulton-le-Fylde from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal
Railways in Poulton-le-Fylde. The dates refer to passenger services.

Poulton-le-Fylde railway station serves the town of Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire, England. It is managed by Northern, but also served by Virgin Trains.

History

The original station was about 400 yards (400 m) north-east of the current location, at “The Breck”.[1] The railway to the fishing town of Fleetwood passed along a straight line east of the town. From 1846, there was a junction to Blackpool just north of the station, with tight connecting curves facing either way. In 1893 a fatal accident occurred when a train took the curve too fast.[2][3] Subsequently, in 1896, the tracks were realigned to follow a much gentler westward curve to Blackpool, with the new station halfway along the curve. The Fleetwood branch then curved to the east to rejoin the original alignment. The old station continued to be used as a goods station until 1968.[4]

Passenger services to Fleetwood were withdrawn by British Rail on 1 June 1970 during railway restructuring, although a freight service continued to the ICI plant at Burn Naze Halt until 1999. The line is still extant, (albeit in a rusty & overgrown state and officially marked out of use). Since June 2006, there have been plans to restore (and preserve) the passenger rail link towards Fleetwood via Thornton & Cleveleys, as a heritage railway; a £30,000 feasibility study is needed to be undertaken to explore the re-instatement of the link and the addition of a third platform at Poulton-le-Fylde.[5]

Services

The station is now served by trains to and from Blackpool North and towards Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport; Manchester Victoria and to York via Blackburn and Leeds.[6] All southbound routes have a basic hourly frequency; services to and from Hazel Grove via Manchester Piccadilly & Stockport also call during the morning & evening peak periods. Virgin Trains operates one train on weekdays between London Euston and Blackpool North.[7]

Sundays see hourly services to Manchester Airport, Manchester Victoria, Liverpool Lime Street and York. The station is also served by a single DalesRail service to Carlisle via Settle during the summer months and to Hellifield (for onward travel to Settle & Carlisle) for the remainder of the year.

Grand Central has been given permission to run six trains a day from London to Blackpool North from 2018, which will call at Poulton-le-Fylde.[8] The London terminus will be either Euston or Queen's Park, depending on network capacity during planned infrastructural work to the West Coast Mainline.[8] Additional intermediate stations at which the service will stop are also dependent upon future capacity.[8]

First TransPennine Express used to run the service from Manchester Airport to Blackpool North but this was passed on to the new Northern franchise on the 1st April 2016.

Notes

  1. Mitchell & Hartley, p.59
  2. Welch, p.27
  3. Suggitt, p.38
  4. Suggitt, pp.3738
  5. "£30,000 feasibility study for Poulton to Fleetwood line could go ahead" (PDF). Railway Herald (239). 2010-09-20. p. 15. Retrieved 2010-09-21.
  6. Table 41 & 82 National Rail timetable, May 2016
  7. Table 65 National Rail timetable, May 2016
  8. 1 2 3 Topham, Gwyn. "Virgin has a rival: GNWR to run London to Blackpool west coast rail service". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 August 2015.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Poulton-le-Fylde railway station.
Maps showing
Poulton-le-Fylde (old) Station
Vision of Britain select 19th Century: OS 1st Series
OS 1:2500 Map on MARIO (about 1892)
OS 1:10000 Map on MARIO (about 1848)
Other maps

53°51′04″N 2°59′15″W / 53.8510°N 2.9875°W / 53.8510; -2.9875

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Blackpool North   Northern
Blackpool to York line
  Preston
Layton   Northern
Blackpool Branch Line
  Kirkham & Wesham
Blackpool North   Northern
Blackpool to Liverpool line
  Kirkham & Wesham
Blackpool North   Northern
Blackpool North - Manchester Airport
  Preston or
Kirkham and Wesham
Blackpool North   Virgin Trains
WCML Blackpool Branch
  Kirkham & Wesham
Disused railways
Thornton for Cleveleys   Preston and Wyre Joint Railway
Fleetwood Branch Line
  Singleton
Bispham   Preston and Wyre Joint Railway
Blackpool Branch Line
 
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.