Hollyoaks & Guilden BACKGROUND
00, British Rail, current image, 8 by 4 foot
HOLLYOAKS & GUILDEN, CHESTER PARK & RIDE
The
Cheshire Lines Committee [CLC] was an attempt by the Great Northern Railway and
Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway later renamed the Great Central
Railway (GCR) to break the London North Westerns Railway's (LNWR) hold on the
Liverpool-Manchester area. The CLC became tripartite when the Midland Railway
(MR) became an equal partner in 1866. As a joint line the CLC was not merged in
1923 but was dominated by the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) that appointed
six of the nine directors. The London, Midland, and Scottish, Railway (LMSR) as
successor to the MR appointed three. In 1948 the CLC was merged into British
Railways (BR). In the 1950s BR had a policy of switching 'interpenetrating'
lines to the dominant region. This meant the London Midland Region the
successors to the LMSR was able to swop the unprofitable Midland and Great
Northern Joint Railway to the Eastern Region successors to the LNER and obtain
the profitable CLC proving revenge is a dish best served cold. The CLC has
weathered Beaching and subsequent years well with the Manchester-Liverpool &
Manchester-Chester lines surviving. Closed lines were mostly built with an
emphasis on goods traffic. The most noticeable change is the closure of CLC
stations at Liverpool, Chester, and Manchester with trains diverted into Lime
Street, General, and Piccadilly respectively - ironically all ex LNWR stations.
The CLC allowed the GCR access to the North
Wales Marches and the Wirral (left). The GCR linked to the Wrexham, Mold, and
Connah's Quay Railway (WM&CQR) by building the Chester and Connah's Quay
Railway, opened in 1890, and then accessed Birkenhead Docks and Liverpool with
the North Wales and Liverpool Railway, opened in 1896, from Hawarden Bridge to
Bidston. The GCR then took over the WM&CQR. The Wrexham-Bidston section survives
and is now marketed as the Borderlands Line.
These railways provided
Chester with suburban line from Mickle Trafford in the east to Chester East
Junction in the west with Chester Northgate the CLC and GCR joint station
connected by a triangle of track. GCR passenger services were withdrawn on 9th
September 1968 with Wrexham trains diverted to Bidston. CLC passenger services
were diverted to Chester General on 6th October 1968 and Northgate
closed with the site now occupied by the Northgate Arena leisure centre. Except
for the lines serving Northgate goods continued till October 1992 with the line
being singled 1985.
Some years ago I noticed there were several layouts
appearing in the specialist press with names like Walford Town and Walford
Junction paying homage to EastEnders. There was a noticeable lack of layouts
paying homage to Hollyoaks suggesting that younger modellers weren't being
engaged and the hobby was getting middle age or older. I decided to look into
possibility of a 'current image' (ex-LNWR) layout serving Hollyoaks. The
village's location is "a suburb of Chester" a map check suggested it would have
to be to the west of the city centre and so served by a line branching off the
North Wales Mainline (above) west of Saltney, crossing the Dee, and heading in
the direction of Blacon. In the end I decided the project was unaffordable.
Incidentally Hollyoaks is filmed in Liverpool's Childwall suburb and there's
very little filming in Chester.
I took another look at Chester after seeing
Stephanie's stock. I came up with the idea of a Park and Ride system using the
CLC and GCR lines in Chester.
Hollyoaks would be the
western park and ride station and is located just off the A494 a motorway
standard road giving access to the M56 3 miles away and the A55 (North Wales
Trunk) 4 miles away. An industrial estate with shops is a next door. The line
would stop at the pre-existing stations of Saughall and Blacon. Abbot's Mead is
a new station the interchange between park and ride and other passenger trains
and serves Chester University. Park and ride trains would run into Northgate and
reverse. The new Northgate station would be a basic station to the west of the
Northgate Arena leisure centre (below). The last stop would be
Guilden (named after
the village of Guilden Sutton) the eastern park and ride station. Guilden is
next to a slip road from the M53 and is near the A55. The Dynamic Loop is a 3½
mile length of double track enabling trains to pass without waiting. The round
trip Hollyoaks-Northgate-Guilden would take just under 30 minutes. Two Pacers
could provide a train every fifteen minutes and three every ten minutes. The
links to Warrington & Manchester in the east and Liverpool & Wrexham in the west
and have been retained. There are rail served industries just to the west of
Hollyoaks. So goods trains and passenger trains including diverts and specials
use the line. There are sidings at Hollyoaks and Guilden for permanent way
trains, wagons to/from the rail served industries to the west of Hollyoaks and
local deliveries.
In practise Chester's small size 73 square miles and
population 100,000 combined with the distance of General and Northgate stations,
¾ and ½ miles, from the city centre makes a suburban branch or rail based park
and ride system implausible. It might be faster to walk. Much of the CLC and GCR
track bed has been built on and the rest is now a footpath and cycle way.
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