Newark Northgate railway station

Newark Northgate (alternatively Newark North Gate) is one of two railway stations serving the market town of Newark-on-Trent, in Nottinghamshire, England; the other is Newark Castle, sited closer to the town centre. It is a stop on the East Coast Main Line, 120 miles 8 chains (193.3 km) down the line from London King's Cross;^[2] it is situated on the main line between Grantham to the south and Retford to the north.^[2][3] The station is Grade II listed.^[1]

The station is on the Great Northern Railway Towns Line from Peterborough to Doncaster, which opened on 15 July 1852.^[4] The Fens Loop Line via Boston and Lincoln had opened two years earlier, as it had been easier to construct.^[5]

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.^[6] The buildings comprised a booking office, cloakroom, first and second class ladies’ and other waiting rooms, with a large refreshment room 51 feet (16 m) by 21 feet (6.4 m) and a smaller one 21 feet (6.4 m) by 14 feet (4.3 m). The platforms were 435 feet (133 m) long, with awnings provided for 50 feet (15 m) 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 Bottesford South, 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 Northampton or Leicester Belgrave Road and also to Nottingham Victoria. Services onto the joint line from Newark were withdrawn by 1922.^[7] The line was much used for through goods, especially between Newark and Northampton.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.^[8]

The short connection to the Newark Castle to Lincoln St. Marks line was opened in 1965 by British Rail to maintain a link between the East Coast Main Line (ECML) and Lincoln, following the closure of the branch from the latter to Grantham. This remains in use today by trains to Lincoln and Grimsby.^[9]

The station lies just south of the Newark flat crossing,^[10] 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 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) to 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) 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 (RUS) 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 (2009–2014) to refine the infrastructure costs and potential benefits, with the possibility of constructing it in Control Period 5 (2014–2019).^[11]

The station provides the following facilities:^[3]

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

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.

Newark Northgate is served by two train operating companies, which provide the following general off-peak services in trains per hour/day (tph/tpd):

London North Eastern Railway:^[12]

• 5 tp2h to London King's Cross
• 1 tp2h to Lincoln
• 1 tp2h to Bradford Forster Square, via Leeds
• 1 tp2h to Harrogate, via Leeds
• 1 tp2h to Edinburgh Waverley, via York and Newcastle
• 2 tpd to Aberdeen, via York, Newcastle, Edinburgh Waverley and Dundee
• 1 tpd to Dundee, via York, Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley
• 1 tpd to Inverness, via York, Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley
• 1 tpd to Hull Paragon, via Doncaster.

Some northbound services terminate at earlier stations in early mornings and late evenings.

East Midlands Railway:^[13]

• 3 tpd to Lincoln
• 2 tpd to Nottingham
• 1 tpd to Peterborough, via Lincoln.

• Listed buildings in Newark-on-Trent

• Body, G. (1986), PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Eastern Region Volume 1, Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough, ISBN 0-85059-712-9

• Train times and station information for Newark Northgate railway station from National Rail
• Media related to Newark Northgate railway station at Wikimedia Commons