Marsden - track layout

matacaster · 1 Jun 2019

At Marsden, there are currently platforms 1, 2 & 4 in use. No track on platform 3. Tracks on platform 1 & 2 appear to have a tighter curve, whereas 4 (& 3, if it were in place) are more sweeping.
Are there any plans to reintroduce platform 3 & track?
For non-stop services, would 3&4 a better alignment than 1&2?

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61653 HTAFC · 1 Jun 2019

The platforms are numbered 1-3, there is no 4. I don't think there were more than 2 until 3 was added in the early 1990s.

More notable is the platform 3 extension which goes beyond the turnback signal, which means any 185s turning back can only be boarded via a single door.

civ-eng-jim · 1 Jun 2019

The tighter curvature at the portal to Standedge tunnel will dictate the top speed through Marsden station.

I'm sure Marsden could be a 4-platform station but we will have to see what actually comes out of the trans-pennine route upgrade designs.

matacaster · 1 Jun 2019

61653 HTAFC said:
The platforms are numbered 1-3, there is no 4. I don't think there were more than 2 until 3 was added in the early 1990s.

More notable is the platform 3 extension which goes beyond the turnback signal, which means any 185s turning back can only be boarded via a single door.

Ah, but there is a fenced off platform face in middle are you saying that was replaced by platform 4 as is now?

61653 HTAFC · 1 Jun 2019

matacaster said:
Ah, but there is a fenced off platform face in middle are you saying that was replaced by platform 4 as is now?

As I said, there is no platform 4. The current platform 2 (towards Manchester) may have had a face on both sides many moons ago, but has been single-sided since before the 4-tracking was removed in the 1980s. The current platform 3 (on the loop) was built in the late 80s/early 90s to allow services from Leeds/Huddersfield to turn back.

matacaster · 1 Jun 2019

61653 HTAFC said:
As I said, there is no platform 4. The current platform 2 (towards Manchester) may have had a face on both sides many moons ago, but has been single-sided since before the 4-tracking was removed in the 1980s. The current platform 3 (on the loop) was built in the late 80s/early 90s to allow services from Leeds/Huddersfield to turn back.

Oops, sorry, still confused re platform numbers. A couple of pints of cider will soon fix that!

edwin_m · 1 Jun 2019

61653 HTAFC said:
As I said, there is no platform 4. The current platform 2 (towards Manchester) may have had a face on both sides many moons ago, but has been single-sided since before the 4-tracking was removed in the 1980s. The current platform 3 (on the loop) was built in the late 80s/early 90s to allow services from Leeds/Huddersfield to turn back.

The 4-tracking was removed well before the 1980s. Mid-60s at a guess.

NorthernSpirit · 1 Jun 2019

There's three platforms at Marsden, of which one (platform 3) is bi-directional.

There is the disused platform at the rear of Platform 2 but I have no idea if this was ever the original platform 3. The only platform 3 that I've ever known at Marsden is the current and only accessible platform on the station (access to the other two is by stairs). I don't think Marsden ever had four platforms, it'll have had three at the most and even the National Trust Marsden Moor Estate office and infomation point are former railway buildings.

Should any four tracking take place through the site, then its possible that the entire station may be rebuilt - although I have my doubts.

edwin_m · 2 Jun 2019

NorthernSpirit said:
There's three platforms at Marsden, of which one (platform 3) is bi-directional.

There is the disused platform at the rear of Platform 2 but I have no idea if this was ever the original platform 3. The only platform 3 that I've ever known at Marsden is the current and only accessible platform on the station (access to the other two is by stairs). I don't think Marsden ever had four platforms, it'll have had three at the most and even the National Trust Marsden Moor Estate office and infomation point are former railway buildings.

Should any four tracking take place through the site, then its possible that the entire station may be rebuilt - although I have my doubts.

