South Shields railway station was the main

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

for South Shields, in

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newc ...

, North-East

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The station was located on Mile End Road in the town centre. The station was opened 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 ...

in 1879 as the terminus of their newly extended ''Newcastle and South Shields Railway'' branch from Pelaw via

Hebburn Hebburn is a town in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It governed under the borough of South Tyneside; formerly governed under the county of Durham until 1974 with its own urban district from 1894 until 1974. It is on the sout ...

and had two platforms and an ornate overall roof. The town had been rail-served by some years prior to this - the

Stanhope and Tyne Railway The Stanhope and Tyne Railway was an early British mineral railway, that ran from Stanhope in County Durham, to South Shields at the mouth of the River Tyne. The object was to convey limestone from Stanhope and coal from West Consett and elsew ...

had opened their route from

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

back in 1834, whilst the

Brandling Junction Railway The Brandling Junction Railway was an early railway in County Durham, England. It took over the Tanfield Waggonway of 1725 that was built to bring coal from Tanfield to staiths on the River Tyne at Dunston. The Brandling Junction Railway itself ...

followed with a branch from five years later. Both these companies (and the S&T's successor the ''Pontop and South Shields Railway'') had though been purely concerned with mineral traffic and passenger provision was limited. The new route though was built to carry passengers from the outset as well as coal & iron ore to/from Tyne Dock and had regular services to both via and to , these running via the old BJR route via Tyne Dock and . The

1923 Grouping The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

saw the station pass from the NER into the control of the London and North Eastern Railway. Services on both routes remained well used and in 1938, the line from Newcastle was electrified on the 660 V DC system as an extension of the existing North Tyneside suburban network. Nationalisation in 1948 saw the station become part of British Railways North Eastern Region, but over the next few years services began to decline - those to Whitburn Colliery ended in November 1953, whilst the direct Sunderland trains fell victim to the Beeching Axe in May 1965 (passengers thereafter having to change at Pelaw). The Newcastle line was also converted to diesel multiple unit operation in 1963, with BR stating that it was cheaper to remove the third rail than renew the electrical equipment on the route. Though it survived the Beeching cuts, by the 1970s the station (and route) had become increasingly run down and so it was a logical choice to be included in the planned

Tyne & Wear Metro The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland (together forming Tyne and Wear). The network opened in ...

network. It was eventually closed on 1 June 1981, when the line was temporarily shut down for conversion to Metro operation. It was replaced by a new

South Shields Metro station South Shields Interchange is the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive ran transport hub which serves the coastal town of South Shields, South Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. History The station, which was originally located on Mil ...

a short distance to the south, when the line reopened in 1984. The station building survived as an entrance to the Metro system until the 1990s, when it was demolished. Today, a Shopmobility centre stands on the site of the original station building. The new building was built to a similar style as the station it replaced. The platforms behind have been removed, but the rest of the site is still used by Metro as carriage & engineers' sidings. In early 2019 a new interchange opened there which is also a bus terminal. The same tracks are used but the platform has moved.

References

External links

RAILSCOT - South Shields
{{Closed stations Tyne and Wear Disused railway stations in Tyne and Wear Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1879 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1981 Former North Eastern Railway (UK) stations 1879 establishments in England 1981 disestablishments in England Transport in South Shields