North Road is a railway station on the

Tees Valley Line The Tees Valley Line is a rail route, in Northern England, following part of the original Stockton and Darlington Railway route of 1825. The line covers a distance of , and connects to via , and 14 other stations in the Teesdale. The secti ...

, which runs between and via . The station, situated north-west of Darlington, serves the

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

of Darlington in County Durham, 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 publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT), after the previous operator Arriva Rail N ...

History

The railway station is closely linked with the history of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, being the site of the original Darlington station. The station building, now a museum entitled

Head of Steam Head of Steam, formerly known as the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum, is a railway museum located on the 1825 route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which was the world's first steam-powered passenger railway. It is based inside the ...

, was first opened in 1842 and is listed Grade II*. It replaced a depot on the opposite side of North Road, built in 1833. The building was constructed to a design by the S&D resident engineer of the time John Harris and was expanded and rebuilt on several subsequent occasions (e.g. in 1856 following the opening of the line to

Barnard Castle Barnard Castle (, ) is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, Northern England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automato ...

and again in 1864 and 1876 by the

NER NER may refer to: * New European Recordings, a record label * ISO 3166-1 three letter code for Niger * Named entity recognition, a text processing task that identifies certain words as belonging to one class or another * Northeast Regional, an Amt ...

and their main architect

William Peachey William Peachey (1826 – 2 March 1912) was a British architect known for his work for the North Eastern Railway. History He was born in 1826, baptised at St Mary's Church, Cheltenham on 13 September. His parents were William Peachey, carp ...

). The opening of the main line station at ''Bank Top'' in 1887 saw the importance of North Road decline and it was twice threatened with closure in the 20th century (initially in 1930 and again under the

Beeching cuts 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 M ...

of 1963), but was reprieved each time. The closure of the Stainmore route to in 1962 and the

Middleton-in-Teesdale Middleton-in-Teesdale is a market town in County Durham, in England. It is situated on the north side of Teesdale between Eggleston and Newbiggin, a few miles to the north-west of Barnard Castle. The settlement is surrounded by the North Pennin ...

branch line two years later did see the route through here reduced to single track (with only one platform remaining) and by the early 1970s, the train shed had suffered badly from vandalism and was in a poor state of repair. This prompted the local council, the town's tourist board, Darlington Museums service and a consortium of local people to join together to restore the station and Hopetown works complex nearby as a museum (currently known as

), whilst maintaining a single active platform for the Bishop Auckland branch line. This work was completed in time for the 150th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1975, with the opening ceremony carried out by the Duke of Edinburgh. Trains do not however stop under the train shed roof, instead using the eastern end of the platform in the open air.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed and has no ticketing provision, so all tickets must be bought on the train or prior to travel. A Harrington Hump has been installed to improve accessibility to the trains for mobility-impaired passengers and the waiting shelter here was replaced in 2015 as part of the Tees Valley line improvement programme - this also saw the installation of a digital CIS display, new signage and CCTV. Train running information is also available via a public telephone and timetable posters. The station is not listed as suitable for wheelchair users on the

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...

website due to the approach path being steeply graded.

Services

As of the May 2021 timetable change, the station is served by an hourly service between Saltburn and Bishop Auckland via Darlington. All services are operated by

. Rolling stock used: Class 156 ''Super Sprinter'' and Class 158 ''Express Sprinter''

References

External links

* * {{Railway stations served by Northern Trains Stockton and Darlington Railway Railway stations in the Borough of Darlington DfT Category F2 stations Grade II* listed buildings in County Durham Grade II* listed railway stations Former North Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1825 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1842 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1842 Northern franchise railway stations Buildings and structures in Darlington