Eaglescliffe 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 east of Darlington, serves the village of Eaglescliffe,

Borough of Stockton-on-Tees The Borough of Stockton-on-Tees is a unitary authority with borough status in the counties of County Durham and North Yorkshire, England. The borough had a population of 191,600 in 2011. The main settlement and namesake of the borough is Stock ...

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 station was opened by the

Leeds Northern Railway The Leeds Northern Railway (LNR), originally the Leeds and Thirsk Railway, was an English railway company that built and opened a line from Leeds to Stockton via Harrogate and Thirsk. In 1845 the Leeds and Thirsk Railway received permission for ...

on 25 May 1852, with their line from Melmerby to Stockton. That line deviates from the original alignment of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The previous line ran on the east side of Yarm Road, through the grounds of Preston Hall. It is said that Lord Preston (Marshall Robinson Fowler) was unhappy the disruption that trains, such as ''

Locomotion No. 1 ''Locomotion'' No. 1 (originally named ''Active'') is an early steam locomotive that was built in 1825 by the pioneering railway engineers George and Robert Stephenson at their manufacturing firm, Robert Stephenson and Company. It became th ...

'', caused to his cattle and had insisted that it was moved west of the road. When the Stockton and Darlington Railway re-aligned their line, they also started using the station at Eaglescliffe. The station became known as ''Eaglescliffe Junction'', as passengers could change between services on the two respective lines. The railway station serving the parishes of

Preston-on-Tees Preston-on-Tees, locally called Preston, is a village and civil parish in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. The civil parish population at the 2011 census was 1,689. It is home to Preston Hall and it's accompanying p ...

and

Egglescliffe Egglescliffe is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England. Administratively it is located in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees. It shares a civil parish with Eaglescliffe. The village sits on top of a hill overlooking and across t ...

, was known as ''Preston''. Displeased at the cost of moving the station, the railway owners decided to name the new station after Egglescliffe instead. In the following years, the station and surrounding area came to be known instead as Eaglescliffe. There are various stories as to how the station got the name ''Eaglescliffe'', instead of the intended, ''Egglescliffe''. One such set of stories is that the signwriter was sent a telegram with a misspelling to paint the sign as ''Eaglescliffe.'' Another variant was that the signwriter thought to change it, after believing it to be incorrect. In each variation, it is said that the sign was not changed for a period of time, by which time the name had been adopted. Originally, the station had four platforms. However, the westernmost platforms were taken out of use in the late 1960s, and have since been removed.

Facilities

The station's facilities have been recently upgraded during the early and mid–2010s, with improvements including the installation of real-time information screens and CCTV, as well as renewed station signage. In January 2012, construction work started on a new ticket office at the station. In April 2015, the station's previous waiting shelters were replaced by a modern waiting room. The station has been staffed since 2012. Initially, the ticket office was operated by an independent company, Chester-le-Track, which also operated the station at Chester-le-Street. Chester-le-Track ceased trading on 31 March 2018, and the booking office was subsequently closed. The ticket office was later re-opened on 3 April 2018, and is now managed by

, with staff provided by Grand Central. As of July 2021, the ticket office is open between 09:00 and 16:00 on weekdays, and closed on Saturday and Sunday. There is step-free access to the island platform via the ramped footbridge from the car park and station entrance.

Services

Grand Central

As of the June 2021 timetable change, there are four trains per day heading south towards London King's Cross via

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

. Heading north towards Sunderland, there are five trains per day on weekdays, with four and three trains per day on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Rolling stock used: Class 180 ''Adelante''

Northern Trains

As of the May 2021 timetable change, the station is served by two trains per hour between

Saltburn Saltburn-by-the-Sea, commonly referred to as Saltburn, is a seaside town in Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England, around south-east of Hartlepool and southeast of Redcar. It lies within the historic boundaries of the North Rid ...

and Darlington via

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

, with one train per hour extending to Bishop Auckland. An hourly service operates between Saltburn and Bishop Auckland on Sunday. Rolling stock used: Class 156 ''Super Sprinter'' and Class 158 ''Express Sprinter''

References

Sources

*Body, G. (1988), ''PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Eastern Region Volume 2'', Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough, *

External links

* * {{Railway stations served by Northern Trains Railway stations in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees DfT Category F1 stations Former North Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1853 Railway stations served by Grand Central Railway Northern franchise railway stations