Congleton Upper Junction Station

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I chanced across a general reference to this station's name in an old local area pamphlet published many years ago and wonder if it was situated on the main line between North Rode and Congleton or if it was situated on the branch line before it met the main line.

Can anyone assist with further information, please.

 

[John Webb]

From C J Wignall's "Complete British Railway Maps and Gazetteer" (OPC, 1983) this station was on the main line after the branch joined it. But I can't give you an exact location, and the Disused Stations website doesn't mention it. It was closed before Beeching, the Wignall book tells me.

 

[steamybrian]

From "unconfirmed" information off the internet
Opened 1 June 1864 Closed before 1900.
Sited on the main line north of the junction.
I have added an entry on the listing of Disused stations on Wikipedia.
Please advise me if further information is confirmed.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Rather amazingly, that station featured on the quiz game in progress of the Closed Stations Journey quiz in the correct position, may I add, by one of our newer contestants.

 

[55z]

Congleton Upper Junction station closed July 1864 but may have been open after this date but 1864 was the last date it appeared in Bradshaw according to Clinkers Register of Closed stations. The junction was disconnected in 1963 due to electrification works The Biddolph Valley line as it was called was closed to passenger trains in 1927 and the Congleton to Victoria Colliery section was closed to all trains in 1968. Congelton Brunswick Street Goods was closed in 1968 - source Regional Railway Histories - West Midlands. Orginally built by Potteries, Biddolph & Congelton Railway which became part of the North Staffs Railway.

 

[Senex]

Michael Quick's "Railway Passenger Stations in Great Britain" says that Congleton Upper Junction appears in Bradshaw only for June 1864, with only branch-line trains calling. He notes that the branch was opened on 1 June 1864 and wonders whether this is in fact a timetable error.

 

[steamybrian]

I will amend the entry in Wikipedia "Closed Stations" to read closed 1864

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

My thanks are extended to all forum members who have taken the trouble to help to clarify the query that I raised.

 

[Senex]

Just as a footnote to this discussion, it appears from an account of the opening of the line in question in the Birmingham Daily Post (4 August 1959) there was a temporary station at the junction for the opening celebrations:

"STOKE-ON-TBENT.
Opening of the New Biddulph Line of Railway.— Yesterday the new line of railway from Stoke to Biddulph was formally opened for mineral traffic. At two o’clock 300 invited guests started from Stoke station, and proceeded over the new line in a special train, appropriately decorated with flags, to the point of junction with the main line, about a mile below Congleton, where the Biddulph line terminates. The navvies who had been employed in the formation of the line were conveyed by special train to the same spot previous to the starting of the visitors’ train and were drawn up in a line at the side of the temporary station which had been erected, and heartily cheered the occupants of the visitors’ train as it drew up to its point of destination, arrived at which the company alighted, and proceeded to a tent in a field close by, where a luncheon of a very recherché description was served up by Mr. Shirreff of the Railway Hotel, Stoke."