Chester Station

Chester Station
If you ask a Cestrian what is above the main entrance of Chester Station, they will probably say a clock. However, the clock is actually offset so as to be visible down the length of City Road, at one end of which stands the Station. It was originally located in the centre of the building, where the British Rail logo is now but, when the Queen Hotel opposite was built in the 1860s, it obscured the view of the clock from City Road and it was subsequently moved to its present, rather ungainly, position. The frontage of the station was designed by Francis Thompson.

It is operated by Arriva Trains Wales. Inside the station is a memorial to its builder, Thomas Brassey, a well-known railway engineer (and another Cestrian). He was said to have been an enlightened employer much admired by his workforce, who, remarkably, built the entire station, as well as all the track, sidings and service buildings, in less than a year. A remarkable achievement, especially when compared with the length of time it took to re-lay a few pavements around it in 2007... The station opened in 1848. It used to be linked to the Queen Hotel opposite by a passageway - this can still be seen behind the taxi rank and carries a sign saying that 'carriages and post horses are for hire'. The station is also at one end of the Baker Way - a walking path to Delamere Station.

From 1875, Chester was also served by Chester Northgate station (owned by the Cheshire Lines Committee); however, that station was closed in 1969 and is now the site of "Northgate Arena" (a leisure centre).

Owls, Crows and WW2
If you are waiting on Platform 4, try to spot the two carved wooden owls which may be placed there to 'chase' pigeons away. This is probably a good thing as Chester does have a bit of a pigeon problem. Occasionally, the RSPCA gets phone calls from train passengers who believe an owl to be trapped in the station roof. Chester Station is also the home of a 'murder' of crows - who are bright enough to realise the owls are fake.

A WW2 "Railway Control Centre" still stands in the station car park next to the Queen Hotel. This is a rectangular windowless concrete blockhouse, now used to store spare parts by Railtrack contractors. It has a dog-leg airlock at each end with steel gas-tight doors. Inside there is a large rectangular room running the length of the building, and a corridor with smaller rooms along the right hand side. There are no original features remaining apart from the doors.

Facilities
In March 2007, Chester Station was awarded a grant worth £1.4 million from the Heritage Lottery's Townscape Heritage Initiative for refurbishment. This was long overdue, as station facilities were in a poor state for years. Amongst other things, the grant was used to improve the concourse (dangerously slippery in wet weather), remodel the square outside and add strategic lighting outside to enhance the architecture.

The state of the station has been a regular complaint of readers of the Chester Chronicle. The station lifts are slow and unclean (although the concourse is generally clean and litter-free, unlike the tracks which are full of cigarette butts and crisp packets). As well as the dodgy concourse tiles, the public toilets used to be pretty disgusting, mostly lacking locks, paper, soap and hot water. There is a tiny WH Smith just inside the main entrance, which stocks a limited, range of newspapers, magazines and books. If you plan to buy food for your trip at the station, do it at Smith's - it has a good range of pricey but high quality sandwiches, as well as soft drinks (very expensive).

In Summer 2008 the first signs of the redevelopment were brought into use. The toilets had been heavily refurbished and the old Cafe on the main concourse had been demolished and replaced by a more modern facility, which adjoins the new travel centre.

There are two ATM cash machines inside the main concourse, to the right of the ticket barriers. These are standard bank ATMs, so you will not be charged for withdrawing money, unless using some foreign cards.

The station staff get the thumbs up, being very friendly and helpful, even at peak periods.

Tickets
The ticket kiosk was originally located inside the main concourse, on the left. Since Summer 2008 there is now a new Travel Centre located to the far right of the main concourse. This has replaced the 1993 built ticket office and is in an open plan style. There are 4 windows on the main concourse and a fifth located on platform 3a for excess tickets. In busy periods (especially rush hour), there can be a short queue, so it's worth allowing extra time for buying your ticket. There are also ticket machines on the concourse - these are usually working but do tend to give a large number of pound coins in change (not funny when you've inserted a £20 note for a £3 ticket). Also, they do not appear to let you buy an off-peak ticket for Merseyrail in advance, if you try to buy a ticket during the end of peak travel time when the next train is actually an off-peak one.

Since the new ticket barriers were installed in summer 2006, you can no longer access the platforms without a ticket (and as far as we know, the station does not sell platform tickets). If you need to help someone elderly or infirm off/on a train, it's worth ringing the station first to check you'll be allowed platform access (or to arrange for the helpful staff to get the wheelchair ramp ready). That said, the ticket barriers are not always operating/staffed - sometimes, you can walk straight through. But don't count on it.

