Darlington railway station


Darlington railway station is on the East Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom, serving the town of Darlington, County Durham. It is north of and on the main line it is situated between to the south and to the north. Its three-letter station code is DAR.
The station is well served, since it is an important stop for main line services, with trains being operated by London North Eastern Railway, CrossCountry and TransPennine Express, and it is the interchange for Northern services to Bishop Auckland, and Saltburn.
Darlington is the location of the first commercial steam railway: the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The station building is a Grade II* listed Victorian structure and winner of the "Large Station of the Year" award in 2005.

History

The first railway to pass through the area now occupied by the station was built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, who opened their mineral branch from Albert Hill Junction on their main line to Croft-on-Tees on 27 October 1829. This branch line was subsequently purchased by the Great North of England Railway a decade later to incorporate into their new main line from York which reached the town on 30 March 1841. A separate company, the Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway continued the new main line northwards towards Ferryhill and Newcastle, opening its route three years later on 19 June 1844. This crossed the S&D at Parkgate Junction by means of a flat crossing which would in future years become something of an operational headache for the North Eastern Railway and LNER. The original Bank Top station where the two routes met was a modest affair, which was rebuilt in 1860 to accommodate the expanding levels of traffic on the main line. By the mid-1880s even this replacement structure was deemed inadequate and so the NER embarked on a major upgrade to facilities in the area. This included an ornate new station with an impressive three-span overall roof on the Bank Top site, new sidings and goods lines alongside it and a new connecting line from the south end of the station to meet the original S&D line towards Middlesbrough at Oak Tree Junction near. These improvements were completed on 1 July 1887, when the old route west of Oak Tree closed to passengers.
The new station, with its broad island platform was designed by T.E. Harrison chief engineer, and William Bell, the architect of the North Eastern Railway. and cost £81,000 to construct and soon became a busy interchange on the main East Coast route, thanks to its rail links to Richmond, and and the Tees Valley Line to and .
The lines to Penrith, Barnard Castle and Richmond have now gone, but the main line and the Tees Valley route remain busy. It is also still possible to travel to Catterick Garrison and Richmond from here, by means of the Arriva North East-operated X26 and X27 buses. The same company also operated the Sky Express bus service to Durham Tees Valley Airport from the station, but this was withdrawn in January 2009 due to declining demand.
In the 1980s a replica set of Darlington Railway Station was built for an episode of Noel's Saturday Roadshow for the BBC.

Station masters

As noted previous, the station is fully staffed; the ticket office is open throughout the week. There is a waiting room and a first class Lounge on the platform, with the lounge open between 06:00 and 20:00 each day. Self-service ticket machines are also provided for use outside the opening hours for the booking office and for collecting pre-paid tickets. Various retail outlets are located in the main buildings, including a coffee shop, grocers and newsagents. Vending machines, toilets, a photo booth, payphone and cash machines are also provided. Train running information is offered via digital CIS displays, announcements and timetable posters. Step-free access to all platforms is via ramps from the subway linking the platforms with the main entrance and car park.

Services

Darlington is well served by trains on the East Coast Main Line, with regular trains southbound to London King's Cross via and northbound to Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley operated by London North Eastern Railway. Two trains per hour run south to London and north to Newcastle for much of the day with hourly services to Edinburgh Waverley. There are also several daily services to and also daily direct services to Stirling and .
Due to the introduction of the new ECML timetable on 22 May 2011, LNER only now provide one daily direct service each way between London King's Cross and Glasgow Central which calls at Darlington. The northbound service to Glasgow departs Darlington at 18:09 and the southbound service from Glasgow arrives into Darlington at 10:00.
CrossCountry services between Edinburgh, Newcastle and Birmingham New Street and beyond to also call here twice each hour. Certain CrossCountry trains extend beyond Edinburgh to Glasgow Central, Dundee or Aberdeen.
TransPennine Express run two trains per hour in each direction. Northbound; one service runs to Newcastle with a second extending to Edinburgh Waverley. Southbound; one service runs to Liverpool Lime Street via York, Leeds, Huddersfield, Manchester Victoria and Newton Le Willows with the second running to Manchester Airport via the Ordsall Chord. There is also one train early morning service to Redcar Central via Middlesbrough.
Northern run their Tees Valley line trains twice hourly to, Redcar and Saltburn, whilst the branch has a service every hour. The company also operates two Sundays-only direct trains to/from Stockton and.

Platforms

Darlington railway station has five main platforms:
As part of the Tees Valley Metro, two new platforms were to be built on the eastern edge of the main station. There were to be a total of four trains per hour, to and Saltburn via the Tees Valley Line, and trains would not have to cross the East Coast Main Line when the new platforms would have been built. The Tees Valley Metro project was, however, cancelled.
Services on the Bishop Auckland branch are also to be improved to hourly throughout the day, as part of the new Northern franchise from the December 2017 timetable change.

High Speed 2

The new high speed rail project in the UK, High Speed 2, is planned to run through Darlington once Phase 2b is complete and will run on the existing East Coast Main Line from York and Newcastle. Darlington Station will have two new platforms built for the HS2 trains on the Main Line, as the station is built just off the ECML to allow for freight services to pass through.
HS2 Phase 2b is scheduled to start running in late 2033.