When there were four tracks Marsden had four platforms, as illustrated in Jenkins & Quayle "Rails Across the Pennines". There was a booking office at bridge level on the Slow lines side of the station with covered steps down to the western platform and central island. In fact on more recent pictures such as the one linked below, the different stonework on the bridge parapet probably corresponds to where the building was. The access to the Down Fast* platform isn't visible on this picture but probably similar to what is there now.

The single-sided Up Slow* platform was most likely removed after the Slows were taken out, as it would have had no further use even though this part of the Up Slow seems to have remained as the loop. What is now Platform 3 would have been built on part of its site some years later. Going by the stonework in the image link below the current Platform 2 is indeed the original island and the Down Slow* face survives on the unused side.

The latest dated picture in this book showing the four tracks still in use is 4 June 1966, and there is a picture from July 1976 showing only two tracks east of Huddersfield.

Image link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._station_p3.jpg/1280px-Marsden_station_p3.jpg
*Nomenclature of tracks is my assumption, not from any source

61653 HTAFC · 2 Jun 2019

edwin_m said:
The 4-tracking was removed well before the 1980s. Mid-60s at a guess.

I'd got my dates confused about when the mainline was reduced to 2-tracks and when the Penistone line was singled- which was the mid-late 80s. Oops!

Amstel · 2 Jun 2019

Platforms 2 was once an island platform. Platform 3 was built on the former Up Goods Loop in the mid-1980s by British Rail.
The station did have two additional platforms up until the mid-1960s (the current platform 2 having an outer face,
with the fourth side platform standing where platform 3 is now).
The line was originally quadruple all the way from Huddersfield to Diggle Junction,
but these were decommissioned when the main line was reduced to two tracks in 1966.
The station avoided closure in the wake of the 1968 cutbacks that claimed many others on this section of route,
but for some years acted as the terminus for local stopping trains from the Leeds direction
(hence the provision of signalling that allows trains to start back east from platforms 2 & 3)
and had no regular service towards Stalybridge and Manchester.

Ianno87 · 2 Jun 2019

NorthernSpirit said:
There's three platforms at Marsden, of which one (platform 3) is bi-directional.

.

P3 is only bi-directional in the sense that it permits services from Huddersfield to turn back towards Huddersfield. A train from the Stalybridge direction cannot access Platform 3.

61653 HTAFC · 2 Jun 2019

Ianno87 said:
P3 is only bi-directional in the sense that it permits services from Huddersfield to turn back towards Huddersfield. A train from the Stalybridge direction cannot access Platform 3.

And the starting signal for services turning back is now halfway along the platform!

david_g · 3 Jun 2019

edwin_m said:
When there were four tracks Marsden had four platforms, as illustrated in Jenkins & Quayle "Rails Across the Pennines". There was a booking office at bridge level on the Slow lines side of the station with covered steps down to the western platform and central island. In fact on more recent pictures such as the one linked below, the different stonework on the bridge parapet probably corresponds to where the building was. The access to the Down Fast* platform isn't visible on this picture but probably similar to what is there now.

Golcar was similar to Marsden with the booking office on a bridge and covered steps down to the four platforms. At platform level there were LNWR sectional wooden buildings produced at Wolverton for waiting rooms etc. The section on the bridge (separate from the adjacent road bridge with a wooden floor) had a very distinctive smell from years of absorbing locomotive exhaust. Golcar was briefly my local station for going to watch HTAFC until they closed it :'(

Slaithwaite and Longwood & Milnsbridge both had a subway and steps up to access the platforms, with similar buildings at platform level. The entrance and windows where the steps were are still visible in the stone retaining wall on the south side of Slaithwaite station.

