Place Golborne Grid reference SJ607989 Platforms in use 2 | Area Wigan Pre-grouping Great Central Railway | |
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Post-grouping London and North Eastern Railway 1 July 1895 Station opened for goods Original company Liverpool, St Helens and South Lancashire Railway Similar St Helens Central (GCR) rai, Culcheth railway station, Kenyon Junction railway st, Glazebrook railway station, Hindley railway station | ||
Golborne North railway station served the village of Golborne, formerly in Lancashire, now in Wigan, England.
Contents
The station was on the Liverpool, St Helens and South Lancashire Railway line from Lowton St Mary's to the original St Helens Central railway station. It was located just east of where it crossed both the WCML and what is now the A573, at the northern edge of the village.
The station was built of wood and had very sparse facilities.
History
Opened by the Liverpool, St Helens and South Lancashire Railway, as part of the Great Central Railway, it became part of the London and North Eastern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed on to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. The station was referred to locally as "Golborne GC" to distinguish it from the ex-LNWR Golborne station on the West Coast Main Line in the centre of the village. In 1949 the ex-LNWR station was renamed Golborne South and the ex-GCR station was renamed Golborne North.
Services
In 1922 five "down" (towards St Helens) trains called at the station on Mondays to Saturdays. They called at all stations from Manchester Central to St Helens via Glazebrook and Culcheth.
By 1948 four trains plied between St Helens Central and Manchester Central, calling at all stations, Monday to Friday, reduced to three on Saturdays.
A fuller selection of public and working timetables has now been published. Among other things this suggests that Sunday services ran until 1914, but had ceased by 1922, never to return.
Closure
The station was closed to all traffic by the British Railways Board in 1952, though goods traffic through the site to St Helens lingered on until 1965, and to a scrapyard west of Ashton thereafter. In 1968 a new connection ("spur") was built connecting an oil terminal and scrapyard west of Ashton-in-Makerfield to the West Coast Main Line. This enabled the line through Golborne North to be closed and lifted.
The site today
By 2005 even seasoned researchers could not tell a railway had ever existed at the station site.