Travel
Direct travel from Chester is limited to a few options. You can get to Manchester via two routes: via Warrington on platform 4 (which takes just over an hour and stops at Oxford Road as well as Piccadilly), or via Stockport and the Delamere Forest (usually platform 5 but sometimes platform 6), which takes around 90 minutes and stops only at Piccadilly. The MerseyRail train from platform 7b will deliver you to Liverpool in 45 minutes: changing at Hamilton Square will get you to the western reaches of the Wirral. The North Wales line (platform 3) will take you as far as Bangor and Holyhead. You'll need to change at Llandudno Junction to get to anywhere else in North Wales that is accessible by iron horse. The last direct route is towards Shrewsbury, which will take you as far as Cardiff or Birmingham.

There is a shuttle train to Crewe. Changing at Crewe is essential for many journeys south, but there are more direct trains a day to London (platform 4) - now taking about two hours.

Transport Links
There is a free CityLink shuttle bus that you can catch directly outside the station to the city centre. Until the introduction of ticket barriers it was neccesary to show a valid rail ticket to board. However this is no longer the case and the service is completely free. There is a black cab rank outside and several bus routes depart for county-wide destinations from the stop across the square outside the Town Crier pub.

The Railway in History
From 1841 to 1871 Chester enjoyed thirty economic boom years. The main evidence for this is the extent of migration to the city and population growth, but prosperity was also reflected in a large rise in the number of businesses and in the amount of rebuilding in the city centre. The arrival of the railways reasserted Chester's importance for transport and consolidated its function as a service centre for the region. A limited growth in manufacturing further diversified the economy.

Lines to Birkenhead and Crewe begain the railway age in Chester in 1840. Over the following thirty years lines opened to Shrewsbury, Bangor and Holyhead, Wrexham and Ruabon, Oswestry and Welshpool, Mold, Warrington, Rhyl and Denbigh, Llangollen and Corwen, and Wirral. By the 1880's Chester was an important hub in the regional rail network and had three stations. The early rail network favoured North and Central Wales and the Marches and this reinforced Chester's connection with Wales, but, as few lines into south and central Cheshire opened before 1870, weakened links to the parts of Cheshire for which there was better rail access to Manchester, Warrington, Crewe, the Potteries, or Shrewsbury.

There were 311 men, working on the railways in Chester in 1851 and the number had risen to 499 people by 1861 (including five women). That has been estimated at just over 5% of the male labour force. By 1861 the London and North Western and Great Western Railways were the two biggest employers in the city - 100 porters at Chester General station alone and at least 76 railway labourers in the city. The majority, both skilled and unskilled, seem to have come from an existing national pool of labour and had been born outside either Chester or Cheshire, but these (relatively poorly paid) migrant workers added new spending power to the Chester economy.

The proportion of Chester's trade from north and mid Wales grew with the opening of the railways to Shrewsbury and Holyhead. Before the arrival of the railway, industrial Flintshire seems to have dominated the Chester/Welsh trade. The railway to Wrexham and Ruabon gave the Denbighshire coalfield a new lease of life. By the 1870s the Denbighshire trade was beginning to rival that from Flintshire. There was much migration into the area, with the population rising by 65% between 1841 and 1871. The railway into Wirral seems to have increased the peninsula's significance in Chester's trade. The city's influence, however, evidently reached no further than a line running from Parkgate to Eastham. Beyond that the pull of Liverpool and the growing commercial weight of Birkenhead were too strong. The railways also brought more long-distance tourists and customers to Chester, but although the trade from outside the immediate hinterland grew, it remained a relatively small proportion of the total. The railways also helped the development of new industries in Chester by reducing the cost of raw materials and making access to markets cheaper or faster however the city's manufacturing base remained limited.

Chester's engineering sector grew significantly, and the numbers employed in metalworking increased greatly between 1851 and 1871, particularly in the more modern trades. Older metal trades, such as nailmaking and whitesmithing, declined, presumably due to competition from elsewhere, but engineers, machine makers, mechanics, and iron manufacturers leapt in numbers. The new foundries and engineering firms were located in two main areas. The first lay between the canal and the railway around Brook Street, Egerton Street, and George Street, where the most important businesses were E. & B. Johnson, James Mowle, and James Rigg. None was actually on the canal side itself or had direct rail access, and most occupied restricted sites hemmed in by housing which limited their possibility for expansion. The two railway wagon repair shops in the same area were linked of necessity to the railway:


 * The London and North Western Railway had a cramped works between Francis Street and City Road, to which rail access involved crossing the station approach road at street level.


 * The Birmingham Wagon Co.'s works occupied a better and more spacious site between Black Diamond Street and the Brook Street bridge. The company's main works was in Smethwick near Birmingham, and the branch in Chester maintained wagons leased to the railway companies and private operators.

