Durham 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 south of Newcastle, serves the cathedral city of Durham in

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by

London North Eastern Railway London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is a British train operating company. It is owned by the DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT). The company's name echoes that of the London and North Eastern Railway, one of the Big Four ...

. It is managed and served frequently by

(as a stop on the East Coast Main Line). It is also served by

CrossCountry CrossCountry (legal name XC Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the Cross Country franchise. The CrossCountry franchise was restructured by the Department for Transport (DfT) ...

, TransPennine Express and

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...

trains. Durham is a through station with two platforms, located north of the city centre, on a hill. South of the station, the railway line is elevated on a

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

. After a renovation between 2006 and 2008, the original stone station building is now the ticket hall.

History

The city of Durham has been served by four stations, only one of which survives today: *Shincliffe (called Shincliffe Town from 1861): located in nearby Shincliffe, this station was built in 1839 and was served by the Durham and Sunderland Railway, using rope haulage until 1856. It closed when Elvet station opened in the city centre. A second station, Shincliffe, on the Leamside to Ferryhill line, was opened in 1844. That closed to passengers in 1941. * Durham (Gilesgate): opened in 1844, and within the city boundaries, it was served by a branch from Belmont on the Leamside Line, then the main line from London to Newcastle. Passenger services finished in 1857 with the opening of the current station on the branch from Leamside to Bishop Auckland but it continued in use as a goods shed until final closure in 1966. Today it has been redeveloped as a Travelodge hotel, while the serving track was used in the realignment of the

A690 The A690 is a road in County Durham running from Sunderland in the east through Durham to Crook. Route Sunderland section Throughout the Sunderland section it is known as either ''Durham Road'' or ''New Durham Road'', and is one of the major r ...

Gilesgate bypass road. *Durham: In 1857, a station on the current location and viaducts over North Road and the River Browney immediately to the south were built by the North Eastern Railway, on their Leamside to Bishop Auckland line to . The station was redeveloped in 1871, when the North Eastern Railway developed a new line from

Tursdale Tursdale is a hamlet in County Durham, England. It is situated in rural landscape about two miles to the west of Coxhoe, two miles North of Cornforth and around five miles south of Durham. It is part of the civil parish of Cassop-cum-Quarrington ...

through Relly Mill Junction to Durham, and onwards from Newton Hall Junction through Chester-le-Street to Newcastle Central via the Team Valley. This became the main line, the current

on 15 January 1872. *Durham (Elvet): in 1893, the Durham-Sunderland branch was diverted from Shincliffe Town to a new station at Elvet, within the city boundary. It closed to regular passenger services in 1931 and fully closed in 1953. On grouping in 1923, the stations came under the control 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 ...

. Passenger services to Bishop Auckland and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

via Penshaw were withdrawn by

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

under the Beeching cuts, on 4 May 1964. The East Coast Main Line through Durham was electrified in 1991.

Station Masters

*Edmund Page ca. 1873 - 1882 *Joseph Pattison 1900 - 1907 *William Curley 1907 - 1917 (afterwards station master at Sunderland) *William Parker 1917 - 1922 (afterwards station master at Harrogate) *J.C. Pigg 1922 - 1925 (formerly station master at Bishop Auckland, afterwards station master at Bedlington) *Edmund Maleham 1925 - 1926 (removed because of support for the General Strike) *J.A. Simpson 1926 - 1946

Current facilities

Today, the station is owned by LNER and managed by London North Eastern Railway (LNER). It was refurbished between 2006 and 2008 by the operator Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) and later National Express East Coast (NXEC), which included a new passenger lounge, toilets, travel centre, glazed waiting area, lifts and shops. The entrance and ticket hall were moved from the "temporary" 1960s building into the original stone building following renovation and repairs. The works were completed in early 2008 and the newly renovated station won "Best Medium Station" and "Overall Station of the Year" at the 2008 National Rail Awards. Ticket barriers were installed in 2009. After winning the intercity east coast rail franchise, former operator Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) opened an information office on platform 2, added new benches and perch seating and installed Wi-Fi connection. In 2017, all ticket barriers were removed as part of Virgin Trains East Coast's (VTEC) franchise commitment. A Brompton Bicycle hire scheme was planned to open in 2018 - however since the demise of Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) the management of the station has since passed on to London North Eastern Railway (LNER). Durham County Council, working with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, have completed a project to improve cycle routes and pedestrian access to the station from the north of the city. This involved the construction of a new cycle path as well as upgrades to road crossings on Framwellgate path. In order to accommodate the new London North Eastern Railway Class 800 and 801 ''Azuma ''trains that entered service in mid 2019, platform 1 was extended north to a total length of 230 metres.

Services

Train services are provided by four companies:

(LNER),

, TransPennine Express and Northern Trains. LNER serves Durham with one train per hour each way, southbound to via

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...

, , and , and northbound to via . Some northbound services are extended beyond Edinburgh, with one service per day to both (via ) and , as well as one daily train to (via Newcastle) instead of Edinburgh. There is also one southbound train per day to (via York) instead of London. CrossCountry operates services on the Cross Country Route. Northbound, the company runs two trains per hour to , of which one continues through to and one train every two hours is extended even further, to . There are also two daily services that continue beyond Edinburgh to Dundee, of which one is further extended to Aberdeen. Southbound, there are two trains per hour to via , /, and ; of these, one train per hour continues to via and , and one continues to via , with two-hourly further extensions to . A few trains per day continue beyond Plymouth to . TransPennine Express serves the station with two trains an hour each way. In the northbound direction, trains run to and one train per hour is extended to . Southbound, trains generally run to via , and ; of the two hourly services, one continues to (via ) and one runs further to . Northern Trains' services at Durham are less frequent, with just three morning trains every weekday north to Newcastle (of which two run through to via ) and one evening train per day south to .

Notes

References

External links

* * {{Railway stations served by TransPennine Express Railway stations in County Durham DfT Category C1 stations Former North Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1857 Railway stations served by CrossCountry Railway stations served by TransPennine Express Northern franchise railway stations Railway stations served by London North Eastern Railway Buildings and structures in Durham, England Thomas Prosser railway stations 1857 establishments in England