The station opened as
Oxford Road on 20 July 1849 and was the headquarters of the
Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway (MSJAR) until 1904. The station was built on the site of 'Little Ireland', a slum "of a worse character than
St Giles", in which about four thousand people had lived in "measureless filth and stench" (according to
Friedrich Engels in
The Condition of the Working Class in England) and of a gasworks which was relocated to the west. The station buildings, which were temporary wooden structures, were accessed by an inclined esplanade winding to the right from Gloucester Street (now Whitworth Street West) to reach their north front. There was a single platform on the north side of the line through to
Manchester London Road and a second platform on a west-facing siding. To allow for extra trains in connection with the Manchester
Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, extra platforms and sidings were built, but removed afterwards. A meeting of MSJAR
contract ticket holders in 1863 included in its list of complaints the want of punctuality "especially as at Oxford Road station there is only one platform used for both passengers and milk". From 1854 onwards, Oxford Road served as the terminus for a service to Liverpool, independent of the
London and North Western Railway(LNWR) (one of the joint owners of MSJAR). The rail service went no further than
Garston, with the final leg of the journey being made by steamer, Goods going beyond the MSJAR were not handled at Oxford Road between March and July 1865 whilst some enlargement (and widening) work was carried out. The MS&LR pressed ahead with the
joint lines to give it direct and independent rail access to Liverpool, but the LNWR blocked any matching improvement to the MSJAR and to Oxford Road, only offering to let these go ahead when the scheme for
Manchester Central station was brought forward. To defeat the bill for the scheme, the LNWR then promised to cooperate with the MS&LR in widening the MSJAR and enlarging Oxford Road. However,
Edward Watkin, chairman of the MS&LR, later complained that the LNWR had ensured no improvement took place before the MS&LR had its route to Liverpool. In October 1874, with
Liverpool Central railway station now open, a letter to the press complained that with the additional services over the
Cheshire Lines now using Oxford Road it was dangerously overcrowded. In the two and a half hours from 8 am, thirty-seven trains were booked to call at Oxford Road: this was far too many considering there was but one platform. Frequently, passengers were compelled to alight outside the station, sometimes on the siding rails, at risk of personal injury, because of "the blocked-up state" of the station. Furthermore, it was rumoured that the LNWR was planning to run a competing service (via
Broadheath and Warrington) between Oxford Road and
Liverpool Lime Street: if this were true, then it would further worsen the congestion, and the
Board of Trade should forbid it. In 1876, about £12,000 was spent on enlarging the station facilities, including the provision of a refreshment room; the station was then said to be handling about a hundred thousand passengers a week. Train-handling congestion was eased when Manchester Central station came into use, and in 1892 the MSJAR, under pressure to greatly improve
Knott Mill, rejected the suggestion of Manchester Corporation that it could kill two birds with one stone by replacing its two existing unsatisfactory stations with a single new, thoroughly satisfactory, station somewhere between them. The MSJAR offered instead a limited reconstruction of the waiting rooms and booking hall; it also rejected the council's offer of assistance with providing a more suitable approach to the station only to accept it two years later. Press articles on the golden jubilee of the line in 1899 noted that the platform layout was still that of 1849 and somewhat of a museum piece: "if the station were to be designed today... it would have a platform on each side of the main line, an advantage which its frequenters know it does not possess..." and better use would be made of the space currently taken up by the terminal platform, used principally for special trains, mostly those serving
Old Trafford during the cricket season. , the station was refurbished in 1988 to cope with increased patronage Reconstruction took place during 1903–04. The approach was further improved, the ticket office and the refreshment room were expanded, and the MSJAR offices were removed. They were to have been moved to an adjacent building, but this proved unnecessary: the 78-year-old manager and secretary retired at the end of 1903, and administration of the line was taken over by an LNWR District Superintendent based at
Manchester Exchange railway station: An island platform was added on the through lines, coming into use in November 1904. From 1931, it was served by the MSJAR's
electric trains between
Altrincham and
Manchester Piccadilly. From July 1959, Altrincham electric trains were cut back from Piccadilly to terminate at Oxford Road in two new bay platforms. The station's other lines were re-electrified at . The whole station was again rebuilt and reopened on 12 September 1960, to a design by W. R. Headley and Max Clendinning of British Rail's London Midland region, encompassing three overlapping cones for the main structure. The station's location on a viaduct running through the city centre required its load to be lightened, which the architects achieved by using wood for the station structure and platform canopies. In 2013, the station received a £1.8million renovation to improve access, including lifts and an emergency exit. On 10 December 2017, with the opening of the
Ordsall Chord, it became possible for trains to run from Manchester Piccadilly to . Initially an hourly Northern service operated to the Calder Valley but, from May 2018, the
TransPennine Express (TPE) to and services were rerouted through the station.
Future In the
Northern Hub plans, the platforms will be extended to allow use by longer trains. The bay platform will be removed to allow the other platforms to be extended. Under controversial plans much of the nearby area's Victorian character will be razed, including the Salisbury pub, and the group of streets nearby known as 'Little Ireland'. In 2025, Network Rail began consulting on a proposed rationalisation to provide two through platforms accommodating 8-coach trains, with a central west-facing turnback platform replacing the current Platform 5. ==Architecture==