Cheadle Hulme railway station is a station in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester, England. It is operated by Northern Trains. Cheadle Hulme's first railway station opened in 1842, when the Manchester and Birmingham Railway to Crewe was completed. With the extension of the line to Macclesfield, and later Stoke-on-Trent, a new station opened in 1845 which has served the area since. The railway transformed it from a collection of small hamlets into a suburb of over 29,000 people. History Background In 1833 Parliament approved the Grand Junction Railway, a railway line to connect Manchester and Birmingham. It opened in 1837, after proposals had been made for more direct routes in 1830 and 1835. The earlier schemes attracted little interest, but two proposals were put forward in late 1835. The two companies, based in Manchester and Birmingham, had to negotiate with each other to develop the proposals, and they were altered somewhat over the next two years. In 1837 Parliament approved the final plans for lines to Crewe and Stoke. The companies merged to become the Manchester and Birmingham Railway company, and the first part of the line opened in June 1840. It originally ran from a temporary station at Travis Street in Manchester, to a station in Heaton Norris just north of Stockport. A large viaduct was built over the River Mersey, and opened to trains on 10 May 1842. It allowed services to be extended to Sandbach; in the following August they reached Crewe. Also at this time, a new station opened to serve as the line's northern terminus; it later became Manchester Piccadilly. Edgeley railway station opened in February 1843 in response to complaints that the Heaton Norris station was "too inconvenient", and it soon became Stockport's busiest station. Three years later in 1846 the Manchester and Birmingham Railway company merged with two other companies to become the London and North Western Railway. Cheadle station The original Cheadle Hulme railway station on the Crewe line, about south-west of the current structure, was known simply as "Cheadle". It was in use from May 1842, following the opening of the viaduct. The station building, opposite the Hesketh Tavern public house, is now a private residence. It included a structure from which tickets were sold, and in the window of which a candle was lit to act as a signal during the hours of darkness. This structure, however, no longer exists. When