Adlington railway station (Lancashire)


Adlington railway station serves the town of Adlington, near Chorley in Lancashire, England. It is a two-platform station on the Chorley-Bolton line. This is part of the Northern service link between Preston and Manchester.
Until 1960 Adlington was also served by a station named White Bear.

History

On 15 June 1837 by act of Parliament, the Bolton and Preston Railway Company constructed a link with the Manchester line comprising nine and a half miles of railway to a temporary terminus at Rawlinson Lane. By December 1841 the line had reached Chorley and Adlington station opened to take over from Rawlinson Bridge.
The line would pass into the hands London, Midland and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The line then passed on to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.
When Sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by Regional Railways until the Privatisation of British Rail.

Facilities

The station has a staffed ticket office, open from start of service until 13:10 Mondays to Saturday. Outside these hours, tickets must be bought in advance or from the conductor on the train. A waiting room is available in the main building when the booking office is open and there are shelters on each platforms. Train running information is provided by timetable posters and telephone. There is step-free access to both platforms.

Services

There is a basic hourly service in each direction to Manchester Victoria southbound and to northbound. Additional trains call during weekday peak periods, including through services to Blackpool North, and. On weekday evenings, the Hazel Grove service calls in place of that to Victoria.
Saturday and Sunday services were replaced by buses most weekends from May 2015 until November 2018 due to the late-running electrification work on the route. Weekend services resumed on Sunday 11 November 2018 after the completion of the electrification engineering work.
Following the May 2018 timetable change some stopping services will no longer call here, stopping at Chorley and carrying straight through to Blackrod. This means that there was a 2-hour gap between direct services to Manchester Victoria in the early morning. This gap was removed the following May and the station now has hourly departures once again which, since 2019, have been provided by electric multiple units.

Renovation and Electrification

It was announced by the Department for Transport in December 2009, the line between Preston and Manchester, on which the station is situated, would be electrified enabling a reduction in journey times to Manchester by up to ten minutes. There have been many delays but completion was in December 2018 when test trains finally ran between Preston and Manchester.
Electric service commenced on 11 February 2019 utilising Class 319 electric multiple units.