Stockton railway station (County Durham)


Stockton railway station serves the town of Stockton-on-Tees, within the borough of Stockton-on-Tees and the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. The railway station is located on the Durham Coast Line and is operated by Northern Trains who provide all of the station's passenger services. Thornaby railway station, across the River Tees from Stockton-on-Tees provides a wider range of services and acts as the main railway station for most of Stockton-on-Tees. This station originally had a roof but it was removed in 1979 due to being in a bad state of repair and it has not been replaced since. The other main buildings are also no longer in rail use, having been converted into apartments.
Station facilities here have been improved and included new fully lit waiting shelters, digital information screens and the installation of CCTV. The long-line Public Address system has been renewed and upgraded with pre-recorded train announcements. A fully accessible footbridge has also been built to provide step-free access to both platforms. There are however no ticket facilities here, so all tickets have to be bought prior to travel or on the train.
Grand Central services between Sunderland and London King's Cross pass through the station but do not stop here.

History

In 1852 the Leeds Northern Railway, which had been renamed from the Leeds and Thirsk Railway in 1849, extended its route northwards from to Billingham-on-Tees by way of and. One of the intermediate stations on the line was at Stockton-on-Tees, this station opening on 2 June 1852; it was very soon renamed, becoming North Stockton in either 1852 or 1853.
At that time, it was shared by the LNR and the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway. but soon after, in 1854, they both amalgamated with several other railways to form the North Eastern Railway. On 1 November 1892 this station resumed its original name, and this was retained until 1985 when British Rail simplified the name to Stockton. The 1852 station was rebuilt on the same site in 1892/3 by the NER, including the overall roof mentioned above.
The current station is not at the same location as the former terminus of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
The station was also served by the Clarence Railway lines from and Simpasture Junction via, which joined the Leeds Northern line at Norton and also by the NER-built route to from 1880. These routes were built primarily to convey coal from the many collieries in the area to the docks at Middlesbrough, but the Ferryhill and Wellfield lines also had local passenger services that called here. Trains on the Wellfield route were withdrawn by the LNER in November 1931, whilst the Ferryhill service ended in March 1952.

Services

There is an hourly service from the station in each direction, northbound to Sunderland and Newcastle and southbound to Middlesbrough. Many northbound trains continue to Hexham, whilst most southbound trains run through to Nunthorpe.
On Sundays there is an hourly service in each direction between Middlesbrough and Newcastle, with some extensions to/from, plus two additional services between and Hartlepool that avoid Middlesbrough using the original 1852 link via Stockton Cut Junction. These are the last remnants of the much more frequent direct service that ran between Darlington and Hartlepool up until 1991.