Styal railway station


Styal railway station is near Manchester Airport in Cheshire, England.

History

The station was opened in 1909 with the construction of the line from Wilmslow to Manchester London Road.
It won numerous best-kept station garden awards in the 1940s and 1950s under stationmasters Mott, Hilton and Jackson. The garden is long abandoned but there were plans to uncover and restore some of it in spring 2011.
A petition was created to seek a resumption of a morning commuter service to Manchester and daytime services to serve HMP Styal and National Trust Styal and local residents.
The station is on Station Road 110 m from the edge of the National Trust Quarry Bank Mill/Styal Estate and 600 m from Styal Women's Prison and Young Offenders Institute.

Services

Styal enjoyed a half-hourly service in each direction until the mid-1990s. The construction of the airport rail link in 1993 saw services reduced with only 8 trains per day in each direction on Monday to Saturday. On Sundays there was a two hourly service in each direction. This was gradually reduced down to a skeletal Monday - Saturday service and no Sunday service. Improvements started to reappear from December 2008 following the West Coast upgrade programme.
Since May 2018, a major timetable revamp has seen the station gain an hourly service 7 days a week in both directions. Northbound trains run to Piccadilly and then via and to Liverpool Lime Street, whilst southbound they either terminate at Wilmslow or continue to.
Services were suspended in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. They are currently expected to be reinstated on 14 September 2020.