25 places with two stations: 7 Reddish

Saturday 5th April 2025

Situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport in Greater Manchester…

… the Ordnance Survey map gives the suburb of Reddish five named areas.

North Reddish, Mid Reddish, Reddish Green, Reddish Vale and South Reddish. The first and last of these give their names to the area’s two railway stations – Reddish North and Reddish South.

Blog readers with knowledge of the quirkier aspects of Britain’s railways will immediately realise the significance of the latter.

Last year Reddish South was Britain’s fifth least used station handling just 128 passenger journeys in 2023/24 by virtue of it seeing only two train departures a week.

One at 08:46 heading south to nearby Stockport (a journey of less than 10 minutes) and the other the return train at 09:10 from Stockport to Denton, Guide Bridge and Stalybridge where it arrives at 09:28. Both journeys only operate on Saturday mornings.

It’s what’s known as a ‘Parliamentary Train’ and only runs because it’s less hassle to operate a once a week notional return journey on this stretch of single track line than go through a cumbersome and costly procedure to close a section of superfluous railway line to passengers together with the two stations located on it including, in addition to Reddish South, Denton, two miles further north which holds the current crown of being Britain’s least used station with just 54 passenger journeys in 2023/24 (ie one a week).

Not surprisingly facilities at Reddish South can best be described as limited.

There are two noticeboards – one on the platform…

… and one at street level…

…where, ironically, there’s also a totem pole station sign at the top of the steps to let passers by know the station does exist.

No ticket machine, no electronic departure sign, no seats, no litter bins, no cycle rack. Certainly no ticket office, waiting room or toilets. Just a platform and track, together with a long abandoned trackbed and platform on the opposite side.

Very impressively, despite its pitiful level of service, the station is looked after by a Friends of Reddish South group who do a magnificent job keeping the station neat and tidy and campaigning for the restoration of a more frequent service.

Indeed there’s some colourful artwork on display…

… including one commemorating the station’s 175th anniversary last year.

There’s also a special display marking the 75th anniversary of VE Day in 2022.

Even more interesting are two posters on a fence at the northern end of the platform, which delineates the limit of where the public are allowed to wait…

… which show timetables applicable in the station’s heyday with almost an hourly service, aside, from a couple of 2 hour gaps…

… and when it first opened in 1859 being called just plain Reddish – as its neighbour Reddish North didn’t come along for another 16 years in 1875.

Ah; those were the days. Two other quirks: the platform is numbered ‘1’…

… and despite being in Greater Manchester, the station won a Special Award in the 2020 Cheshire Best Kept Station Awards.

I visited the station on Saturday morning a fortnight ago and was pleased to see a couple of passengers come down the steps to the platform five minutes before the first Stockport bound departure. They looked as though they might be regulars and shortly after, another couple giving the same impression, also arrived but interestingly neither couple acknowledged the other’s presence as the five of us waited for the train.

This duly arrived spot on time on its southbound journey from Stalybridge with two individual passengers already on board who looked like they were Parliamentary Train riders.

After a steady ride down the single track line and joining the main line just north of Stockport we pulled into the station’s bay platform 3, five minutes early at 08:54.

After a change of crew we were on the move again back to Stalybridge and providing Reddish South (and Denton) with its second and final journey of the week.

Interestingly both the two couples who boarded at Reddish South on the southbound journey were back on the train as well as two other individual passengers taking advantage of the journey time and direction suiting their travel needs and a trio of train enthusiasts.

Even more interesting was one of the two couples who’d boarded at Reddish South alighted there on the way back and the other couple went on to Denton.

I alighted at Guide Bridge to change trains for my next mission and chatting to the guard he told me the first couple are active members of the Friends of Reddish South Station and make a regular journey every week to help maintain passenger numbers. Their selfless duty to the cause might explain why 128 journeys were recorded, except they had free passes to use the line in return for the good work they do looking after the station so I assume their travels aren’t recorded in the Office of Rail and Road’s official statistics which wouldn’t know of their regular journeys.

And I realised neither would my journey be recorded. I was using a Day Ranger ticket which the guard on the southbound journey never came to inspect so even if I hadn’t had it and was intent on buying a ticket from Reddish South, I couldn’t have done so.

After all that excitement my visit to Reddish North, a mile up the road from Reddish South, with the two connected by Bee Network bus route 203 every 10 minutes, was somewhat of an anti-climax.

It’s a much more typical Greater Manchester suburban station on the Hope Valley line facilitating two trains an hour between Manchester Piccadilly and New Mills Central with alternate trains continuing to Sheffield through the glorious Peak District serving such delightful stations as Edale, Hope and Grindleford.

Bearing in mind Reddish South’s high profile totem pole sign already mentioned, it’s surprising there’s no indication at all on the main Gorton Road through signage that Reddish North exists.

The traditional looking station building can be found about 100 yards down an access road which also leads to a timber merchants where sidings must have once stood.

Inside the building there’s a ticket office which pleasingly was staffed on Saturday morning…

… as well as three bench seats and toilet…

… book and toy exchange…

… leaflet racks and colourful posters, even including a bee.

Even more impressive, the leaflet racks had supplies of TfGM bus timetable leaflets for bus routes in the area…

… sadly something which will soon be a thing of the past with the Bee Network’s mission to cease printing such helpful information.

Out on the platforms, Northern (which runs the station) has one of its ticket machines…

… a small covered cycle rack on the Manchester bound platform 1…

… and a shelter for passengers over the rather nice traditional looking footbridge …

… on the Sheffield bound platform 2.

Sadly the station provides no accessible means of reaching platform 2.

As you can see the entrance building on platform 1 is currently undergoing some remedial work…

… and it was good to see the excellent Wayfarer ticket promoted in one of the station poster frames.

Reddish residents are lucky to have two stations, especially one as notorious as Reddish South, but Reddish North needs the love too – and it would appear needs some Friends…

… if you live nearby and fancy adopting a station.

By a quirky coincidence Diamond Geezer visited Reddish South (and Denton) on the same day as I’d done a couple of weeks ago and you can read his report here.

Roger French

Did you catch the six previous blogs in this series? 1: Hertford; 2: Canterbury. 3: Wigan, 4 Dorchester, 5 Windsor, 6 Wakefield.

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS and, if you’re in the south east and have time….catch BusAndTrainUser LIVE at 12:00 today, Saturday 5th April, at the South East Bus Festival, Kent County Showground, Detling.