Smithy Bridge railway station
Smithy Bridge railway station serves the village of Smithy Bridge and Hollingworth Lake near Rochdale in Greater Manchester, England. The station is on the Caldervale Line north of Manchester Victoria on the way to Leeds. Facilities. The station is unstaffed, but there are ticket machines available to allow intending passengers to purchase or collect tickets prior to travelling. Both platforms have waiting shelters and step-free access. Services. There is a basic half-hourly service (with peak period extras) from the station to Manchester Victoria southbound and to northbound on weekdays. From there, trains continue alternately  to via and to Leeds via . Most westbound services run beyond Manchester to and . In the early morning & evenings trains to Leeds run via Halifax but on the same frequency, whilst in Sundays the service is hourly and provided by the Southport/Manchester to Blackburn trains. From the December 2019 timetable change, services will start or terminate at Wigan westbound, with passengers needing to change there for onward connections to Southport. History. The station was first opened by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in October 1868. In 1915, the station was the scene of a tragic accident involving an express  train and an empty stock train. Four people died and many others were injured. It was closed on 2 May 1960 by British Rail but reopened on its original site, albeit with a slightly different platform layout, on 19 August 1985 with financial assistance from Greater Manchester PTE. The signal box here, which controlled the level crossing and acted as a 'fringe' box to Preston PSB from 1973 onwards, was downgraded in late 2011 from a block post to a crossing box. The signalling is remotely operated from the new 'Rochdale West' panel at (which also supervises the layout at  and will eventually replace another box at Castleton East Junction) and the crossing is now automatic. Smithy Bridge Crossing box was closed early in 2014 and has since been demolished.