Disused railway lines and closed stations in Greater Manchester

283 miles of disused railway
165 closed stations
91 stations open today
88 named lost lines

Greater Manchester has 283 miles of disused railway and 165 closed stations, against 91 stations still open today. More stations have closed here than remain: 1.8 lost for every one still served. The longest lost line is the Bolton and Kenyon Line, with 9.3 miles of its route inside Greater Manchester.

See Greater Manchester’s lost railways on the map

The map opens on the county with the disused lines and closed stations drawn over today’s network. Tap any closed station for its history, or any grey line for its name.

What is left of it

The 283 miles of lost railway in Greater Manchester break down as 211 miles with the track lifted and the trackbed still traceable, 63 miles built over or ploughed out, with little or no trace left and 8.6 miles with track still in place but no trains. These are OpenStreetMap’s own distinctions, made by the people who surveyed each stretch, so a line can appear under more than one state along its length.

Lost railway lines in Greater Manchester

88 named lines with disused track in the county, longest stretch first. The mileage is the part inside Greater Manchester; a line crossing the border is counted on both sides.

Line	Miles in county
Bolton and Kenyon Line	9.3
Trafford Park Railway	8.5
Eccles, Tyldesley and Wigan Line	8.2
Gorton Junction to Throstle Nest South Junction Line	6.9
Tramway	6.3
Micklehurst Line	6.2
Glazebrook East Junction to Skelton Junction Line	6.0
Castleton and Bolton Line	5.5
Ince Moss to Red Rock Goods Branch	5.5
Bridgewater Collieries Railway	5.3
Wigan Junction Line	5.2
Little Hulton Branch	4.9
Clifton Junction Branch	4.6
Skelton Junction to Ditton Junction Line	4.6
Manchester Ship Canal Railway	4.5
Oldham Ashton and Guide Bridge Line	4.5
Clifton Junction to Accrington Line	4.1
Castleton Yard	3.9
Tyldesley Loopline	3.9
Tottington Branch	3.4
Woodley Junction to Partington Branch	3.3
Hindley and Blackrod Branch	3.0
Pemberton Loop	3.0
RAF Broadheath	3.0
Haydock Park Branch	2.9
Miles Platting and Rochdale Line	2.8
Oldham Branch	2.8
Leigh Branch	2.7
Plank Lane Branch	2.7
Macclesfield, Bollington and Marple Railway	2.4
Stockport, Timperley and Altrincham Junction Railway	2.4
Denton Junction to Dukinfield Line	2.4
Rochdale to Bacup Line	2.4
Bryn Junction to Pemberton Branch	2.3
Mineral Railway	2.1
Springs Branch	1.7
Kearsley Branch	1.6
Ship Canal Sidings	1.6
Radcliffe South Junction to Bradley Fold Junction Line	1.5
Ashton Moss Junction to Droylesden Junction	1.4

And 48 shorter stretches: Delph Branch, Wigan Junction Branch, Dobbs Brow Junction to Hindley and Blackford Branch Junction, Romiley Curve, Standish Junction Line, Heap Bridge Branch, Brinnington Branch, Manchester Victoria and Normanton Line, Royton Branch, Astley Bridge Branch, Mayfield Low Level Goods Branch, Salford Docks Branch, Boars Head to Adlington Branch, Chanters Siding, Denton Colliery Tramway, Middleton Branch, Outwood Sidings, Stockport Junction Railway, Platt Bridge Line, Lydgate Tunnel, Outwood Colliery Tramway, Agecroft Shed, Heaton Mersey Station Junction to Heaton Mersey East Junction, Manchester South District Railway, Chadderton Coal and Mineral Yard Branch, New Mills and Heaton Mersey Railway, Pennington New Line, Bolton and Leigh Railway, Golborne Colliery, Ordsall Lane Sidings, Crewe and Manchester Piccadilly Line, Gigg Mills Siding, North Street Works, Outwood Colliery, Stony Hill Branch, Brindle Heath Junction to Agecroft Junction, Bury Corporation Gas Siding, Bury Loco Junction to Bury Loop Junction, Eccles Sand Siding, Philips Park and Ashburys Branch, Roundhouse Branch, Stuart Street Sidings, Tram Road, Denton Junction to OA&GB Junction Spur, Manchester Collieries Railway, Radcliffe West Fork, Audenshaw West Junction to Canal Junction Line and Ordsall Lane to Liverpool Line.

Closed railway stations in Greater Manchester

All 165 closed and former stations in Greater Manchester, A to Z. Each name opens the map on the station; the Wikipedia link, where there is one, has its history.

Stations still open in Greater Manchester

91 stations in Greater Manchester still have a train service. The busiest are Manchester Piccadilly (27.4 million a year), Manchester Victoria (8.4 million a year), Manchester Oxford Road (6.4 million a year), Manchester Airport (5.5 million a year) and Stockport (4.3 million a year). Every one has its own page, with the stations you can reach from it directly and how often the trains run: see the A to Z of stations.

Lost railways nearby

Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Derbyshire and North Yorkshire.

About these figures

The disused lines are the stretches OpenStreetMap records as disused, abandoned, razed or dismantled railway, measured segment by segment and given to the county each segment lies in. The closed stations are Wikidata’s record of British railway stations no longer in service, kept where they are not within a few hundred metres of a station still open. County boundaries are today’s ceremonial counties, with unitary authorities folded into the county they sit in, from the Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0; contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2024). Historic county lines were different, and a closed station a mile over the border is on the neighbouring page.

Every county · About the disused lines layer · About the closed stations