Stoke-on-Trent Station

[Karl Bough]

I am very familiar with Stoke Station and use it fairly often as it is one of my closest VWC stations (Crewe being the other). I understand that the spare, empty land to the west of the train shed (next to the canal and A500) is going to be made into a large, 500-space station car park. I am not sure when this will take place, but I am glad that something useful is finally being done with that land. I also think that the station would have benefited with having another track through the centre, allowing separate up and down lines for non-stop trains (mainly freight traffic). The ideal opportunity to have done that would have been when the North Staffordshire line was resignalled in 2002.

Incidentally, regarding the bi-directional centre line at Stoke - which regular passenger services use it? Does the 0705 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston (calling at Stockport only) run through on the centre line?

 

[Lewisham2221]

I am very familiar with Stoke Station and use it fairly often as it is one of my closest VWC stations (Crewe being the other). I understand that the spare, empty land to the west of the train shed (next to the canal and A500) is going to be made into a large, 500-space station car park. I am not sure when this will take place, but I am glad that something useful is finally being done with that land. I also think that the station would have benefited with having another track through the centre, allowing separate up and down lines for non-stop trains (mainly freight traffic). The ideal opportunity to have done that would have been when the North Staffordshire line was resignalled in 2002.

Well, it's about time that they did something with that land. Although my personal preffered option would have been to negotiate with the council and local bus operators to build some kind of bus station/interchange with improved bus links to more areas of the city and surrounding areas.

Incidentally, regarding the bi-directional centre line at Stoke - which regular passenger services use it? Does the 0705 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston (calling at Stockport only) run through on the centre line?

I'm not aware of any passenger services using the centre road, it's possible that the service you mention does run via Stoke, although the speed limit through Stoke is fairly low (about 30mph IIRC) so routing via Crewe could be a faster option?

Incidentally, despite the station being bi-di signalled, it's rare to see northbound trains using platform 1 instead of 2 and vice-versa. It's even rarer to see anything running northbound on the centre road, as it would involve first crossing from the northbound tracks to the southbound tracks and then onto the centre road, perforing the same move in reverse at the north of the station. Only tends to happen if a freight/light engine move comes through a bit late and/or northbound pax trains are running late and letting the freight straight through would delay northbound passenger trains.

 

[87015]

The centre road was used for passengers when they were messing around between Stafford and Crewe and all the up West Coasts (Liverpools, Glasgow etc) were going Crewe-Alsager-Stoke-Stafford, think it was December 2003 time?

 

[Karl Bough]

Does anyone know whether the 0705 ex Man Pic runs via Macclesfield and Stoke or Wilmslow and Crewe? It is impossible to tell by looking at the VT7 timetable. If it ran through Crewe, would it use the Up Fast through the centre or pass non-stop (slowly) through Platform 1? One of the Euston-Manchester via Wilmslow services runs non-stop from Stafford to Wilmslow. Would this use the Down Fast through Crewe?

 

[Craig]

Booked via Stoke according to NRE.

                           Scheduled  Expected 
                            Arr  Dep  Arr  Dep
Manchester Piccadilly [MAN] ---- 0705 ---- 0704
Stockport [SPT]                  0714      0714
Macclesfield [MAC]          Pass 0724 Pass 0725
Stoke-on-Trent [SOT]        Pass 0737 Pass 0738
STOKOTJ 	  	    Pass 0738 Pass 0739
Stone [SNE] 	  	    Pass 0744 Pass 0744