Cheshire Best Kept Stations

John Hulme

Cheshire Best Kept Station Nominated Awards 2024 are announced …..

Nominations are invited for the following 2024 Nominated Categories by Friday 13th September 2024 …..

Note, you do not have to nominate your station in our regular station award categories.
Our team of judges will be out judging Cheshire’s Best Kept Stations for these awards between 10th June and 10th August 2024.

Community Engagement Award
How are you engaging with your members, the travelling public, the local community (including other local community groups of all types including local schools)?

How do you keep in touch with each other? How do you encourage others to get involved with the station? Does what you do encourage more people to take an interest in the station as well as rail travel generally? How does what you do promote mental wellbeing?

What use do you make of emails, phone calls, websites, face to face meetings and activities, zoom meetings etc? What sort of activities do you engage in? Do you get involved/work with other groups locally away from your station? How do you hope to expand your community engagement in the future?

This nomination covers anything that you have undertaken between 1st September 2023 and 31st August 2024 inclusive as well as your plans for the future as mentioned above. 

Art Projects Award
Tell us about any art project(s) that you have delivered in the last year

How was the project chosen and what consultation within the community took place? Who was involved in the delivery of the project and how was the project funded? What was the impact of the art-work and how has it improved the station?

Art projects are not simply confined to pictures but can include anything of an artistic nature as well as the written word (such as sculptures, carvings, poetry displays, posters promoting the station or community, inclusivity, booklets etc.).

This nomination includes anything that you have undertaken between 1st September 2023 and 31st August 2024.

Sustainability Award
This is a wide-ranging category that covers anything which improves or promotes any type of sustainability at the station. What are you doing to improve the sustainability of your station activities? How are you resourcing your work?  How does your work benefit all types of wildlife in and around the station?  Do you have managed wild flower areas? Possible features could include rainwater harvesting, solar power, composting, use of recycled materials, planting to encourage pollinators, choice of drought resistant and low maintenance plants, the provision of bird and bat boxes, bug hotels, research into wildlife etc. plus working with specialist and other groups that promote sustainability.

Have you undertaken projects and activities to promote walking and cycling to and from the station or in and around your station? Do you provide walks booklets/leaflets?  Do you offer any practical help to others?  Have you organised and led walks that involve the use of rail (or other forms of public transport) in part?

This nomination is for any activities undertaken between 1st September 2023 and 31st August  2024. 

Nominations in all of the above three categories should consist of up to two sides of A4 plus up to six images, videos, links to YouTube etc or other documents which should be submitted as separate files.


Nominations should be submitted no later than 17.00 on Friday 13th September 2024 by email to nominations@bestkeptstations.org.uk

Nominations can be submitted by Friends Groups, other Community Groups, Community Rail Partnerships, Train Operating Companies, Local Authorities (including Town and Parish councils) or any other interested stakeholder. 

*** Since this post, we have announced our 2024 Photographic Award  where we are partnering Cheshire Life.

Survey: What do you think about the accessibility of Handforth Station ?

Transport for the North are running a survey on “How accessible is your rail station ?”

This is your chance to feed back your comments and thoughts about how you and those close to you use Handforth Station. The survey concentrates on questions around accessibility at the station and getting to/from the station.

The Friends of Handforth Station will be submitting a generalised response … but we urge you to complete the survey now, to tell them your own personal experiences.

(Yes, the Access For All programme means Handforth Station should be getting lifts in a couple of years, but you can help the FoHS now to keep up the pressure so that we don’t get forgotten about. )

Click here  to start the Survey

Cheshire Best Kept Stations celebrate 21 years of Awards in the May 2024 edition of Cheshire Life …

Dream Tickets Awards honour our Stations and the Army of Volunteers who make them first class heads up the story of our 21st Awards Evening in the May 2024 edition of Cheshire Life and writes …

Cheshire Best Kept Stations marked 21 years of awards at an evening of celebration at the Grange Theatre in Hartford.

The event was attended by the Lord-Lieutenant of Cheshire Lady Alexis Redmond, mayors from the eight boroughs that constitute the former County of Cheshire, and town mayors and the awards were presented by Professor Paul Salveson, a leading figure in the community rail movement.

Click here to download and read the full story in this 5 page spread published in the May 2024 edition of Cheshire Life.

At the event we celebrated 21 years of Station Awards in Cheshire with the publication of as 28 page full colour booklet tracking its history narrated by our President John Hulme BEM.

