Newcastle railway station

Newcastle
Newcastle Central Station
The interior of Newcastle railway station
Location
Place	Newcastle City Centre
Local authority	Newcastle upon Tyne
Coordinates	54°58′07″N 1°37′02″W / 54.9686°N 1.6171°W / 54.9686; -1.6171Coordinates: 54°58′07″N 1°37′02″W / 54.9686°N 1.6171°W / 54.9686; -1.6171
Operations
Station code	NCL
Managed by	East Coast
Platforms in use	12
Live arrivals/departures and station information from National Rail
Annual rail passenger usage
2004/05 *	5.728 million
2005/06 *	6.108 million
2006/07 *	6.230 million
2007/08 *	6.447 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	Tyne and Wear (Nexus)
Zone	26
History
1850 1890s	Opened Extended
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 Newcastle from Office of Rail Regulation statistics.
UK Railways Portal

Newcastle railway station, or Newcastle Central Station, is the mainline railway station in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England and is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line. It opened in 1850 and is a Grade I listed building. The railway station is connected to the adjacent underground Central Station Metro station on the Tyne and Wear Metro.

Mainline services are operated by CrossCountry southbound to Leeds, Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cardiff, Plymouth and Reading. East Coast operates southbound to York, Doncaster and London. Both of these companies run services northbound to Edinburgh and Glasgow. First TransPennine Express provides services to Manchester. Northern Rail operates local and regional services across the North East and Cumbria, notably to Carlisle via MetroCentre and to Middlesbrough via Sunderland.

Construction and opening

The original 1850 trainshed and the 1890s extension on the left.

The station was designed by John Dobson for the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway company, which subsequently became the North Eastern Railway ,NER, following a merger with other companies in 1854, and the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, which was later absorbed by NER in 1862. It was constructed in collaboration with Robert Stephenson (also responsible for the High Level Bridge) between 1845 and 1850. The opening ceremony, attended by Queen Victoria, took place on 29 August 1850.

The building has a classical styled frontage, and its trainshed has a distinctive roof with three curved, arched spans — the first example of its kind, which set the 'house style' for the NER's subsequent main stations, culminating in the very last major British example half a century later, the rebuilt and enlarged Hull Paragon in 1904. A portico, designed by Thomas Prosser, was added to the station entrance in 1863, and the trainshed was extended southwards in the 1890s with a new span designed by William Bell.

An underground station for Tyne and Wear Metro trains was constructed during the late 1970s, and opened in 1981. Part of the portico was temporarily dismantled while excavation work for this station took place.^[1]

Layout

The station exterior, showing the portico added in 1863.

The National Rail station has 12 platforms. The arrangement is:

• Platform 1 is an east facing bay platform which handles terminating local services and also some terminating long distance CrossCountry services from the south over the High Level Bridge.
• Platforms 2, 3 and 4 are the main through platforms for East Coast Main Line long distance services.
• Platforms 5/6 share the northbound side, and Platforms 7/8 the southbound side, of the newer island platform, and are used mainly by Northern Rail services.
• Platforms 9 to 12 are west facing bay platforms for various services, including Transpennine Express and some terminating services from the Carlisle direction, and on rare occasions, CrossCountry services.

Train services

Services terminating at Newcastle

Newcastle is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line. Passenger services are operated by several companies:

• East Coast trains run south to London King's Cross via York, Doncaster and Peterborough; and north to Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Aberdeen and Inverness.
• CrossCountry services run south to their Birmingham New Street hub via York, Leeds/Doncaster, Sheffield and Derby and onwards to Reading via Oxford; Plymouth or Penzance via Cheltenham Spa and Bristol Temple Meads; and north to Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central and Aberdeen.
• First TransPennine Express trains run to Manchester Airport and Liverpool Lime Street via York, Leeds, Huddersfield and Manchester Piccadilly.
• First ScotRail operates daily services to Glasgow Central and Stranraer along the Tyne Valley and Glasgow South Western Lines via Carlisle and Dumfries.
• Northern Rail operates local and regional services; north along the East Coast Main Line to Morpeth and Chathill; south along the Durham Coast Line to Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Nunthorpe (plus a limited service via the East Coast Main Line to Darlington and onwards along the Tees Valley Line to Middlesbrough and Saltburn); and west along the Tyne Valley Line to MetroCentre, Hexham, Carlisle and Whitehaven.

Railway infrastructure

Simplified rail network around Newcastle
Legend East Coast Main Line via Morpeth Heaton Depot North Tyneside Loop via Walkergate Heaton Closed 1980 Riverside Branch via Byker North Tyneside Loop via Jesmond Manors Carliol Square Closed 1850 Tyne Valley Line via Scotswood   Newcastle King Edward VII Bridge  High Level Bridge River Tyne Tyne Valley Line via Metrocentre  Durham Coast Line via Heworth East Coast Main Line via Durham

Trains may cross the River Tyne on one of two bridges. The High Level Bridge, to the south-east of the station, was designed by Robert Stephenson and opened on 27 September 1849, and is the older of the two. Its location meant that north-south trains had to reverse in the station to continue their journey. The King Edward VII Bridge, to the south-west of the station, was opened on 10 July 1906, allowing north-south trains to continue without reversing. With these two bridges, the trackwork north and south of the river forms a complete circle, allowing trains to be turned around if necessary. The former Gateshead depot, situated next to the connecting tracks on the south side of the Tyne, mirrored Newcastle station.

The station was famed for its highly complex diamond crossing to the east of the station. This facilitated access to the High Level Bridge and northbound East Coast Main Line and was said to be the greatest such crossing in the world.^[2] The crossing has been greatly simplified in recent years, however, as the opening of the Metro brought about the withdrawal of many heavy-rail suburban services and the closure of the platforms they operated from, and removed the need for such a complex crossing. Heaton depot is to the north of the station, on the East Coast Main Line.

See also

• Blyth & Tyne Railway
• Central Station Metro station
• Newcastle & North Shields Railway
• North Tyneside Loop
• Tyneside Electric

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Newcastle Central station

• Newcastle Central Station - Part of the 2000 art exhibition "Stephenson's Legacy." Includes old photographs of the station.

References