The up slow remained open longer than the down slow (by then these were the southernmost pair though I believe these were used as the fasts earlier than my memories of the line) to allow Healey Mills EE3s to lumber up the Colne Valley with heavy loaded coal trains bound for Lancashire.

gimmea50anyday · 3 Jun 2019

It was effectively 4 track all the way from Leeds to Manchester in that you had the two routes via Dewsbury and Wakefield which combined into the 4 track route at Ravensthorpe, this then stayed 4 track through Huddersfield and Marsden and by using all 3 bores of Standedge tunnel. At Diggle the routes diverged again with the micklehurst loop and the lines through Mossley which met up again at the portal to Stalybridge tunnel. You then had the choice as today of the route via Ashton to Manchester Victoria or Guide Bridge into Manchester Piccadilly.
What formations will be used once electrification upgrades finally commence remains to be seen. With much of the formation from Ravensthorpe remains in situ and using the old bores at Standedge remains a possibility, the viaducts along micklehurst are long lost and cannot easily be rebuilt.

Crossover · 3 Jun 2019

NorthernSpirit said:
There's three platforms at Marsden, of which one (platform 3) is bi-directional.

Ianno87 said:
P3 is only bi-directional in the sense that it permits services from Huddersfield to turn back towards Huddersfield. A train from the Stalybridge direction cannot access Platform 3.

Platform 2 is also good for turning back via main aspect HU705

edwin_m · 3 Jun 2019

gimmea50anyday said:
It was effectively 4 track all the way from Leeds to Manchester in that you had the two routes via Dewsbury and Wakefield which combined into the 4 track route at Ravensthorpe, this then stayed 4 track through Huddersfield and Marsden and by using all 3 bores of Standedge tunnel. At Diggle the routes diverged again with the micklehurst loop and the lines through Mossley which met up again at the portal to Stalybridge tunnel. You then had the choice as today of the route via Ashton to Manchester Victoria or Guide Bridge into Manchester Piccadilly.
What formations will be used once electrification upgrades finally commence remains to be seen. With much of the formation from Ravensthorpe remains in situ and using the old bores at Standedge remains a possibility, the viaducts along micklehurst are long lost and cannot easily be rebuilt.

It was effectively four-track but not quite as you describe.

The Standedge route was LNWR but joined the older L&Y Calder Valley route at Heaton Lodge, from where the LNWR had running powers to Ravensthorpe and re-joined their own metals into Leeds via Dewsbury. Presumably to avoid this congested section and/or to have a route fully under their ownership, the LNWR built its own independent route (the Leeds New Line) from Heckmondwyke Junction just south of Heaton Lodge to re-join at Farnley Junction on the approach to Leeds. The first part of this is the tunnel that now carries Down trains from Huddersfield under the Calder Valley route.

On the west side of the Pennines the Micklehurst loop is indeed as you describe and having done a walkover for a client a few years ago I fully agree there is no way it will ever come back. The route from Stalybridge through to Manchester was again L&Y and the LNWR had running powers, running to their own Exchange station via the through roads at Victoria. However I don't believe the LNWR ran via Guide Bridge into Piccadilly, as this section was Great Central. The other LNWR route from Stalybridge was the Stockport line (with various routeings possible in the Guide Bridge area) which at one time carried a reasonable passenger service including through portions between London and Yorkshire.

noddingdonkey · 7 Jun 2019

What was the purpose of the sidings at Marsden? Were they used to get stoppers they have to wait time out of the way before p3 was added perhaps?

Bevan Price · 7 Jun 2019

noddingdonkey said:
What was the purpose of the sidings at Marsden? Were they used to get stoppers they have to wait time out of the way before p3 was added perhaps?

Many small stations used to have sidings for local freight working - in the days when there were "pick-up" freight trips calling here, there & everywhere. "Freight" could be almost anything, livestock to/from farms; materials to/from local businesses, etc.

noddingdonkey · 7 Jun 2019

There was a sizeable goods yard where the NT offices are now so I assumed any freight would be dealt with there?

Ploughman · 8 Jun 2019

noddingdonkey said:
What was the purpose of the sidings at Marsden? Were they used to get stoppers they have to wait time out of the way before p3 was added perhaps?

There was a siding with a small shed to the East of Marsden station.
This used to house the local Tunnel Inspection trolley.

Marsden - track layout

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