(This line has now been closed and converted into a cycleway)

37004 and 078 head one of the final steel trains to Ravenscraig away from Dee Marsh towards Mickle Trafford on the evening of June 25th, 1992.  The line from Mickle Trafford to Dee Marsh was re-opened in 1984 after having closed with the ending of steel making at Shotton in 1980.  What brought this about was the partial singling of the Chester - Wrexham line due to road construction which led to severe congestion on the single track section.   The Mickle Trafford line was mainly used to bring steel coil in from Ravenscraig steelworks in Scotland and to return the empty wagons.  With the closure of Ravenscraig in 1992 there was no further use for the line - the only remaining traffic of timber could be diverted to run via Wrexham.  The track has now been lifted and the trackbed is now a cycleway.  More photos of the line on Tim Roger's website.

37078 and 248 at Saughall on a train of empty coil wagons returning to Ravenscraig.on 16 June 1992 shortly before the line closed for good.   The train although heading for Scotland is running on the wrong track.  This is because when the line was reopened it was as a single track and the best sections of track were reinstated.  Having said that, most of the track was in a dreadful condition and a speed limit of 10mph was in force over long stretches.

The train shown in the previous photo is shown here crossing over to use the former up line, this maneouvre occurred in several places.  Passenger services on this line ended in 1969 when Chester Northgate station was closed, however Saughall station had closed to passengers as early as 1954.

31116 at that time named "Rail" passes the disused platforms of Blacon station with an engineers train of signal troughing for the Merseyrail resignalling scheme.   When the line was open for passenger traffic, Blacon was one of the busiest stations being conveniently situated to a large housing estate.  The station buildings were on the left hand side.  22 May 1992.

37501 and 502 crawl through on the 15th of January 1991.

37710 passes the site of Liverpool Road station in Chester on 23 6 92.
The line to Northgate station use to diverge here on the left.

47286 passes through Hoole light engine on its way to Dee Marsh.  Hoole was situated on the ex Cheshire Lines route to Manchester Central which closed to passengers in 1969 when services were diverted to Chester General following the closure of Northgate station.  23 June 1992.

37053 and 059 cross over the diamond crossing at Mickle Trafford box on their way to Dee Marsh with a long timber train on a dull 19th of June 1992.  The junction at Mickle Trafford has a complicated history.  Although the Chester General - Warrington and Chester Northgate - Manchester lines were adjacent there was no connection between the two until the second world war.  Then a double track westbound link from the Warrington line to the CLC was laid.  The situation changed again in 1968 when Chester Northgate station closed.  To allow trains from the Cheshire Lines to reach Chester General, a sngle track connection was laid.  At the same time the existing double track connection was singled.  This resulted in the almost unique diamond crossing arrangement at the rear of the signal box.  Closure of the line to Dee Marsh in 1992 has seen the junction reduced to just a single track connection from the Chester - Warrington route to the ex CLC line to Altrincham and Manchester.

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