Blacon railway station

Blacon railway station was located in Blacon, Cheshire, England and was part of the line between Chester Northgate and Hawarden Bridge. This line was later extended to reach Wrexham and Birkenhead.

Blacon Station opened on 31 March 1890 by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (later the Great Central Railway). The station included the station master's house and a brick goods warehouse. A "Cheap Day" return to Chester Northgate Station would cost 6d compared to a bus fare of 9d return.

Despite being a busy station, it closed to passengers on 9 September 1968 by British Railways,citeweb|url=http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/b/blacon/index.shtml|title=Station Name: Blacon|work=Disused Stations|accessdate=6 October|accessyear=2008] as part of the Beeching Axe for the economic modernisation of the British railway network in the mid-1960s. [Richard Beeching's report "The Reshaping of British Railways" was published in 1965.] Even with the closure of steelmaking operations at Shotton in March 1980, [citeweb|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/sites/flintshire/pages/steel.shtml |title=Shotton Steelworks and Garden City|accessdate=6 October|accessyear=2008] freight continued to use the line through the station until 20 April 1984. Goods services resumed use of the now single track line on 31 August 1986 before ceasing altogether in the early 1990s. [citebook|title=Cheshire Railways Remembered |last=Oppitz|first=Leslie|date=1997|pages=p111|publisher=Countryside Books|isbn=1-85306-458-0]

The station buildings have been demolished, although the nearby road bridge over the former track remains. The trackbed has been replaced by a tarmac road surface, which now provides a cycle path, jogging track and a countryside walkway. [citeweb|url=http://www.chesterwalls.info/railstroll/rail18.html|title=A Virtual Stroll Along the Mickle Trafford-Shotton Railway]

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