Stanlow and Thornton railway station

Stanlow and Thornton
Station sign at entrance
General information
Location	Ellesmere Port and Neston
Managed by	Northern Rail
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	SNT
History
Opened	Start of construction of refinery

The unstaffed rail station at Stanlow & Thornton is located within the Stanlow Shell oil refinery in Cheshire, England.

It lies on Northern Rail's line between Ellesmere Port and Helsby. The station is surrounded by the refinery site, so as a result most station users are refinery employees.

A rail user group, the Merseyside & Cheshire Railways Campaign, known as MCRC, supports and actively campaigns for an improved service at this station and for this railway line,, as well as the North Cheshire Rail User Group,

There is no ticket office, so passengers buy tickets from a conductor on board the train. Station usage statistics for 2004-5 showed 40 passengers using the station, less than one per week. Passenger numbers began to increase at the station in 2005-6, with 130 people using it in 2005-06. This rose sharply to 326 in 2006-2007, despite the same rail services being operated.

Stanlow & Thornton station, a view from the footbridge.

Services

Four trains a day call here in each direction (towards Helsby and Ellesmere Port). One of these trains each evening continues to Liverpool Lime Street via Warrington Bank Quay.

The Saturday service is effectively the same as the Monday - Friday equivalent, except that early morning services terminate at Helsby, not Warrington.

There is no service on Sundays. A Saturday service operates on most Bank Holidays.

In British Rail terminology, this station's rail service(s) would be referred to as a Parliamentary train. This means that the Train Operating Company only runs the minimum number of services required legally, and usually at the least busy times of day, in order to still comply with the law, but to keep operating costs down to an absolute minimum.

Facilities

At this station there are covered shelters, with three metal seats on either platform. There is a payphone located on the Helsby platform, but only accepts phonecards from British Telecom.

A gently rising footpath leads from the road to a flight of 48 steps with 2 rest landings and a handrail onto a footbridge. From the footbridge to the left, the first flight of 30 steps with rest landing and handrail lead to the Helsby platform, and the second flight of 30 steps with rest landing and handrail lead to the Ellesmere Port platform. The station is definitely not accessible for people with preventative mobility problems.

The booking office is still standing at the Ellesmere Port platform, (number 1), but has been closed for some time. It now houses the electrics for the station and is boarded up.

Although not controlled by Northern Rail, the station does have CCTV monitored by the security services at the Shell oil refinery.

There is limited car parking at the entrance of the station.

Public Transport Interchange

Oil Sites Road is now closed to the public, but was a private road owned by Shell. It was closed because of safety fears regarding the increase in commercial traffic visiting the refinery and the amount of public traffic using the road, in some cases, recklessly. You could access the village of Elton from Ellesmere Port relatively quickly. The station is located on this road, and although it is theoretically publicly accessible by foot, it involves a long walk from either Ellesmere Port or Elton. No traffic, other than that authorised by Shell for commercial purposes, can use this road. As a result, there is no bus or taxi service at this station.

History

Stanlow & Thornton track layout in 1975

A short distance from the station was a signal box. This controlled all of the sidings used for freight. Shell stopped using rail as a method of transportation of goods, and subsequently, the sidings were removed. Eventually, the signal box was dismantled and donated to the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway. Today, the signals for this line and station are controlled at Helsby and Ellesmere Port signal boxes, operated by Network Rail.

The station was originally earmarked for closure under what is known today as the Beeching Axe, a report created by Dr. Beeching entitled "The Reshaping of Britain's railways". This was basically a report commissioned by the Government to find out how money could be saved, as use of the railways began to decline.

External links

• Train times and station information for Stanlow and Thornton railway station from National Rail

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Ellesmere Port		Northern Rail Ellesmere Port to Warrington Rail Line		Ince and Elton