Saltburn railway station

Saltburn
265px
Location
Place	Saltburn-by-the-Sea
Local authority	Redcar and Cleveland
Coordinates
Grid reference	NZ664214
Operations
Station code	SLB
Managed by	Northern Rail
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2005/06	0.225 million
2006/07	0.236 million
2007/08	0.237 million
2008/09	0.244 million
2009/10	0.239 million
2010/11	0.252 million
2011/12	0.259 million
2012/13	0.254 million
2013/14	0.267 million
2014/15	0.254 million
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Saltburn from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Saltburn railway station serves the town of Saltburn-by-the-Sea in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. It is the terminus of the Tees Valley Line and is operated by Northern Rail who provide all passenger train services. It is unmanned, and has two acrylic glass passenger shelters, numerous seating and an electronic information board.

Station facilities here were improved in Summer 2012 as part of the Tees Valley Metro project. The package for this station included new waiting shelters, decorative planting schemes, renewed station signage, a digital information screen displaying live departures, and the installation of CCTV. The long-line Public Address system (PA) has been renewed and upgraded with pre-recorded train announcements.

History

The station was opened by the Stockton and Darlington Railway as the terminus of their line from Redcar on 17 August 1861 (although the ornate station building wasn't finished until the following year). Eleven years later, the North Eastern Railway opened a line towards Brotton (the Whitby Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway) from the town, but this diverged from the original route some 440 yards (400 m) west of the 1861 station in order to avoid excessively steep gradients further east. This meant the passenger trains from the town to Loftus and Whitby that started in 1875 had to reverse into and out of the terminus before regaining the correct direction at Saltburn West Junction. This line is still in operation today to serve a steelworks at Skinningrove and the Boulby potash mine, although passenger trains ceased in 1951.

In its heyday, the station had four platforms and a sizeable number of carriage sidings to handle the large quantities of excursion trains that ran there - these included services from as far away as Leeds and Blackpool. There was also a short siding extension (approximately 300 yards (270 m)) from the main station to another platform at the rear of the railway-owned Zetland Hotel (opened in 1863) where passengers in first class carriages could disembark directly into their accommodation.

A 1974 remodelling scheme saw the station reduced in size however, with the two main platforms & signal box being taken out of use along with most of the sidings and one of the two running lines from West Junction. Today both of the two surviving excursion bay platforms are used for scheduled services but neither the main station building nor the Zetland Hotel is in rail-related use - the former having been converted into a photographic studio, cafe and various other retail outlets and the latter into luxury flats.

Services

There is a half-hourly service (Mondays to Saturdays) from the station to Middlesbrough and Darlington, with certain trains continuing to Bishop Auckland (every two hours, increasing to hourly at peak times) and two early morning through services to Newcastle via Durham. There is an hourly service on Sundays (two hourly to Bishop Auckland).

References

• Binns, D. (1981), Railways Around Skipton, Wyvern Publications, Skipton.
• Body, G. (1988), PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Eastern Region Volume 2, Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough, ISBN 1-85260-072-1

External links

• Train times and station information for Saltburn railway station from National Rail
• RAILSCOT - Saltburn
• Saltburn Line User Group - Pictorial History
• Buses from the station
• Buses to the station

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Terminus		Northern Rail Tees Valley Line		Marske

This station offers access to the Cleveland Way
Distance to path
Next station anticlockwise	Kildale 8 miles
Next station clockwise	Whitby 19 miles