In the booklet, Professor Paul Salveson MBE, the Founding Father of Community Rail writes:

Cheshire Best Kept Stations is something very special.  I’m amazed that it has been going so long – a wonderful achievement!   This booklet outlines the outstanding work that has been done over the years going back to its early days under the inspiring leadership of John Hulme BEM.  Mark Barker, a highly respected figure in the railway world, has picked up the baton and taken the awards in exciting directions, building on John’s pioneering work.

Very often station awards focus just on the gardens – and Cheshire has some superb examples.   But it’s great to see support for station staff as well as volunteers, at stations both big and small.   COVID could so easily have killed off so many community projects, but Cheshire Best Kept Stations has emerged with renewed vigour.

I often wonder why there are not more ‘regional’ community rail awards.  Cheshire has led the way and it would be good to see other counties or regions copying Cheshire’s example.  I hope this booklet will help spread the word and help inspire other parts of Britain – and who knows, even further afield.

Like the railways, Britain invented ‘community rail’ but it would be good to see it spreading.

With all good wishes for the next 21 years

Click here  to download and read the booklet

Click here to read about the winners of our 21st Anniversary Awards Evening on 12th March 2024

Cheshire Best Kept Stations Celebrates 21 Years ….

On 21st March 2023, Cheshire Best Kept Stations celebrated 21 years of Station Awards in Cheshire with the publication of as 28 page full colour booklet tracking its history narrated by our President John Hulme BEM.

In the booklet, Professor Paul Salveson MBE, the Founding Father of Community Rail writes:

Cheshire Best Kept Stations is something very special.  I’m amazed that it has been going so long – a wonderful achievement!   This booklet outlines the outstanding work that has been done over the years going back to its early days under the inspiring leadership of John Hulme BEM.  Mark Barker, a highly respected figure in the railway world, has picked up the baton and taken the awards in exciting directions, building on John’s pioneering work.

Very often station awards focus just on the gardens – and Cheshire has some superb examples.   But it’s great to see support for station staff as well as volunteers, at stations both big and small.   COVID could so easily have killed off so many community projects, but Cheshire Best Kept Stations has emerged with renewed vigour.

I often wonder why there are not more ‘regional’ community rail awards.  Cheshire has led the way and it would be good to see other counties or regions copying Cheshire’s example.  I hope this booklet will help spread the word and help inspire other parts of Britain – and who knows, even further afield.

Like the railways, Britain invented ‘community rail’ but it would be good to see it spreading.

With all good wishes for the next 21 years

Click here  to download and read the booklet

Commemorative lectern at Handforth’s historic “tank track” ….

Handforth Town Council and the Friends of Handforth Station have installed a commemorative lectern to recognise a significant piece of Handforth’s history.

From the Second World War until the mid 1950s, trains delivered armoured fighting vehicles (tanks) to Handforth, which then trundled down Brereton Road to the Handforth Tank Repair Depot (near what is now Welland Road). Remains of the route used are still visible, with some of it known locally as “the tank track”.

Handforth Exchange Railway Sidings and their controlling signal box were constructed during the Second World War. These railway sidings and their signal box were located in the north of the village – between Handforth Station and the bridge carrying Stanley Road over the railway.

The Railway Sidings gave rise to two branch lines. One of these ran eastwards to service an RAF maintenance depot. The second, an army branch line, ran south to terminate in a dock at Hall Road. Tanks were brought by rail to the Hall Road dock, for driving down Brereton Road and onward to the tank repair depot.

The tank repair depot closed in late 1957 and the army branch line tracks were lifted in the 1970’s/1980’s.Thereafter the branch line route became known locally as “the tank track’’, but gradually deteriorated to become a muddy footpath through the woods.

Determined that the footpath should not deteriorate further, the chair of Handforth Town Council (HTC), Mrs Susan Moore, subsequently campaigned for the use of funds from the Jones Homes Sanctuary development to be used for the provision of (a) a weather-resistant surface for the “tank track” and (b) a pair of commemorative lecterns. Thanks to her efforts, the tank track was resurfaced in late 2023 and now provides a woodland path between Hall Road and Lower Meadow Road.

Under the guidance of their president, Mike Bishop, the Friends of Handforth Station (FoHS) provided the photographs and composed the text for the commemorative lecterns, the first of which was installed at the Hall Road end of the track on Thursday 22nd February.