Fallowfield Loop Line

Fallowfield Loop Line
St Werburgh's Road bridge over the Fallowfield Loop Cycleway
Overview
Type	Local rail
System	National Rail
Status	Disused, re-purposed as cycle track
Locale	Manchester, England, UK
Termini	Manchester Central Guide Bridge/Gorton
Stations	10
Operation
Opened	1892
Closed	closed to passengers 1958; fully closed 1988
Owner	Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway; British Rail
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Route map

The Fallowfield Loop railway line was a local railway route in Greater Manchester, England. Trains on the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) line (later, the Great Central Railway line) from Sheffield Victoria and Guide Bridge used the Loop to access Manchester Central railway station. Some express trains including the Harwich-Sheffield-Manchester-Liverpool boat train used the line.

The line was fully opened in 1892 and remained in use until 1988, the stations at Hyde Road, Levenshulme South, Fallowfield and Wilbraham Road having closed in 1958 following the withdrawal of passenger services.

Reddish Depot was built adjacent to the line in 1954 to maintain the new fleet of electric trains for the Woodhead Line, and remained open until 1983.

The initial section of the Fallowfield Loop line was opened by the MS&LR (Cheshire Lines Committee) between Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Fallowfield on 1 October 1891. The following year, the remaining section between Fallowfield and Fairfield opened on 2 May 1892. The line provided a new route for the MS&LR to run trains from Sheffield into Manchester, and local stopping services ran from Fairfield and Gorton on the Hope Valley line to Manchester Central via Hyde Road, Fallowfield and Chorlton-cum-Hardy before joining a section of line from Old Trafford into Manchester Central.