After a gap of nearly 22 years, a passenger train ran to Cheadle on 28 March 1985 to mark the launch of the InterCity Charter Train Unit. The service included several Pullman vehicles and was hauled by a class 47 diesel number 47532. Passengers were taken by road to Alton Towers. The Cheadle branch was chosen by InterCity to show the versatility of the charter service by running on an out of use railway for part of the journey. A regular service to bring in the park's visitors by rail sadly never came to fruition and the line once again became redundant. The last train to Cheadle was a weedkilling train in the summer of 1986. The junction with the main Stoke to Derby line was severed in 1989, thus isolating the Cheadle branch from the national rail network.