Stalybridge

CRS Code	SYB
Collected date	13/09/16

After Stockport, we found ourselves at Stalybridge. Not actually on the direct line via Denton and Reddish South because that only runs one day a week (clue: not this one), but we'd made the journey as best we could.

The line is on an embankment at the station, so the main entrance is level with what becomes the subway under the line:

Looking up the sloped road that climbs to track level, we see the first door on the left that leads to the ticket office:

Stalybridge station is famous for its buffet bar, and a sign encourages you onwards in case you didn't already know where you were going:

Looking back along this side of the station from its western end, we can see the buffet bar on the right:

In good weather one can sit outside in this small beer "garden" while waiting for one's train:

A small entrance gate leads into the station proper, on to platform 4:

On platform 4, looking east at the end of the canopy:

Plaques under the platform 4 canopy, marking Railway Heritage Awards for the station buffet bar, noting that the "Victorian Buffet Bar is unique and is authentic in detail since being rebuilt in 1885", and noting that the current clock is a 1997 replica of the original now in the NRM:

More plaques give opening times for the bar, its Cask Marque award, and mark the reopening of the back room and platform canopy in 2012:

Under the canopy on platform 4:

Detail of one of the spandrels:

Another plaque, for truly this is a station which likes its plaques. This one honours Fred Wood who averted a rail disaster in 1907:

A view of the eastern end of platform 4 from platform 3 opposite:

On the wall on the uncanopied part of platform 4 is this disused bracket which presumably once helped support some more canopy:

Looking back along platform 4 from its eastern end:

A long view of platform 4 from platform 3:

Looking east along platform 4, with platform 3 on the right:

Looking west along platform 4 we can see the buffers of a bay platform on the right, platform 5:

The buffers of platform 5:

The island platforms 1-3 are reached via the subway under the line. This subway is reachable from the ticket hall at ground level but also via a ramp from platform 4:

In the subway at the platform 3 end looking back towards the station front; the ramp up to platform 4 is to the left of the end of the subway:

Looking up the ramp from the end of the subway to platform 3:

The subway emerges on platform 3 under a glass shelter:

A view of the subway emerging on platform 3 seen from platform 4 opposite:

This view of the rear of the subway exit shelter shows how it's sort of been constructed over the top of the subway exit:

Further along platform 3, looking west:

At the western end of platform 3 in the middle of the island platform is another bay, providing platform 2:

At the western end of the island platform looking east, with platform 3 on the left and 2 on the right:

Looking west along the line:

Finally, platform 1, on the southern side of the station:

And at the other end of the station looking east as the line crosses the road beneath:

All photographs are © Alexandra Lanes You may reproduce them anywhere for any purpose. Coastline maps are reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey © Crown copyright 2001