Newark Northgate railway station


Newark Northgate is one of two railway stations serving the market town of Newark-on-Trent, in Nottinghamshire, England; the other is, sited closer to the town centre. It is a stop on the East Coast Main Line, down the line from ; it is situated on the main line between to the south and to the north. The station is Grade II listed.

History

The station is on the Great Northern Railway Towns Line from to, which opened on 15 July 1852. The Fens Loop Line via and had opened two years earlier, as it had been easier to construct.
The station opened without any ceremony. The first train of passengers from the north arrived at 06:38 and those from the south arrived at 08:05. The buildings comprised a booking office, cloakroom, first and second class ladies’ and other waiting rooms, with a large refreshment room by and a smaller one by. The platforms were long, with awnings provided for of their length. There was a coal depot, goods warehouse and sheds to accommodate four locomotives.
The station became a junction in 1879 with the opening of the Great Northern Railway branch to, built as a northern extension of the Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway which opened at the same time. Services from Newark were provided to or and also to. Services onto the joint line from Newark were withdrawn by 1922. The line was much used for through goods, especially between Newark and Northampton. The joint line closed in 1962, except for isolated fragments, but the Newark to Bottesford Junction section survived until 1988.
On 9 July 1928, King George V and Queen Mary arrived at the station from King's Cross, where they were received by the 6th Duke of Portland.
The short connection to the Newark Castle to line was opened in 1965 by British Rail to maintain a link between the East Coast Main Line and Lincoln, following the closure of the branch from the latter to. This remains in use today by trains to Lincoln and.

Newark flat crossing

The station lies just south of the Newark flat crossing, which is one of the few remaining flat railway crossings in Great Britain. The ECML is crossed by the Nottingham-Lincoln line; inter-city trains not calling at Newark Northgate have to slow from to at the crossing. There are plans to grade-separate the crossing by providing a flyover for east–west services, with a shallow enough gradient to accommodate freight trains.
A key geographical constraint on the construction of a flyover will be the proximity of the site to the River Trent and the A1 trunk road. The benefits of a flyover would include higher capacity on both the ECML and the Nottingham-Lincoln line, for both passengers and freight; journey time improvements; and a more reliable timetable. Network Rail's final Route Utilisation Strategy for the East Midlands estimated that a flyover would have a benefit:cost ratio of 1.4, with further benefits which could not be taken account of in the standard project appraisal procedures. The RUS recommended that the provision of a flyover at Newark was further developed in Control Period 4 to refine the infrastructure costs and potential benefits, with the possibility of constructing it in Control Period 5.

Facilities

The station provides the following facilities:
  • Ticket office, open until 16:00 each day
  • Buffet
  • Lifts and step-free access to all platforms
  • Car park with 294 spaces; bicycle storage.

    Layout

The station has three platforms:
  1. serves inter-city trains to Doncaster, York, Leeds, Hull Paragon, Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley
  2. to Peterborough and London King's Cross
  3. to Lincoln and London King's Cross.

    Services

Newark Northgate is served by two train operating companies, which provide the following general off-peak services in trains per hour/day :
London North Eastern Railway:
  • 5 tp2h to
  • 1 tp2h to
  • 1 tp2h to, via
  • 1 tp2h to, via Leeds
  • 1 tp2h to, via and
  • 2 tpd to, via York, Newcastle, Edinburgh Waverley and Dundee
  • 1 tpd to, via York, Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley
  • 1 tpd to, via York, Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley
  • 1 tpd to, via.
Some northbound services terminate at earlier stations in early mornings and late evenings.
East Midlands Railway:
  • 3 tpd to Lincoln
  • 2 tpd to
  • 1 tpd to, via Lincoln.