Place England | Platforms in use 2 | |
1 March 1872 Station opened as Hirst Similar Blyth railway station, Thornhill (Dumfries) railway st, Chipping Sodbury railway st, Caerleon railway station, Marsh Barton railway st | ||
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.
Contents
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. 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.
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.
In 2009 the Association of Train Operating Companies published a £34 million proposal to restore passenger services from Newcastle Central to Ashington.
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.