Malton railway station

Malton
Malton station in December 1986
Location
Place	Norton
Local authority	Ryedale
Coordinates	54°07′55″N 0°47′49″W / 54.132°N 0.797°WCoordinates: 54°07′55″N 0°47′49″W / 54.132°N 0.797°W
Grid reference	SE787713
Operations
Station code	MLT
Managed by	TransPennine Express
Number of platforms	1
DfT category	E
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	0.296 million
2011/12	0.292 million
2012/13	0.295 million
2013/14	0.306 million
2014/15	0.319 million
History
Key dates	Opened 1845
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Malton from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

The signal box in 1988

Malton railway station serves the towns of Malton and Norton-on-Derwent in North Yorkshire, England. It is operated by TransPennine Express that provide all passenger train services, running on the York to Scarborough Line.

Services

The typical Monday-Saturday off-peak service is the following:

• 1 train per hour (tph) to Liverpool Lime Street, calling at York, Leeds, Huddersfield, Stalybridge, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Oxford Road, Birchwood and Warrington Central
• 1 tph to Scarborough, calling at Seamer

On Sundays this is reduced to the following:

• 1 train per 2 hours (tp2h) to Liverpool, calling at York, Garforth, Leeds and then as above
• 1 train per 2 hours to Scarborough as above

A half-hourly service, with timetable and fares integration with Yorkshire Coastliner buses, has been suggested as a means of providing relief to the parallel A64 trunk road that would be considerably cheaper than the option of dual carriageway.^[1]

History

Services from Malton station started on 7 July 1845 when the York to Scarborough Line was opened.^[2] The station buildings were designed by the architect George Townsend Andrews.

On 3 May 1870 there was a gas explosion at the station. The platform edging stones were built on a double wall of bricks, separated by a gap, into which gas had leaked. A porter passing with a lamp caused the explosion which lifted a 50 yards (46 m) length of the flagstones off the platform.^[3]

The station is only served by trains between Scarborough and York (and beyond), however prior to the Beeching Axe Malton station was also served by the Pickering Branch of the York and North Midland Railway with trains heading north (diverging at Rillington junction) to Pickering and then onwards to Grosmont and Whitby. This line closed entirely north of Pickering in 1965, with a freight-only service to Pickering surviving until 1966.

Trains still run from Pickering to Grosmont as part of the preserved North Yorkshire Moors Railway, but the tracks between Rillington, where the line branched, and Pickering have since been lifted.

Until 1958 the Malton & Driffield Railway, with trains heading south to Driffield, survived for freight and the occasional (summer-only) through excursion to the coast. After 1958 excursion and express trains from the Thirsk and Malton Line had to reverse at Scarborough Road junction on the easterly edge of Malton, back down towards Malton station before reversing again and heading off to Scarborough. Prior to 1950, there had been a passenger service nicknamed the 'Malton Dodger' between Malton and Driffield.

As an interchange between three lines, Malton station was considerably busier than it is now.

Though Malton station now has only one platform in use, at its peak, there were two through platforms and an additional bay platform serving (mainly) Whitby local trains. The George Townsend Andrews overall roof was removed in 1989 and replaced by the canopy recovered from the Whitby platform.^[4]

One of Malton station's claim to fame was the novel solution adopted to allow passengers to access the second (island) platform, instead of a footbridge or barrow crossing the NER installed a removable section of platform, in the form of a wheeled trolley running on rails set at right-angles to the (single) running line. When a train had to use the platform, the trolley was wheeled back under the up (York) platform;^[5] the trolley was interlocked, with the signals giving access to the platform.

Until Northern took over in 2004, Arriva Trains Northern had services that stopped at Malton, the current York to Blackpool service to Scarborough alongside TransPennine Express services. This service was usually worked by a Metro liveried Class 158 DMU, occasionally a Class 155 DMU. There was also a local service from York to Scarborough usually worked by a Pacer DMU or a Class 156.

Future

There has been talk of reopening the old line between Rillington Junction and Pickering for some years, most notably in 2003,^[6] but no attempt has come to fruition.

There was a petition on 10 Downing Street to reopen the line and upgrade the North Yorkshire Moors railway to cope with higher speeds (40-50 mph as opposed to 25 mph), to improve transport in the region, and to provide relief for the A64 more cheaply than dualling it in its entirety.

From time to time the prospect of extending the North Yorkshire Moors Railway line from Pickering to Malton is raised. However, this is not in the immediate vision of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.^[7]

The franchise agreement for the new Northern franchise inaugurated in April 2016 includes provision for a second York to Scarborough service each hour - both on weekdays and Saturdays/Sundays. This will give the station 14 extra trains each way Mon-Sat and 13 each way on Sundays from December 2017.^[8]

References

1. "Sign petition for better transport". Gazette & Herald. 12 March 2009. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
2. "Opening of the Scarborough Railway". Leeds Times. British Newspaper Archive. 12 July 1845. Retrieved 26 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
3. "Serious explosion of gas at the Malton Railway Station". Sheffield Independent. British Newspaper Archive. 4 May 1870. Retrieved 26 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
4. "Malton Station". Railway Magaine. IPC Business Press. 135: 151. 1989. ISSN 0033-8923.
5. Stone, John (20 October 2013). Malton, Old Malton and Norton Through Time. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781445629452.
6. "Local Transport Plan Statement 2003" (PDF). Ryedale District Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
7. "North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Steaming on. Shaping a flourishing and secure NYMR for future generations" (PDF). NMR Vision. North York Moors Historical Railway Trust. 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
8. Northern Franchise Improvements - DfT

• W.W.Tomlinson, (1967). North Eastern Railway Its Rise and Development. Newton Abbot, [Eng.]: David & Charles (Publishing) Ltd.
• North Eastern Railway, Its Rise and Development; by W.W.Tomlinson 1914 original available here
• Bill Fawcett, (1995). A History of the York - Scarborough Railway. Cherry Burton, Beverley, East Yorkshire, [Eng.]: The Hutton Press Ltd. ISBN 1-872167-71-3.

External links

• Train times and station information for Malton railway station from National Rail
• Historic England. "Details from image database (329717)". Images of England.
• Malton Station from Ryedale on the Web
• Malton station at The Yorkshire Wolds Railway Restoration Project

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
York		TransPennine Express North TransPennine		Seamer
	Historical railways
Huttons Ambo Station closed; Line open		Y&NMR York to Scarborough Line		Rillington Station closed; Line open
	Disused railways
Terminus		North Eastern Railway Malton & Driffield Railway		Settrington Line and station closed
Terminus		North Eastern Railway Thirsk and Malton Line		Amotherby (via reversal) Line and station closed