Welcome to the Cheshire Lines
It's a Summer weekday in 2003 and a unique time in the Northwest's railway history.

The Layout here reflects almost as-was in 2003 though not all of it was used...
- Northwich Up Recep/Sdgs were still layed but out of use and disconnected.
- Northwich 'Works' (Lostock Chemical Works) didn't see any trains in 2003, as it was overgrown and out of use.
- Plumley's Octel GF was disconnected by this time, having seen it's last train in the mid 1980s when the plant shut down in 1985
- The Partington Branch was also out of use, having closed to traffic 10 years earlier in 1993
All other sidings in the sim were used during 2003

The Sole NR operator to this sim is First North Western (NW) which operated the Chester to Manchester (and beyond) service, utilizing 142s, 150s and 156s

However, we also have a second operator...Metrolink!
Having only been founded in 1992 the company was only 11 years old at the time of this timetable, and only operated the following routes:
Piccadilly - Bury (opened in 1992)
Piccadilly - Altrincham (opened in 1992)
Piccadilly - Eccles (opened in 2000)
The other extensions wouldn't open for at least another 7 years with Media City UK (2010), Oldham & Rochdale (2013), East Didsbury, Mcr Airport & Ashton (2013) and the Trafford Centre (2020)

As i'm not sure of the 'official' headcodes of the Metrolink I've just gone with a simple system...
'AP' are Altrincham - Picc Services
'AB' are Altrincham - Bury Services
'PP' are Peaktime Services to Piccadilly
'PA' Are Piccadilly - Altrincham Services
'BA' are Bury - Altrincham Services
'CA' are Peaktime Piccadilly - Altrincham Services
'AZ' are Altringham - Trafford Pk (Metrolink Depot), with 'ZA' being the other way

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Freight was in the hands of 1 Operator
EWS was the core operator here which mostly handled 'Enterprise' workings, Limestone to/from Winnington (Oakleigh Sdgs), and other mixed goods. Their Locomotives were in the forms of Class 37s, 60s & 66s,

DRS & Freightliner do also make an appearance, though only to run round after coming to/from Hartford Jn
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Other Notes;
I have included the 00:00 start, though the first passenger services don't appear till about 6am, and freight is rather sparse, so you may get a little bored!

Northenden see's the most use of all the panels with freight traffic using the RTS plant and the Station Sidings (now a cement works), and a lot of propelling and shunting is done, so watch out as it's easy to be caught off guard by a passenger train!

With regard to run-rounds at Skelton (for Cement workings), you can either reverse trains on the Partington branch (where a route exists to the LOS), or onto the Down Main and pass DJ16 at danger (as no route exists to the LOS)

Finally thanks for playing! this took a lot of long nights to pull off and I hope that it reflects that.
Enjoy the Chaos!