Two more places with two stations: Burscough and Marple

Thursday 26th March 2026

We’re nearly at the terminus for this series and heading towards the final stretch of track brings us to North West England and a look at two very different places which both offer passengers a choice of two stations on two different lines.

Burscough is a village in Lancashire and Marple can be found in south east Greater Manchester close to the border with Derbyshire.

Let’s go to Burscough first where we find one station called Burscough Junction and another known as Burscough Bridge.

The former is the much quieter of the two being located on the single track line between Ormskirk and Preston.

It hosts an hourly Northern train shuttling between those two destinations just on Mondays to Saturdays and that’s it. 50,780 passenger exits and entrances were assumed by the Office of Rail and Road in 2024/25 and not surprisingly the facilities are best described as limited.

Passengers nowadays enjoy a shelter with three perch seats and ticket machine as well as two old style metal seats in the open. The car park offers eight parking spaces and ten cycle stands….

… as well as a building that looks like it might have once been railway owned but is now a private residence. Other buildings were demolished in 1973.

There’s evidence of a second platform with the line originally being double tracked (prior to 1970).

There are rather nice paintings and nature boxes on the former platform proudly looked after by the children of St Johns Catholic Primary School.

Despite its name and there being a second station serving the village there’s no longer a ‘junction’. The Ormskirk line passes over the second line serving Burscough Bridge as shown in the photo below taken from the train heading towards Burscough Junction.

When both lines were built and open in 1849 (Junction) and 1855 (Bridge) there was indeed a connection both north and south between them but as you can see in the map below, the southern link closed as long ago as 1883 while the northern connection ceased in 1969 having opened in 1878.

So, although both links have long gone, the signal box which stands where the ‘junction’ could once be found…

… is still called Burscough Bridge Junction.

It’s about a 12 minute walk between the two stations with Burscough Bridge being on the double track line between Southport, Wigan and Bolton/Manchester.

It’s much busier than Burchough Junction seeing more than double the number of passengers at 116,000 in 2024/25.

Northern runs a half hourly service between Southport and Wigan/Bolton via Burscough Bridge on Mondays to Saturdays with alternate journeys continuing either to Manchester Oxford Road or to Stalybridge via Manchester Victoria.

Passengers can access both platforms from steps down from the road bridge over the railway but there’s also level access to the Southport bound platform from the south side of the station near a large Tesco Extra and where you find the ‘Burscough Bridge Interchange’.

But, just like Burscough’s “junction” no longer exists Burscough Bridge Interchange is stretching it a bit as a description of what is basically one bus stop alongside the Town Council’s offices…

… all the more so as there’s no bus timetable information on display anywhere nor any details of what bus routes stop there.

A faded 337 number on the bus stop flag plate is still pertinent as a two-hourly service between Ormskirk and Chorley as a 337 and there are also hourly buses on route 2A between Preston and Ormskirk and 312 between Rainford and Ormskirk but you’d never know from the lack of information in the ‘Interchange’.

Each platform as a couple of shelters…

… with a ticket machine in one

… and a ticket machine on the Southport bound platform.

There’s a rather nice traditional looking station building on the Wigan bound platform…

… that has long lost its railway use, but I couldn’t work out what it is nowadays – probably a private residence, albeit a bit in the public eye.

As you can see there’s also a smattering of seats in the open including one set with a colourful mosaic behind it…

… and although there weren’t many floral displays when I visited a few weeks ago…

… the Friends of Burscough Stations obviously put on a display in the summer.

Readers wondering whether the Wigan bound platform has level access might have spotted the ‘Way out’ sign in the above photo…

… but while this led to a footpath alongside the railway in the Southport direction (above), it didn’t look very ‘accessible’…

… and certainly looked a challenge in the other direction. I decided not to take a walk along the footpath and instead caught the train and set off to explore the second station pair to be featured in this month’s blog…

… in Marple.

As the map below shows, the busier of the two stations by far, Marple, sits on the Hope Valley Line between Manchester and Sheffield with Rose Hill Marple located on a line that branches off half a mile west and which at one time was double tracked and continued down to Macclesfield.

That line closed in 1970 with Rose Hill Marple becoming just a single track stub branch off the Hope Valley Line…

… providing a stopping service into Manchester Piccadilly with a somewhat inconveniently spaced hourly-come-half-hourly frequency eg (07:11, 07:42, 08:42, 09:11, 10:11, 10:42, 11:43 etc etc) on Mondays to Saturdays with no service on Sundays.

Unsurprisingly passenger entrances and exits were only 120,000 in 2024/25 which compares to three times as many, 326,000, at neighbouring Marple where a more intensive two-trains-an-hour frequency runs between Manchester Piccadilly and New Mills Central with one of those each hour continuing across the Hope Valley to Sheffield together with offering a quicker journey into Manchester than from Rose Hill Marple.

Marple also offers a service on Sundays although only hourly, with some two-hour gaps.

Although facilities at both stations are limited, both stations offer a friendly welcome, particularly at Rose Hill where there’s an active Friends group who’ve been very successful in picking up awards.

Amazingly for the level of train service, there’s a staffed ticket office at Rose Hill albeit only open between 06:20 and 12:50 on Mondays to Fridays with no facility on Saturdays where, as my visit showed that day, the station is popular with walkers setting off on the former track bed down to Macclesfield.

The former railway line is documented with some historic photos…

… and is well signposted.

As the following photographs show, the single platform is a very colourful place to wait with posters and evidence of the horticultural work of the Friends.

What a great shame that line down to Macclesfield closed as it would have provided a useful link had it survived. Beeching suggested the whole line should close, so at least we can be grateful a campaign during the 1960s managed to save the line as far south as Rose Hill Marple.

Over at Marple, which is about a 20 minute walk to the east, there’s also a ticket office…

… with more extensive opening hours (06:15 – 20:40 on Mondays to Fridays and 07:10 – 21:30 on Saturdays), and a ticket machine by the entrance on the Sheffield bound platform.

Out on the platforms…

… there’s a footbridge with lifts…

… and while the ticket office is on the Sheffield bound platform…

… on the Manchester bound platform there’s an extensive waiting room.

And, what a waiting room it is.

Probably one of the most colourful waiting rooms on the network with a book library and community noticeboard.

As well as a whole variety of different posters and information on display…

… is what will become a heritage style station name and painting.

Posters continue outside too with a display of famous and notable women who have hailed from Marple…

… and, as a poster in the waiting room explains, others who have an association with an Anti-War Campaign for World War 1.

And, perhaps one of the most famous women associated with the station is immortalised in a special blue plaque on the Sheffield bound platform.

And that’s it for Marple.

Two more station pair places will feature next month and if you missed any of the previous 37 pairs check out the back blogs here.

1: Hertford; 2: Canterbury. 3: Wigan, 4 Dorchester, 5 Windsor, 6 Wakefield, 7 Reddish, 8 Yeovil, 9 Newark-on-Trent, 10 New Mills, 11 Tyndrum, 12 St Albans, 13 Falkirk, 14 Catford, 15 Helensburgh, 16 Gainsborough, 17 Edenbridge, 18 Bicester, 19 Worcester, 20 and 21 Epsom and Ewell, 22 Wrexham, 23 Runcorn, 24 Farnborough, 25 Bradford, 26 Enfield, 27 Dalston, 28 Kentish Town, 29 West Hampstead, 30 Battersea, 31 Penge, 32 Bromley, 33 Coulsdon, 34 Carshalton, 35 Harringay, 36 Oulton Broad, 37 Thorne.

Roger French

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