Bishop Auckland railway station

Bishop Auckland
Location
Place	Bishop Auckland
Local authority	County Durham
Coordinates	54°39′26″N 1°40′40″W / 54.6573°N 1.6778°W / 54.6573; -1.6778Coordinates: 54°39′26″N 1°40′40″W / 54.6573°N 1.6778°W / 54.6573; -1.6778
Operations
Station code	BIA
Managed by	Northern Rail
Platforms in use	1
Live arrivals/departures and station information from National Rail
Annual rail passenger usage
2004/05 *	66,681
2005/06 *	74,092
2006/07 *	85,063
2007/08 *	94,785
History
Opened 1905 (1905)
National Rail - UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Annual passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Bishop Auckland from Office of Rail Regulation statistics.
UK Railways Portal

Bishop Auckland railway station serves the town of Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England. The railway station is the terminus of the Tees Valley Line 19 kilometres (12 mi) north of Darlington.

The station is operated by Northern Rail, who provide all passenger train services. Although freight traffic ceased in 1993, the railway continues beyond Bishop Auckland as the Weardale Railway, which was reconnected to the national network in September 2009; however, Weardale Railway regular services are yet to commence.

History

Bishop Auckland gained its first rail link in 1842,^[1] when the Stockton and Darlington Railway built a line into the town from neighbouring Shildon, initially to a temporary terminus at South Church. A permanent station on the current site followed within months, along with an extension further into Weardale as far as Crook in 1844 to serve various coal mines and quarries in the area (which was subsequently extended to Blackhill). A branch from this line at Witton-le-Wear to Frosterley opened in 1847, was extended to Stanhope in 1862 and again through to Wearhead in 1895. The construction of a branch line from Durham to the town in April 1857 by the North Eastern Railway saw the original station replaced by a joint NER/S&D structure on the current site (later that year) but it soon became inadequate for the traffic passing through it, especially after the opening of the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway to Barnard Castle (and onwards to Tebay) in 1862. This led to the NER rebuilding it in December 1867 and again (in triangular form) in 1905.

In common with much of the UK, the area saw a decline in passenger and freight usage after World War II, with the Wearhead branch the first to lose its passenger trains in 1953. The principle losses came in the sixties however, with services to Barnard Castle via West Auckland ending in 1962, those to Durham in 1964^[2] and to Crook in 1965 leaving only the Darlington line in operation (along with the freight-only branch to Eastgate). The station remained more or less intact (although increasingly forlorn and run down) for more than twenty years thereafter, until it was replaced by the current structure in June 1986. This is situated on the site of the former Crook branch platform - the remainder of the old station site having been redeveloped (it is now occupied by a DIY store, Royal Mail Sorting Office, Bank & Cycle / Car accessory retailer).

Services

Mondays to Saturdays there is generally a two-hourly service from the station southbound to Darlington, Middlesbrough and Saltburn. Additional services run at peak periods.^[3]

Five trains each way run on Sundays throughout the year, with extra services in the summer months.

Notes

References

• Body, G. (1988), PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Eastern Region Volume 2, Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough, ISBN 1-85260-072-1

External links

• Buses from the station
• Buses to the station

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