Place South Bank Station code SBK DfT category F2 Opened 23 July 1984 | Grid reference NZ532212 Managed by Northern 2011/12 2,654 Number of platforms 2 | |
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Address Middlesbrough TS6 6UJ, United Kingdom Similar Redcar East railway st, Dinsdale railway station, Marske railway station, British Steel Redcar ra, Longbeck railway station | ||
South Bank railway station serves South Bank, in Redcar and Cleveland unitary authority in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. It is on the Tees Valley Line 2.5 miles (4 km) east of Middlesbrough and operated by Northern, which provides all passenger train services.
Station facilities here have recently been improved as part of the Tees Valley Metro project. The package for this station included new fully lit waiting shelters, renewed station signage and the installation of CCTV. The long-line Public Address system (PA) has been renewed and upgraded with pre-recorded train announcements.
The present station was opened in July 1984 by British Rail to replace a previous structure situated half a mile (0.8 km) farther east that was inconveniently sited in the middle of a heavily industrialised area and in the way of a planned new dockside access road. This previous station, with its island platform was opened by the NER in 1882 to serve the growing town of South Bank and replaced the original station (initially called Eston) built in 1853 by the Middlesbrough & Redcar Railway. Ironically, this was located on the same site as the present station. The 1882 station was closed on the same day that its replacement opened; this survived intact but derelict for many years thereafter but has since been demolished to allow the down (eastbound) line through the site to be realigned.
Two other closed stations were also located either side of South Bank on this stretch of line: Grangetown (closed November 1991) and Cargo Fleet (closed January 1990).
Passenger usage of the station has increased significantly within recent years with 22,860 entries and exits recorded in the 2014–15 period.
Services
Since the timetable change of December 2013, there is now an hourly basic service from the station in both directions (including Sundays) westbound to Middlesbrough and eastbound to Saltburn. This is a major improvement on the former service level of just 3 trains in each direction per weekday (peak hours only) that applied prior to the December 2012 timetable change. Tees Valley Unlimited, a partnership between local councils successfully campaigned to enhance service patterns at South Bank from existing services on the line.
The station usage estimates of 2014 and 2015 also make note of the fact that the service improvement has increased the patronage substantially enough to be in the top ten most percentage increase of passenger numbers across the whole of the United Kingdom.