v t e LNWR lines to Bolton
Legend
Deansgate Goods Bolton Crook Street Goods Bolton Great Moor Street Original alignment shown in grey Rumworth and Daubhill Daubhill ( original and incline ) Plodder Lane Shed Plodder Lane Chequerbent Chequerbent ( original and incline ) Little Hulton Manchester–Southport line (LYR) to Wigan Wallgate Walkden High Level Atherton Bag Lane Walkden Low Level Hindley Green Howe Bridge Manchester & Wigan Rly to Wigan North Western Plank Lane Tyldesley Loopline Atherleigh Tyldesley Westleigh Ellenbrook Leigh Bolton and Leigh Railway Kenyon & Leigh Junction Rly Worsley Leeds & Liverpool Canal Bridgewater Canal Monton Green Pennington junctions to Bury Pennington Eccles East Lancashire Road Liverpool–Manchester lines Kenyon Junction Bridgewater Canal Liverpool–Manchester lines Some stations omitted in dotted sections

Atherton Bag Lane railway station served the town of Atherton, Lancashire, England. It was located on the Bolton and Leigh Railway line which ran from Bolton Great Moor Street to Leigh Station and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and later to Kenyon Junction.

The Bolton and Leigh Railway (B&LR) opened Bag Lane station as one of the original stations on the line on 11 June 1831.^[1] The B&LR became part of the Grand Junction Railway in 1845 which became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR) in 1846.^[2]

The original "spartan" single platform station was constructed on the East side of the single track line in the centre of Bag Lane village, opposite the Railway Inn.^[3][4]

The station was renamed Atherton in 1847.^[5]

The station was rebuilt in 1880 when the line was doubled. The new station having two platforms with canopies. The platforms were accessed by an underground passage from a new road, Railway Street.^[6][7] There was an adjacent goods station capable of handling "Live Stock, Horse Boxes and Prize Cattle Vans". The goods yard was equipped with a 10 ton crane.^[8]

The L&NWR became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) during the Grouping in 1923.

The station was renamed Atherton Bag Lane on 2 June 1924 to distinguish it from Atherton Central on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.^[9][10]

It passed on to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948 and was closed by the British Transport Commission six years later.^[11]

The line closed to all traffic in the late 1960s and in 1970 the road was re-laid over its original path.^[12]

• Awdry, Christopher (1990). Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies. Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0049-7. OCLC 19514063. CN 8983.
• Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
• The Railway Clearing House (1970) [1904]. The Railway Clearing House Handbook of Railway Stations 1904 (1970 D&C Reprint ed.). Newton Abbot: David & Charles Reprints. ISBN 0-7153-5120-6.
• Sweeney, D.J. (1996), A Lancashire Triangle Part One, Triangle Publishing, ISBN 0-9529333-0-6

• Holland, Bert (2001), Plodder Lane for Farnworth, Leigh: Triangle Publishing, ISBN 0-9529333-6-5

• The station on a 1948 OS map via npe maps
• The station via Disused Stations UK
• The station and line via railwaycodes