The new industrial zone at Saltney was related directly to the arrival of the railway. Though administratively it was only partly within Chester, geographically and economically Saltney was an extension of the city. It developed rapidly into the city's most vibrant industrial area in the mid 19th century and made a large contribution to diversifying Chester's economic base. The trigger for its growth was the opening by the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway in 1846 of a wharf on the Dee adjacent to the railway junction with the Chester and Holyhead line. Industrial development began in 1847 with the establishment of Henry Wood & Co.'s anchor, chain, and general engineering works. The firm had been founded in Stourbridge (Worcs.) in 1786. The Saltney works, on Boundary Lane, had both a railway siding and access to Saltney wharf. A number of other firms followed Wood's to Saltney. Lloyd's Cambrian Chain and Anchor Testing Co., was set up in 1866. By 1870 three oil refineries were in operation, of which the largest was the Flintshire Oil & Cannel Co. at St. David's Oil Works. The others were E. S. Rogers & Co.'s British Oil Works and the Dee Mineral Oil Co., set up in 1869. They mostly processed crude oil produced from cannel coal in the Flintshire coalfield, and were part of an industry which boomed locally from 1858 to the 1880s. The Sal Ammonionic works was operating in Saltney as early as 1843, and in 1856 Proctor and Ryland moved there from Birmingham and opened a bone manure works on the riverside.

The railway also brought industry to Saltney on its own account. The Shrewsbury and Chester Railway established its locomotive and carriage works there in 1847, and after the company was acquired by the Great Western in 1854, the latter moved its standard-gauge carriage and wagon works from Wolverhampton to Saltney. The Victoria Waggon Co. was also operating at Saltney by 1860, though it had closed by 1870. Furthermore the goods yards at Mold Junction became the main concentration and distribution point for roofing slates from the north Wales quarries. Saltney's population grew from 554 in 1841 to 1,901 in 1871 as a result of the area's industrial development.

"Parry's Railway Companion" for the Journey from Chester to Holyhead (1848), opens it's description of the journey with a description of the station:


 * This grand central terminus station for all the lines meeting at Chester,—the London and North Western—the Chester and Holyhead—the Shrewsbury and Chester—the Chester and Birkenhead—and the Cheshire Junction Railways, — was designed by Mr. Thompson, the celebrated architect, of London, who planned the Derby station. It is admirably adapted for the purpose of developing all those facilities and conveniences which are the characteristics of the railway system. The length of this elegant building is 910 feet; the elevation is in excellent taste, and presents an imposing appearance; the centre range having two stories, of great architectural beauty, flanked by handsome towers 40 feet high. At each wing there is an arrival platform, for terminal trains, when journeys end at Chester, 250 feet long and 14 feet high. The principal departure platform, towards the main through lines from London to Holyhead, is 703 feet 6 inches long and 19 feet wide. This magnificent erection will also include a first-class refreshment room 41 feet by 25, a second-class refreshment-room 30 feet by 25, a first-class ladies' room 25 feet by 30, a first-class waiting-room 25 feet by 20, a kitchen 30j feet by 16, an electric telegraph office 20 feet by 15^, a parcel office 30J feet by 25, and a post-office 25 feet by 10.

Sources and Links

 * Chester Station on Wikipedia;


 * Chester Station at English Heritage;


 * Train times for Chester;

Dee Bridge Collapse
In late 1846, the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, later to become part of the Great Western Railway, first carried traffic. From Saltney Junction, access was gained to Chester via the Chester & Holyhead Railway. This latter line was carried over the River Dee, in the same place where it crosses today, by three 98-foot spans of cast-iron girders resting on stone piers. Both the bridge and the line had been designed by the great railway engineer, Robert Stephenson. The design was not unlike that of the Tay Bridge, which collapsed some thirty years later.

On 24 May 1847, the driver of the 18:15 Chester-Ruabon train noticed something was amiss as his train, crossing the span of the bridge closest to Saltney, began to vibrate strongly. The driver boldly opened his throttle to clear the bridge and no sooner had he reached the bank than the bridge collapsed into the Dee, carrying away his unfortunate fireman, who was dashed against the stonework of the bridge and killed. The death toll included a guard, two coachmen and a few passengers (sources vary). Sixteen people (sources again vary) were badly injured, which is surprising considering that the whole train, except the engine, fell into the swirling waters of the tidal River Dee. Curiously, Stephenson had inspected the bridge for safety earlier on the very same day. He had noted that hot coals falling from passing trains could set the wooden parts of the bridge structure alight and had ordered that the bridge deck be covered with tons of track ballast to prevent the oak beams supporting the track from catching fire. Undoubtedly, this massive loading of the structure with crushed stone contributed to the disaster.

