Update from the Crewe to Manchester Community Rail Partnership:
London Northwestern Railway will introduce a new hourly direct service from Birmingham via Stoke on Trent to Manchester Airport in May 2027. This will provide a new through link to Manchester Airport for twelve stations in the Potteries and West Midlands. This will replace the existing Crewe – Manchester Airport – Manchester Piccadilly local service although Northern will still operate the Manchester Airport to Manchester Piccadilly leg of the current service.
North of Crewe, the new service will call at Sandbach, Holmes Chapel, Wilmslow, Styal and Manchester Airport. These stations will benefit from the new service operating two hours later into the evening than at present and also on Sundays. They will have a new direct train service to Alsager, Kidsgrove, Longport, Stoke on Trent, Stone, Stafford and stations to Birmingham. Whilst it may be possible to arrive in Stafford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham earlier by changing at Crewe, many passengers, particularly infrequent travellers, may prefer to travel on a through train even if it takes a little longer.
Unfortunately the new service will not be able to call at Alderley Edge, although this station will still have a twice hourly service to Manchester via Stockport. We are calling for tickets between Alderley Edge and Holmes Chapel, Sandbach and Crewe to be valid for travel via Wilmslow as well as direct in order to maintain the number of journey opportunities between these stations.
The new service will no longer operate through to Manchester Piccadilly, so it will be necessary to change at Manchester Airport between the Birmingham train and the Northern local service to Manchester. These services will connect and there should be no increase in overall journey time. Northern believe that most local passengers prefer to travel via Stockport than via the Airport. We expect that tickets between Styal and Manchester will be valid for travel via both Manchester Airport and Wilmslow.
The Crewe – Stockport – Manchester Piccadilly Northern service will be unaffected. Northern will also continue to operate an early morning pair of trains between Manchester and Crewe via Manchester Airport , and late evening services between Manchester and Wilmslow via Manchester Airport . These will be in the hours when the Birmingham trains are not running.
Access to Manchester Airport by train from the South has never been as comprehensive as from the North, so this new service offers a major improvement for the West Midlands and Potteries and is likely to prove very popular. The changes offer benefits to local stations such as seven day a week operation, and through journey opportunities south of Crewe. There are some disadvantages as well and we will press for mitigations for them.
Further information will be given when the detailed timings have been confirmed.