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Darlington railway station is the main railway station for the large town of Darlington, in County Durham. The station is very well served as it is located on the East Coast Main Line north of London Kings Cross. The station is an important stop for East Coast Main Line services and it acts as the interchange for Northern Rail services to Middlesbrough. The town is the location of the first commercial steam railway: The Stockton and Darlington Railway. The station itself is a Grade II * listed Victorian structure, and winner of the ''Large Station of the Year'' award in 2005.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=It's a hat-trick for award-winning GNER )〕 It has a full range of passenger facilities, including a buffet, ticket barriers, newsagent, First Class Lounge and travel centre. ==History== The first railway to pass through the area now occupied by the station was built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, who opened their mineral branch from ''Albert Hill Junction'' on their main line to Croft-on-Tees on 27 October 1829. This branch line was subsequently purchased by the Great North of England Railway a decade later to incorporate into their new main line from York which reached the town on 30 March 1841. A separate company, the ''Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway'' continued the new main line northwards towards Ferryhill and Newcastle, opening its route three years later on 19 June 1844.〔Body, p.56〕 This crossed the S&D at ''Parkgate Junction'' by means of a flat crossing which would in future years become something of an operational headache for the North Eastern Railway and LNER. The original ''Bank Top'' station where the two routes met was a modest affair, which was rebuilt in 1860 to accommodate the expanding levels of traffic on the main line. By the mid-1880s even this replacement structure was deemed inadequate and so the NER embarked on a major upgrade to facilities in the area. This included an ornate new station with an impressive three-span overall roof on the Bank Top site, new sidings and goods lines alongside it and a new connecting line from the south end of the station (''Polam Junction'') to meet the original S&D line towards Middlesbrough at ''Oak Tree Junction'' near . These improvements were completed on 1 July 1887, when the old route west of Oak Tree closed to passengers (although it remained in use for freight until 1967). Local legend states that it was Queen Victoria, stretching her legs at the station on a journey from London to Edinburgh, who demanded that an historical railway town such as Darlington must have a better station than it did at that time. The new station, with its broad island platform cost some £81,000 to construct〔Body, p.60〕 and soon became a busy interchange on the main East Coast route, thanks to its rail links to Richmond (opened in 1846), and (1862/5) and the Tees Valley Line to (1842) and (1861). The lines to Penrith (closed in 1962), Barnard Castle (1964)〔Body, p.58〕 and Richmond (1969) have now gone (along with the bays at the northern end of the station, now used for car parking), but the main line (electrified in 1991) and the Tees Valley route remain busy. It is also still possible to travel to Catterick Garrison and Richmond from here, by means of the Arriva North East-operated X26 and X27 buses (which have through National Rail ticketing arrangements). The same company also operated the ''Sky Express'' bus service to Durham Tees Valley Airport from the station, but this was withdrawn in January 2009 due to declining demand.〔(Tees Valley Airport - Airport Bus Service Comes to An End ) Tees Valley Airport Media Centre; Retrieved 2009-01-30〕 In the 1980s a replica set of Darlington Railway Station was built for an episode of Noel's Saturday Roadshow for the BBC. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Darlington railway station」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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