The railway between Altrincham and Chester was opened in stages between 1862 and 1874. The section, between Knutsford and Northwich was opened, by the Cheshire Midland railway company in 1863. In 1865 the Cheshire Midland became part of the Cheshire Lines Committee (CLC). The CLC remained as a separate railway company until 1948 when it was nationalised and became part of British Railways.
The railway through Lostock Gralam was authorised by an 1860 act of Parliament, the line (from Knutsford to Northwich) opening for passenger traffic on the 1st January 1863, and to goods traffic four days later. Trains to Chester (Northgate) commenced on the 1st of May 1875.
Lostock Gralam station 1950’s. Built at Derby in 1953, British Railways 4-6-0 class 5 locomotive No 73031 arrives with the Chester Northgate to Manchester (Central) passenger train, as station porter Walter Dutton look on. The station gardens are still well maintained, but in later years seem to have missed out on any competition success. The station name board is made of concrete, and this pattern was a common sight on many CLC stations from the early 1920’s onwards.
With the coming of the railway the Cheshire districts sent large volumes of milk to the Manchester milk markets. Carried in churns, handling and loading milk trains needed to be quick. At Lostock in 1926, with no roadway down to the Manchester bound platform, the Cheshire Lines provided a ‘Milk slide’ as a quick way to get the full churns onto the station platform from the farmers milk carts on the road above. Until the staff got the hang of handling the quickly descending churns there were one or two ‘accidents’ resulting in some spilt milk. If the farmer wasn’t looking then the deficiency was ‘corrected’ with some water! The slide survived the war but the date of its removal is unknown. Does anyone know? T. Booth collection.
Lostock Gralam station 1959. Ex LNER class 04 locomotive No 63709 with yet another freight train, perhaps from Heaton Mersey sidings, Stockport, and destined for Northwich, passes through the station. The signal tells the driver that he will be stopped at the east end of the Northwich marshalling yard, and will probably be turned into one of the ‘arrival’ sidings. The station gardens are now looking somewhat neglected, and the original CLC concrete nameboard has been replaced with a new maroon and white enamel type. All the original Cheshire Midland Railway station buildings seen here, and dating from 1863 have since been demolished.
Lostock station signal box, c1955. Located west of the station, opposite the goods yard, Lostock signal box opened in 1886 and closed in 1968. The signalman at the window is Albert Booth. As well as handling the usual variety of local traffic, one the sidings went almost as far as Griffiths’ Road, and was known as Bonners Green siding. This served the ‘Bonners Green alkali works’, and during the First World War a temporary passenger platform was built there to bring munitions workers trains as close as possible to Brunner Mond’s huge Lostock works situated on the other side of the canal. During the same conflict another ‘munitions platform’ was opened mid-way between Lostock and Plumley stations to serve the Ammonia Soda Company plant which was located at the end of Ascol Drive.
