Ashington railway station

Ashington
Location
Place	England
Area	Northumberland
Operations
Original company	Blyth and Tyne Railway
Pre-grouping	North Eastern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway
Platforms	2
History
1 March 1872	Station opened as Hirst
1 October 1889	Station renamed Ashington
2 November 1964	Station closed
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z
UK Railways portal

Ashington railway station was a station serving the town of Ashington in Northumberland, Northern England. It was on the branch to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea.

British Railways closed the station in 1964, but it has been the object of a reopening campaign since at least the 1990s.

History

Ashington station was opened by the Blyth and Tyne Railway in 1872 as Hirst (for Ashington).The North Eastern Railway took over the Blyth and Tyne Railway in 1874, the NER became part of the London and North Eastern Railway in the 1923 grouping and the station passed to the North Eastern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. British Railways withdrew passenger services in 1964 as part of The Reshaping of British Railways.

The site today

The line through the former station is still used for freight. Ashington signal box was closed on 14 February 2010 with the removal of the main line crossover. The signal box was demolished over the weekend of 10–11 August 2013.

Reopening proposals

By the 1990s local councils were considering the feasibility of restoring passenger services linking Ashington and Blyth with Newcastle Central.^[1] The proposal would not include reopening the branch to Blyth, but by building a new station at Newsham. In 1998 the Railway Development Society (renamed Railfuture in 2000) endorsed the proposal.^[1]

Denis Murphy, the Labour MP for Wansbeck, expressed support in the House of Commons in an adjournment debate in April 1999 and again in a debate in January 2007.^[2]

• Denis Murphy and others; et al. (10 January 2007). "Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Railway". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). United Kingdom: House of Commons. col. 135WH–139WH.

In 2009 the Association of Train Operating Companies published a £34 million proposal to restore passenger services from Newcastle Central to Ashington.^[3]

In October 2015 it was announced that Northumberland County Council would fund a Network Rail GRIP2 feasibility study into the possibility of reopening the line to Ashington.^[4]

References

1. Bevan 1998, p. 59.
2. Hansard 2007.
3. ATOC 2009, p. 17.
4. "Rebirth of Ashington and Blyth passenger rail service remains on track - Chronicle Live". 14 October 2015. Retrieved 24 July 2016.

Sources

• Bevan, Alan, ed. (1998). A-Z of Rail Reopenings (fourth ed.). Fareham: Railway Development Society Ltd. p. 59. ISBN 0-901283-13-4.
• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
• "Connecting Communities - expanding access to the rail network" (PDF). London: Association of Train Operating Companies. June 2009. Archived from the original (pdf) on 29 July 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0086-1. OCLC 22311137.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687.
• Denis Murphy and others; et al. (10 January 2007). "Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Railway". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). United Kingdom: House of Commons. col. 135WH–139WH.

External links

• Crawford, Ewan. "Blyth and Tyne Railway". A History of Britain's Railways. Railscot.
• Station on navigable 1946 O.S. map

Coordinates: 55°10′55″N 1°34′23″W / 55.182°N 1.573°W