Acklington is a railway station on the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...

, which runs between and . The station, situated north of Newcastle, serves the village of

Acklington Acklington is a small village in Northumberland, England. It is situated to the south-west of Amble, inland from the North Sea coast. It is served by Acklington railway station. The name is Anglo-Saxon Old English 'farmstead of Eadlac's people'. ...

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

, England. It is owned by

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

and managed by

Northern Trains Northern Trains, branded as Northern, (legally Northern Trains Limited) is a State-owned enterprises of the United Kingdom, publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT) ...

. It is the currently the least-used station in Northumberland, with an estimated 66 passenger journeys made during 2020/21.

History

The station was opened on 1 July 1847 by the

Newcastle and Berwick Railway The York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (YN&BR) was an English railway company formed in 1847 by the amalgamation of the York and Newcastle Railway and the Newcastle and Berwick Railway. Both companies were part of the group of business interest ...

. It later joined the North Eastern Railway, becoming part of the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

during the

Grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...

of 1923. The line then passed on to the

North Eastern Region of British Railways The North Eastern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948, whose operating area could be identified by the orange signs and colour schemes that adorned its stations and other railway buildings. It was merged with the Eastern Region ...

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948. When Sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by

Regional Railways Regional Railways was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982 that existed until 1997, two years after privatisation. The sector was originally called ''Provincial''. Regional Railways was the most subsidised (per pas ...

until the

Privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industr ...

ways. Intercity Sector trains passed through on the

. The station has a substantial main building on the northbound side, which is Grade-II listed and now used as a private residence. It also had a goods yard and signal box. The station avoided the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

in the late 1960s that claimed several others on the East Coast main line and until the late 1980s had through trains to and

Edinburgh Waverley Edinburgh Waverley railway station (also known simply as Waverley; gd, Waverley Dhùn Èideann) is the principal railway station serving Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the second busiest station in Scotland, after Glasgow Central. It is the north ...

(though only 3-4 per day each way in total). Electrification of the ECML and a rolling stock shortage led to the timetable being cut to the present residual level in 1991.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed (so tickets must be purchased in advance or on the train) and only has basic amenities - a sizeable stone shelter and payphone on the southbound platform and a cycle rack on the northbound side. Step-free access is available to both platforms.

Services

All Services at Acklington are operated by

using and

DMUs A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

. The station is currently served by three trains per day (one in the morning and two in the evening) northbound to and southbound to via . Both services on weekdays and the morning service on Saturdays continue beyond Newcastle to via . No services call at the station on Sundays.

References

Sources

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External links

{{Railway stations served by Northern Trains Railway stations in Northumberland DfT Category F2 stations Former North Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1847 Northern franchise railway stations Low usage railway stations in the United Kingdom 1847 establishments in England John and Benjamin Green buildings and structures