Saturday 1st November 2025

Runcorn’s two stations have very different pedigrees and present quite a contrast. The town’s long standing main station, called Runcorn, opened way back in April 1869 whereas its youthful compatriot, Runcorn East, is a much more contemporary addition to the network, opening as recently as October 1983.

The town of Rucorn nestling in Halton between Merseyside, Warrington and Greater Manchester gained fame in 1964 when designated a New Town by the Government, leading to a projected doubling of population in subsequent years. Extensive new house building brought in residents from Liverpool, the wider area of Merseyside and further afield. The railway station was not particularly conveniently sited for the expansion with new development to the east of the old town, hence, in later years the opening of the town’s second station, Runcorn East, located on the eastern flank of the newly expanded town, as shown on the map below.

The original Runcorn station is located on the main line connecting London with Crewe and Liverpool and also sees trains head south to Wolverhampton and Birmingham as well as to Chester so enjoying the presence of Avanti West Coast, London Northwestern Railway and Transport for Wales respectively.

Avanti’s London Euston to Liverpool timetable isn’t quite yet fully up to two journeys per hour throughout the day as there are still some hourly gaps in the late morning and early afternoon but it’s better than it was and now sees seven coach Class 807 trains allocated to most journeys. The extra journeys in the timetable provide direct journeys from Runcorn to Lichfield and Tamworth (with trains running non stop through Crewe) with the more established journeys each hour calling at Crewe and Milton Keynes. More journeys are being added in next month’s timetable change giving much more consistency to the half hourly frequency.

London Northwestern Railway runs two trains an hour between Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Crewe and Liverpool now using its new Class 730 trains and…

….Transport for Wales operates hourly between Liverpool and Chester via the Frodsham curve using its newish Class 197 trains.

Runcorn therefore sees five trains an hour in total (most hours) in each direction with all northbound (or is it westbound) continuing to Liverpool.

Runcorn East is less busy, seeing just a daytime hourly service in each direction provided by Transport for Wales. It’s located on the line via Frodsham and Helsby to Chester with trains continuing to Llandudno or Holyhead. Warrington and Manchester (including the Airport) are served in the other direction and again passengers will travel in newish trains with more Class 197s.

Northern runs limited weekday journeys in the early morning (three) and evening (two or six depending on direction) between Chester and Manchester then on to Bradford and Leeds which call at Runcorn East but as you can see from the timetable below, none of the trains call during the daytime but pass by without stopping.

Taking both stations together Runcorn residents enjoy useful connections to Manchester, north Wales, the Midlands and south of England but neither station is particularly conveniently located for the town; both being on its extreme edges (west and east).

Runcorn is managed by Avanti West Coast with Runcorn East managed by Transport for Wales even though the station is very much in Cheshire. This leads to the unusual situation of TfW information being provided on posters in English only. Interestingly Bradford and Leeds don’t get a mention on the stations served poster either.

Runcorn saw 625,000 passengers entries and exits in 2023/24 while Runcorn East had about a quarter of that at 175,000.

As you can see from the earlier map, the distance between the two stations is the furthest we’ve come across yet in this series, at over five miles, with Google maps indicating it would be an 83 minute walk. A bus ride takes about 25 minutes or it’s about 15 minutes in a car or taxi.

Neither station is over brimming with passenger facilities.

Runcorn’s rather under stated building on the southbound platform is overshadowed by a huge multi-storey car park…

… and with no other covered waiting shelters on the rather narrow width southbound Platform 1…

… it’s just as well there are a number of seats provided inside…

…alongside the two ticket office windows…

… and two ticket machines…

… so passengers have somewhere to wait albeit it can get quite crowded as the London train departure time approaches.

There’s a small retail outlet which also serves coffee…

… and next door in an adjacent room there’s a public space for community meetings…

…which can also be rented out.

Toilets for passengers and staff facilities complete the building’s occupation.

Over on Platform 2 for Liverpool bound trains there’s a substantial waiting shelter…

… including a separate section for those needing assistance…

… and a much smaller basic shelter with no seats by the footbridge and lifts.

It’s quite a climb to cross over the footbridge…

… which seems to be higher than the norm…

… with four sets of eleven stairs.

Unusually there’s a separate line for freight trains which branches off just south of the station and passes alongside Platform 2…

… meaning the minor access for that platform from the west side of the station is always via the footbridge.

Outside the station building extensive work over the last few years has transformed the area with much improved ‘public realm’.

There are bus stops fairly close by but in the absence of maps it’s confusing trying to work out which routes go where. I gave up.

In the ticket office/waiting area there’s a fancy electronic sign showing up coming bus departures (shown on the right in the photo below – I bet not many people notice it) but you need to know the bus route you require for it to be of any use.

I gave the interactive lower panel…

… promising directions to other locations a try, particularly as I wanted to travel over to Runcorn East …

… but on pressing the icon the screen went blank.

Google maps told me an Arriva bus on route 79C would take me close to Runcorn East (as shown in the above display to Murdishaw) but despite waiting ten minutes after the due time it didn’t turn up so in the end I took a walk to the old High Street bus station and caught a 62 heading to Warrington which was on diversion to serve the main Shopping City bus departure points due to structural works on the Busway, but that’s another story.

I got there eventually and it’s a short walk from the Busway down a slope to Runcorn East station.

Which is where I met Phil on my visit yesterday morning. He runs the station’s small ticket office for five of its six day openings between 07:00 and 12:00.

As it was midday he was just closing up and recognised me from Geoff Marshall’s YouTube channel and he even kindly offered to give me a lift back to Runcorn station which he was passing by on his way home.

What a lovely man and I could see how the station was in good hands as I’d noticed on a previous visit a display of award winning plaques which didn’t surprise me having now met the man behind the station’s success.

There aren’t any facilities other than the ticket office which sits high above the railway tracks meaning many steps or a long slope down to reach the two platforms…

… also connected by both a railway owned footbridge…

… and a public footbridge…

… which connects the Busway over to the eastern side of the station…

… where there’s a recently expanded car park for passengers which is in council ownership and, very unusually, is free to use.

Each platform has a ‘bus’ style shelter including cycle stands…

… as well as a Ticket Machine.

And that’s about it for Runcorn East. But it’s all very quaint.

Back at Runcorn I bumped into blog reader John from Derby who it was nice to catch up with and my thanks to both John and Phil for their friendliness.

Roger French

Did you catch the 21 previous blogs in this series? 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 Epsom and Ewell, 21 Wrexham.

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