Cleethorpes railway station

History

The station opened on Easter Monday, 6 April 1863 when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway extended the line from Grimsby into the town.

The station buildings were constructed in 1884 with refreshment rooms and a clocktower by John Mann Lockerbie and Arthur Wilkinson of Birmingham. Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale used the station on 2 July 1885 when he visited Cleethorpes to open the promenade and gardens facing the sea constructed by H.B James CE of Westminster for the railway company.

The station layout was remodelled in 1889 to give six platforms and two carriage sidings extending in the direction of Grimsby. By 1891 the carriage sidings had been increased to six and extended to a new signal box at Suggitt's Lane. This layout also included a turntable to the rear of the signal box. A 1910 report into work carried out the previous year refers to new crossovers to enable trains to arrive and depart from any platform. The signal box by this time had 100 levers and was jointly the third largest on the Great Central system with Marylebone. The original GCR station buildings on platform one were replaced by the current single storey BR-era structures in 1961-2, but they still stand and are now used as train crew accommodation.

Until 1985 the station and surrounding area was still controlled by a mechanical signal box with full semaphore signalling, including double track throughout to Grimsby and beyond. However, a resignalling scheme for the entire area saw the line to Grimsby singled & the number of platforms reduced to four (numbers 1–3 and 5). Platform 5 was renumbered 4 and the Diesel Fuelling Road is what used to be platform 6. The signal box was closed & demolished and new colour light signals installed which were operated from a panel in the signal box at Pasture Street in Grimsby. In later works the platform surfaces have been rebuilt to modern specifications. Since January 2016, all signalling here is supervised from the Rail Operating Centre at York.

In the 1970s Cleethorpes had a twice daily return service to London Kings Cross, typically hauled by a Class 55 Deltic.

Even after resignalling until the withdrawal of locomotive hauled cross-Pennine services and the through Kings Cross service, evening time at Cleethorpes was a very busy time with most arrivals requiring cleaning through the carriage washer, fuelling on the small fuel point and shunting into the various departure positions for the following morning. Locomotives returned to the diesel depot at Immingham for overnight servicing, and the High Speed Train from Kings Cross was fuelled at the fuelling point at the rear of what used to be called Hawkeys Cafe via a siding that went round the back of the Wash Plant control building and joined up with the old Platform 6 road.

As of 2004 only platforms 2 and 3 remained in use, but as of 2007, Platform 1 has reopened and all platforms have been fitted with new information displays. Other platforms at the station remain unused are in a state of neglect as sand has blown from the nearby beach onto the lines and formed drifts. Platform 1 is used by only First TransPennine Express Services to Manchester, platform 2 for Northern Rail services to Barton on Humber, and platform 3 for peak hour services to/from Sheffield (including the Saturdays-only service via Brigg & Retford).

About half a mile north are the station's cleaning facilities, which are used in the evenings by the units off the TPX Manchester trains. These first arrive on no.3 platform then go out to the washer and then on to the fuelling point. This happens every night with all four units that are stabled there.

First TransPennine Express have built a small depot, to provide stabling, light maintenance and re-fuelling at Cleethorpes for their DMU fleet. The Class 153 units used by other operators do not berth here overnight but work in and out either in service or empty from Doncaster (Northern) or Lincoln (EMT).

Facilities

The station is fully staffed, with the ticket office open 06:45-19:30 Mondays to Saturdays and 09:00-19:30 on Sundays. A self-service ticket machine is provided on the concourse for use outside these times and for collecting pre-paid tickets. There are toilets, a waiting room and refreshment facilities (a public house) also located on the concourse. Customer help points, timetable posters and CIS displays are located on both the concourse and each platform. All platforms have step-free access.

The station has the PlusBus scheme where train and bus tickets can be bought together at a saving, it is in the same area as Grimsby Docks, New Clee and Grimsby stations.

Services

TransPennine Express operate an hourly service to Manchester Airport via Sheffield and Doncaster along their South TransPennine route. A number of services to/from Sheffield also start or end here.

Northern operate a two-hourly weekdays & Saturday service to Barton-on-Humber (with bus connections to Hull). On Saturdays Northern operate three services to Sheffield via Brigg. A limited Sunday service (four trains per day) runs to Barton in the summer.

East Midlands Trains operate a very limited timetable at Cleethorpes with just one morning train from Cleethorpes to Newark North Gate and one evening train from there to Cleethorpes (which then returns to Lincoln) on Monday to Friday. They operate three services each way on Sundays to/from the station in the summer months.

Proposed services and future changes

In August 2007, after National Express was awarded the InterCity East Coast, the new company proposed to start services between Lincoln and London Kings Cross with one morning service and one evening service extending from Lincoln to Cleethorpes giving Cleethorpes a link to London and calling at Grimsby Town and Market Rasen. These services were to be operated using the Class 180's but was never introduced to National Express East Coast. These services were due to start from December 2010 but were scrapped when National Express ran out of money and was renationalised as East Coast.

Great North Eastern Railway wanted to create a rail link between Cleethorpes and London Kings Cross, calling Grimsby Town, Habrough, Scunthorpe and Doncaster, arriving at a new modern Kings Cross station. This service would have been introduced by December 2017 if Alliance Rail's plans had been accepted by the Office of Rail Regulation and would have created the first direct link to London since 1986. In May 2016, the ORR rejected GNER's track access application for this route.

In October 2017, services between Cleethorpes and Barton-on-Humber will be transferred to East Midlands Trains, leaving only the Saturday only Sheffield to Cleethorpes via Brigg trains to be operated by the then known as Arriva Rail North to serve Cleethorpes.