Coldstream railway station

Not to be confused with Coldstream railway station, Melbourne.

Coldstream
General information
Location	Cornhill on Tweed, Coldstream, Northumberland England
Grid reference	NT862395
Platforms	2
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway
Pre-grouping	North Eastern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway, North Eastern Region of British Railways
Key dates
27 July 1849	Station opens as Cornhill
1 October 1873	Station renamed Coldstream
15 June 1964	Closed to passengers
29 March 1965	Goods services withdrawn
Location

Coldstream railway station served the town of Coldstream, in Berwickshire, Scotland; however, the station was sited across the River Tweed in Northumberland, England. It was a stop on both the Cornhill Branch, which ran from Alnwick to Cornhill Junction on the Kelso line near Coldstream, and the Kelso to Tweedmouth line.

v t e Cornhill Branch
Overview Locale Northumberland Successor North Eastern Railway Technical Track gauge 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Legend
Kelso Branch to Kelso │ to Tweedmouth   Coldstream opened as Cornhill Mindrum Kirknewton Akeld Wooler Ilderton Wooperton Hedgeley Glanton Whittingham Edlingham Alnwick Alnwick branch line to East Coast Main Line

History

Authorised in 1845, the Kelso Branch was built by the North Eastern Railway to link the communities of the Tweed Valley with the fledgling railway network at Tweedmouth. The line opened in two stages: to Sprouston on 27 July 1849 and to Kelso on 1 June 1851.

The Cornhill Branch project was authorised in 1882 to link the farming communities of north Northumberland with the market town of Alnwick, and link the North Eastern Railway's Kelso line to its Alnwick Branch.

Construction started by the North Eastern Railway in 1884. The line opened to freight between Cornhill and Wooperton on 2 May 1887, and the whole line for both freight and passengers on 5 September of the same year.

The line had difficulty attracting passengers as many of the stations were some distance from the communities they served. Increased bus competition in the 1920s led to passenger trains being withdrawn on 22 September 1930, ^[1] although the service resumed briefly during the Second World War to serve RAF Milfield near Akeld. ^[2]

After a severe storm in August 1948 ^[3] washed away a bridge north of Ilderton station, British Railways, which had recently taken over the line, decided that the volume of traffic along the line did not warrant replacing it. The line was thus split into two: Alnwick to Ilderton and Coldstream to Wooler, which included Akeld. ^[2]

This, coupled with an infrequent service, caused the line to go further into decline and the section from Alnwick to Ilderton closed on 2 March 1953; the other section following suit on 29 March 1965. ^[4]

On 15 June 1964, passenger services were withdrawn along the whole line between Tweedmouth and St Boswells. Freight services between Tweedmouth and Kelso followed suit the next year on 29 March with the complete closure of the line. Only one track of the double line between Kelso and Tweedmouth was lifted initially; all track was removed in 1969 from St Boswells through to Tweedmouth, following closure of the freight service to Kelso and complete closure of the Waverley Route. ^[4]

Services

Preceding station	Disused railways			Following station
Terminus		North Eastern Railway Cornhill branch line		Mindrum
Sunilaws		North Eastern Railway Kelso Branch		Twizell

The site today

The station has been demolished and a housing estate occupies the site. ^[4]

References

Citations

1. "The Alnwick and Cornhill Railway". Northumberland National Park. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
2. Catford, Nick (26 May 2017). "Station name: Akeld". Disused Stations. Retrieved 15 April 2025.
3. Passengers No More by G.Daniels and L.A.Dench
4. Young, Alan (28 December 2017). "Station name: Coldstream". Disused Stations. Retrieved 15 April 2025.

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN   978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC   60251199. OL   11956311M.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN   978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC   22311137.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN   978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC   228266687.

External links

• Coldstream station on the Disused Stations website
• Coldstream station on a navigable O.S. map
• Pictures of possibly the last passenger train to Wooler at Coldstream station

55°38′58″N2°13′07″W / 55.64945°N 2.21868°W / 55.64945; -2.21868