The brave driver, whose name was Clayton, had just seen his fireman slain, but not only drove his train to Saltney to summon help, yet then recrossed the bridge on the other track to warn oncoming traffic. Stephenson's bridge design was condemned by the inspector of railways as being too weak and generally unsound. The Official Inquiry (one of the first formal inquiries into a structural failure) stated:


 * "The train passed safely over the first and centre openings or arches, and the engine appears to have reached the middle of the third opening, or within about 50 feet of the end of the bridge before the driver felt any sinking. When he did feel it, he states, that he instantly put on his full steam, and by the momentum succeeded in clearing the bridge with his engine, and dragging the tender up with him. The stoker who was upon the tender was thrown off upon the land, and killed. The carriages, with all the passengers, were precipitated into the river, a depth of 36 feet to the surface of the water, which, at the time of the accident, was about 10 feet deep in the middle. The tender, having got off the line, was dragged up, rubbing hard against the parapet wall at the end of the bridge, as is evident from the stone-work of the wall being much disturbed; and was left standing upright at about 50 feet from the water's edge, and three feet off the rails; the engine having broken away from it, and proceeded with the driver (the only individual that escaped) to the next station."

Nowadays, it is possible to cross the river at this point by a footbridge (this has steep steps at either end) and L. T. C. Rolt (d.1974 - writer of "Red for Danger: A History of Railway Accidents and Railway Safety" (1955)) first gained his interest in trains while 'spotting' them from the trembling wooden footbridge as they passed on the far more sturdy replacement of the original bridge. Rolt was born in Chester and there is a commemorative plaque for him on the bridge by the canal dry dock.


 * Dee Bridge Collapse on Wikipedia;
 * A detailed discussion of the disaster;
 * A reprint of a paper on the disaster;
 * A first hand report on the disaster;
 * Peter R Lewis, Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847, Tempus Publishing (2007) ISBN 978-0-7524-4266-2
 * A review of Peter Lewis' book - contains links to further information;
 * Dee Railway Bridge at "Heritage Locations";

Chester General Fire
On 8 May 1972, a potentially even more serious accident happened at Chester General Station when a freight train carrying a large quantity of oil, kerosene and petrol had a brake failure and ploughed into the station (today's platform 5) at speed. The driver and a second driver travelling in the cab as a passenger, jumped clear from the runaway train at the last second after frantic efforts to stop it. The collision partly demolished the station restaurant on what is nowadays platform 4. The resulting fire could have been catastrophic, but was brought under control by Firemen before the explosive content of the train could wreak havoc.


 * The crash on Wikipedia;
 * The Official Report on the accident

Nearby disasters include the October 1996 Lightfoot Street Fire and the 1861 Queen Hotel fire (see below) illustrated famously by Chester artist Randolf Caldecott

Queen Hotel Fire
The Queen Hotel, located directly across from the Railway Station, was designed by Penson and opened on the 21st April 1860, costing £29,000.00. It's promotions state that it was:


 * "built in the Italian style upon a beautiful piece of ground with sumptuous furnishings, a beautiful garden and offering the quietest and most spacious first class Hotel in Chester" (21st July, 1860).

The following year, in December 1861, the hotel was gutted by a major fire. Apparently, back in 59/60 the builders had put a wooden joist through one of the chimneys and over the course of the following years thi slowly burned away until it could ignite the entire building. Randolph Caldecott's illustration of the Queen Hotel fire (his first published work) shows not only how major the fire was, but also shows the latticed "observation towers" that were not rebuilt after the fire.

Nowadays, the Queen has all the fire precautions that one would expect of a major hotel, so the disaster of 1861 is very unlikely to be repeated. The "Victoria" statue of the queen was erected in 1963 to replace the old one. Messrs H. A. Clegg, stonemasons on the Chester Sealand Industrial Estate, were commissioned by the hotel to provide a new statue and this was produced by T. G. Murphy who had worked for twenty five years sculpting at Liverpool Cathedral. He studied postage stamps to gain an idea of the Queen's features. The statue cost £350. The roof of H. A. Clegg and sons had to be removed to get in the two ton of stone needed for the statue. It had to be removed again nine weeks later to get the statue out.


 * Queen Hotel at English Heritage;

Lightfoot Street Fires
The first and second Lightfoot Street Fires occured in 1996 (when Pickfords went up in smoke) and 2010 (when the Enterprise Center followed).


 * First (Pickfords) Fire (video)


 * Second (Enterprise Center) Fire (BBC -includes video)


 * another theory...

Train Operating Incident
In 2013 Virgin Trains suffered a "Train Operating Incident" at Chester (that's a train crash in English). Fortunately, there was only a slight injury to a single passenger.