Darlington railway station
Darlington railway station is on the East Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom, serving the town of Darlington, County Durham. It is north of . It is situated between to the south and to the north. Its three-letter station code is DAR. The station is well served, since it is an important stop for main line services, with trains being operated by London North Eastern Railway, CrossCountry and TransPennine Express, and it is the interchange for Northern services to Bishop Auckland, and Saltburn. Darlington is the location of the first commercial steam railway: the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The station building is a Grade II* listed Victorian structure and winner of the "Large Station of the Year" award in 2005. History The first railway to pass through the area now occupied by the station was built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, who opened their mineral branch from Albert Hill Junction on their main line to Croft-on-Tees on 27 October 1829. This branch line was subsequently purchased by the Great North of England Railway a decade later to incorporate into their new main line from York which reached the town on 30 March 1841. A separate company, the Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway continued the new main line northwards towards Ferryhill and Newcastle, opening its route three years later on 19 June 1844. This crossed the S&D at Parkgate Junction by means of a flat crossing which would in future years become something of an operational headache for the North Eastern Railway and LNER. The original Bank Top station where the two routes met was a modest affair, which was rebuilt in 1860 to accommodate the expanding levels of traffic on the main line. By the mid-1880s even this replacement structure was deemed inadequate and so the NER embarked on a major upgrade to facilities in the area. This included an ornate new station with an impressive three-span overall roof on the Bank Top site, new sidings and goods lines alongside it and a new connecting line from the south end of the station (Polam Junction) to meet the original S&D line towards Middlesbrough at Oak Tree Junction near . These improvements were completed on 1 July 1887, when the old route west of Oak Tree closed to passengers (although it remained in use for freight until 1967). The new station, with its broad island platform was designed by T. E. Harrison, chief engineer, and William Bell, the architect of the North Eastern Railway. It cost £81,000 () to construct. It soon became a busy interchange on the main East Coast route, thanks to its rail links to Richmond (opened in 1846), and (1862/5) and the Tees Valley Line to (1842) and (1861). The lines to Penrith (closed in 1962), Barnard Castle (1964) and Richmond (1969) have now gone (along with the bays at the northern end of the station, now used for car parking), but the main line (electrified in 1991) and the Tees Valley route remain busy.