Hollyoaks & Guilden BACKGROUND

00, British Rail, current image, 8 by 4 foot

HOLLYOAKS & GUILDEN, CHESTER PARK & RIDE

  The Cheshire Lines Committee [CLC] was an attempt by the Great Northern Railway and Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway later renamed the Great Central Railway (GCR) to break the London North Westerns Railway's (LNWR) hold on the Liverpool-Manchester area. The CLC became tripartite when the Midland Railway (MR) became an equal partner in 1866. As a joint line the CLC was not merged in 1923 but was dominated by the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) that appointed six of the nine directors. The London, Midland, and Scottish, Railway (LMSR) as successor to the MR appointed three. In 1948 the CLC was merged into British Railways (BR). In the 1950s BR had a policy of switching 'interpenetrating' lines to the dominant region. This meant the London Midland Region the successors to the LMSR was able to swop the unprofitable Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway to the Eastern Region successors to the LNER and obtain the profitable CLC proving revenge is a dish best served cold. The CLC has weathered Beaching and subsequent years well with the Manchester-Liverpool & Manchester-Chester lines surviving. Closed lines were mostly built with an emphasis on goods traffic. The most noticeable change is the closure of CLC stations at Liverpool, Chester, and Manchester with trains diverted into Lime Street, General, and Piccadilly respectively - ironically all ex LNWR stations.

The CLC allowed the GCR access to the North Wales Marches and the Wirral (left). The GCR linked to the Wrexham, Mold, and Connah's Quay Railway (WM&CQR) by building the Chester and Connah's Quay Railway, opened in 1890, and then accessed Birkenhead Docks and Liverpool with the North Wales and Liverpool Railway, opened in 1896, from Hawarden Bridge to Bidston. The GCR then took over the WM&CQR. The Wrexham-Bidston section survives and is now marketed as the Borderlands Line.

These railways provided Chester with suburban line from Mickle Trafford in the east to Chester East Junction in the west with Chester Northgate the CLC and GCR joint station connected by a triangle of track. GCR passenger services were withdrawn on 9^th September 1968 with Wrexham trains diverted to Bidston. CLC passenger services were diverted to Chester General on 6^th October 1968 and Northgate closed with the site now occupied by the Northgate Arena leisure centre. Except for the lines serving Northgate goods continued till October 1992 with the line being singled 1985.

Some years ago I noticed there were several layouts appearing in the specialist press with names like Walford Town and Walford Junction paying homage to EastEnders. There was a noticeable lack of layouts paying homage to Hollyoaks suggesting that younger modellers weren't being engaged and the hobby was getting middle age or older. I decided to look into possibility of a 'current image' (ex-LNWR) layout serving Hollyoaks. The village's location is "a suburb of Chester" a map check suggested it would have to be to the west of the city centre and so served by a line branching off the North Wales Mainline (above) west of Saltney, crossing the Dee, and heading in the direction of Blacon. In the end I decided the project was unaffordable. Incidentally Hollyoaks is filmed in Liverpool's Childwall suburb and there's very little filming in Chester.

I took another look at Chester after seeing Stephanie's stock. I came up with the idea of a Park and Ride system using the CLC and GCR lines in Chester. Hollyoaks would be the western park and ride station and is located just off the A494 a motorway standard road giving access to the M56 3 miles away and the A55 (North Wales Trunk) 4 miles away. An industrial estate with shops is a next door. The line would stop at the pre-existing stations of Saughall and Blacon. Abbot's Mead is a new station the interchange between park and ride and other passenger trains and serves Chester University. Park and ride trains would run into Northgate and reverse. The new Northgate station would be a basic station to the west of the Northgate Arena leisure centre (below). The last stop would be Guilden (named after the village of Guilden Sutton) the eastern park and ride station. Guilden is next to a slip road from the M53 and is near the A55. The Dynamic Loop is a 3½ mile length of double track enabling trains to pass without waiting. The round trip Hollyoaks-Northgate-Guilden would take just under 30 minutes. Two Pacers could provide a train every fifteen minutes and three every ten minutes. The links to Warrington & Manchester in the east and Liverpool & Wrexham in the west and have been retained. There are rail served industries just to the west of Hollyoaks. So goods trains and passenger trains including diverts and specials use the line. There are sidings at Hollyoaks and Guilden for permanent way trains, wagons to/from the rail served industries to the west of Hollyoaks and local deliveries.

In practise Chester's small size 73 square miles and population 100,000 combined with the distance of General and Northgate stations, ¾ and ½ miles, from the city centre makes a suburban branch or rail based park and ride system implausible. It might be faster to walk. Much of the CLC and GCR track bed has been built on and the rest is now a footpath and cycle way.

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