Crewe

Crewe is a major route intersection on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) with three separate routes entering from the south – Stoke, Shrewsbury and Stafford (WCML south), and three from the north – Manchester, Chester and Warrington (WCML north).

Crewe
Description	A simulation of the famous railway junction at Crewe.
Country	United Kingdom
Time period	2023
Train Operating Company	Avanti West Coast, Northern, Transport for Wales, CrossCountry, London Northwestern Railway, East Midlands Railway, Caledonian Sleeper
Simulation difficulty
Author	RailOSDevTeam
Repository	Crewe
Website	Crewe
Rolling Stock	Class 150 Class 158 Class 170 Class 175 Class 220 Class 221 Class 323 Class 331 Class 350 Class 390 Class 92 + 16*Mk5
Route map West Coast Main Line Chester Crewe Works Electric Traction Maintenance Depot Heritage Centre Manchester Crewe Salop Goods Junction Crewe Diesel Depot Crewe South Yard Carriage Sidings Stoke-on-Trent Shrewsbury Basford Hall Sidings West Coast Main Line

There is a major freight yard at Basford Hall, south of Crewe on the west side of the main line. So heavy has freight traffic always been in this area that a complex network of lines bypassing the station was constructed between 1896 and 1901, known as the independent lines. These allow access to the Basford Hall freight yard from five of the six converging routes, the only one missing being that from Stoke.

Timetable

An eight hour timetable is provided from 06:00 with services starting to tail off after 14:00, the final service ending at 14:40. Standard services are as follows.

Crewe Services
Train Operating Company	Origin	Destination	Frequency (tph)
Avanti West Coast	London Euston	Glasgow Central	1.5
		Edinburgh Waverley	0.5
		Chester / Holyhead	1
		Liverpool Lime Street	1
		Manchester Piccadilly	1
Northern	Crewe		2
Transport for Wales	Cardiff Central		0.5
	Carmarthen / Milford Haven		0.5
	Crewe	Shrewsbury	0.5
		Chester	1
East Midlands Railway		Newark Castle	1
London Northwestern Railway		London Euston	1
		Birmingham New Street	1
	Liverpool Lime Street		1

Operational Tips

• Services into platform 6 entering from south of the station often exit towards Manchester, so they should stop at the mid-platform signal to access the Manchester crossovers.
• Services into platform 1 should stop at the appropriate mid-platform signal because there are occasions when two services (one from the north and one from the south) use the platform at the same time, change direction, then exit.
• Be aware that freight arrival times at Salop Goods Junction and Basford Hall Sidings are often not in the same order as departure times. The longest waiting times are at Basford Hall so siding numbers are suggested in the service descriptions to avoid conflicts.
• Avoid signalling freights too far ahead as other freights often need to cross their paths. Also note that if a train is moving on a route containing only ground signals then truncating the route will cause it to be locked no matter how many ground signals there are.
• Freight services that don't stop at Basford Hall Sidings should use either the up or down independent lines.
• Freight services from the independent lines (via Salop Goods Junction) must always use the slow lines when re-joining the main line.
• Remember to reset points to straight after trains have used crossovers, otherwise subsequent straight routes are likely to weave in and out of the crossovers.