Spalding railway station

Spalding railway station serves the town of Spalding in Lincolnshire, England.

Spalding is on the branch line to Lincoln operated by a roughly hourly service in both directions usually by Class 153 single car units. Between 9 am and roughly 5 pm services usually run from Peterborough to Lincoln, however two early morning services commence from Nottingham , one arriving via Grantham and Peterborough, the other via Newark Castle and Lincoln, meaning that Spalding can be reached from Nottingham by both northbound and southbound services. Also at 9 pm there is a service that returns to Nottingham via Peterborough and Melton Mowbray, bringing the total number of routes, via which direct trains operate between Spalding and Nottingham to three. Two afternoon services in each direction continue to/originate from Newark North Gate. Another service operates to Doncaster (only one way).

Despite the diversity of destinations, the only place reachable during peak times is Peterborough, with the service terminating at Spalding. This is due to the high cost of operating the line north of the station, where a large quantity of manned level crossings are in place. During Sundays Spalding has no services at all. Network Rail have plans to upgrade the line to enable freight train to be diverted from the East Coast main line but it appears that this will only be during the present operating hours indicating that no modernisation of the level crossings etc will be undertaken.

Spalding nowadays has only two platforms.^[1] Platform 1 (adjacent the station building) is mainly used for southbound services towards Peterborough and terminating trains from Peterborough, but is also used by some northbound through services towards Sleaford and Lincoln; Platform 2 can only be used by northbound services. The station used to have seven platforms, five through tracks and two terminal bays with services to March and Sleaford on the Great Eastern and Great Northern Joint, Bourne and King's Lynn on the Midland & Great Northern Joint and finally the Great Northern line going to Boston. There was also, past the Northern Junction a freight line going off to the former British Sugar plant.^[2] The bridge connecting Platforms 1 and 2 to the rest of the station still exists; however the entrance to the old platforms have been fenced off and the walk through on the bridge bricked up. The tracks meanwhile have been lifted and the site is now used for housing. Very little remains on the old station, however the façade remains as it was when first built.

Only 22 minutes from Peterborough, Spalding railway station is a few minutes away from the bus station connecting Spalding to Boston, King's Lynn and Peterborough.

History

Spalding gained its first rail links to Peterborough, Boston and Lincoln in 1848, courtesy of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) who built their main line from London to Doncaster through the town. This was superseded by the direct line via Grantham within four years, but it remained well used by traffic heading towards Louth and Grimsby over the former East Lincolnshire Railway.

The GNR subsequently added a line eastwards to Sutton Bridge via Holbeach (the Norwich & Spalding Railway) in stages between 1858 and 1862, a westward route to Bourne in 1866 and another to March the following year in an attempt to thwart the ambitions of the competing Great Eastern Railway (GER). These efforts didn't succeed however and the company eventually agreed to work these routes jointly with the Midland Railway (the former pair forming the backbone of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway system) and the GER (March line) by the beginning of the 1870s. The collaboration between GNR and GER also led to the construction of the last route out of the town, the GE&GN Joint line to Sleaford which opened to traffic on 1 August 1882.^[2]

By the end of the nineteenth century the town had become a major rail crossroads and the station had grown to reflect this, having more than doubled in size from its opening half a century earlier. It would also later become a popular destination in its own right, with the annual Tulip Festival bringing excursion trains into the town from all over the country from the late 1950s onwards.

Later years

The Midland & Great Northern routes into the town were heavily used (particularly during the summer months) well into the fifties, but they were the first to suffer from the BR economy drive of the time, closing to passengers on 28 February 1959.^[3] The East Lincolnshire line to Boston was to suffer a similar fate a decade later, with the last trains to Grimsby & Peterborough running on 3 October 1970. This left the 'Joint Line' as the only surviving route through the town, but it was to regain its status as a junction within months - the line to Peterborough regaining a limited (peak hours only) passenger service on 7 June 1971. The Joint line remained a busy freight artery for the next few years, serving as one as the main outlets for the marshalling yard complex at Whitemoor but the general decline in freight traffic in the area would ultimately lead to the Spalding to March portion's closure to all traffic on 27 November 1982.^[4] This left the town effectively with the same rail access as it had back in 1848, albeit with trains to Lincoln running via Sleaford rather than Boston. The station, known in steam days as 'Spalding Town', was honoured on 3 May 2002 when a main line locomotive was dedicated to it. Class 31 diesel No. 31106, owned by Cambridgeshire businessman and enthusiast Howard Johnston, who was born nearby, arrived on a Tulip Parade day special train, and a short stopover was arranged for Colin Fisher, Chairman of South Holland District Council, to unveil the cast Spalding Town nameplate (which includes the authority's crest within it) on the side of the engine. He was also presented with a replica plate as a permanent reminder of the occasion. Although intended for public display, this has not yet taken place.

Services

Notes

References

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

External links

Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Spalding_railway_station Spalding railway station] at Wikimedia Commons