Bolton P3 usage

[td97]

Noticed yesterday that all southbound services from Blackburn/Clitheroe were routed through P3 at Bolton, rather than P1 as timetabled.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Bolton between 0200 and 0159 on 09/04/2026

Train information at Bolton between 0200 and 0159 on 09/04/2026. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

However, northbound services continued to use P1, suggesting this is not an infrastructure issue.
Is there another reason? Improving timekeeping by avoiding the slow 15mph turnout on the Up Bolton? Or passenger enhancement at Bolton so that all services to Salford/Manchester use P3?

 

[Trackman]

Noticed yesterday that all southbound services from Blackburn/Clitheroe were routed through P3 at Bolton, rather than P1 as timetabled.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Bolton between 0200 and 0159 on 09/04/2026

Train information at Bolton between 0200 and 0159 on 09/04/2026. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

However, northbound services continued to use P1, suggesting this is not an infrastructure issue.
Is there another reason? Improving timekeeping by avoiding the slow 15mph turnout on the Up Bolton? Or passenger enhancement at Bolton so that all services to Salford/Manchester use P3?

I don't know the reason, but the latter seems a sensible move to Manchester bound services to P3.
Decades ago Blackburn to Man Vic services used P3.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

That's interesting, they've continued to today.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yesterday the 1309 TPE from Glasgow was routed via P4, which I thought was odd (dep 1608). I didn't even know it was bidirectional. There wasn't another train in 3.

 

[driver9000]

Yesterday the 1309 TPE from Glasgow was routed via P4, which I thought was odd (dep 1608). I didn't even know it was bidirectional. There wasn't another train in 3.

That's fairly common for TPE Scotland to Manchester services now and it's a way of keeping passengers from boarding as they are set down only at Bolton.

 

[Ant158]

There have been some signalling/points issues this last week along the Clitheroe to Bolton line, my train to Clitheroe used Platform 3 which is unusual. Though I’m sure years ago Platform 3 was used more often for the north bound Blackburn trains. Think this changed when the passing loops were made longer at Darwen so north bound and southbound trains didn’t have to cross at Bolton.

 

[M60lad]

Platform 4 at Bolton has always been bi-directional which can be quite handy sometimes, I remember a number of years ago Bolton Station had a local power outage which meant no lighting on Platforms 1-3 so most services from Preston and Wigan direction were having to use Platform 4, this was before Platform 5 was built btw.

 

[td97]

After every southbound Rochdale service using P3 for the last 2 months, today sees a return to P1. Very odd/unexplained.

 

[david l]

After every southbound Rochdale service using P3 for the last 2 months, today sees a return to P1. Very odd/unexplained.

There was engineering work in the Bolton area yesterday, perhaps whatever the problem was has been sorted...