Fighting Cocks railway station

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Fighting Cocks
Fighting Cocks railway station (ILN 1875).jpg
An engraving of Fighting Cocks station, from "The Railway Jubilee at Darlington" in Illustrated London News: 340, 2 October 1875
General information
Location Middleton St George, Darlington
England
Coordinates 54°31′18″N1°28′21″W / 54.5218°N 1.4724°W / 54.5218; -1.4724
Platforms2
Other information
StatusDisused
History
Original company Stockton & Darlington Railway
Pre-grouping North Eastern Railway
Post-grouping
Key dates
10 October 1825First regular passenger train over Stockton & Darlington Railway; first unofficial use of the station
c. 1830Official station opened as Middleton and Dinsdale
1866Renamed Fighting Cocks
1 July 1887Station closed to passengers
1964Station closed completely
Fighting Cocks railway station
Location
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Fighting Cocks railway station
Location in England
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Fighting Cocks railway station
Location in the United Kingdom
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Fighting Cocks railway station
Location in Europe

Fighting Cocks railway station was a railway station on the original route of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR), which served the villages of Middleton St George and Low Dinsdale in County Durham, as well as the once popular Dinsdale Spa Hotel from 1829.

Contents

History

The Fighting Cocks public house in November 2005 seen from the site of the level crossing. The station was located immediately to the left of the road. The Fighting Cocks - geograph.org.uk - 75075.jpg
The Fighting Cocks public house in November 2005 seen from the site of the level crossing. The station was located immediately to the left of the road.

When the Stockton & Darlington Railway first opened on 10 October 1825, there were no official stations, as passenger trains were provided by independent coach operators who purchased a licence from the railway company to enable them to operate on the line. [1] Tickets were sold by local publicans, and so it has been claimed that the Fighting Cocks public house, a coaching inn near where the railway crossed Rykeneild Street, could be one of the oldest surviving station booking office in the world. [2] It was not until the success of passenger services on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway persuaded [3] the S&DR to purchase the coach operators that in December 1833 it began to operate its own locomotive-hauled passenger service. [1]

In 1829, the Dinsdale Spa Hotel was opened close to the village of Low Dinsdale, which led to an increase in travel to the village using the railway. As a result, a permanent station was opened during the 1830s (appearing in timetables by 1838), on the east side of the level crossing, to cater for this traffic. It was originally called Middleton and Dinsdale but was renamed Fighting Cocks in 1866. [2]

In 1863 the S&DR was amalgamated into the North Eastern Railway (NER), [4] who on 1 July 1887 opened a new line from south of Darlington Bank Top station to Oak Tree Junction, east of Fighting Cocks station, [5] to enable passenger services on the former S&DR route to serve Bank Top station. [3] However the opening of this new route meant that Fighting Cocks was bypassed, and so a new station was provided at Dinsdale to replace it. Over the course of its life as a passenger station, approximately 30,000 passenger tickets were sold to Fighting Cocks. From this point on Fighting Cocks was only served by goods trains until it was closed completely as an economy measure in 1964. [2]

The line through the station remained as a through line until it was severed at the western end on 21 May 1967, [3] though it was partially retained as a short branch line from Oak Tree Junction until the 1970s. [2]

A public footpath now runs along the alignment of the railway through the site of the station. [6]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stockton and Darlington Railway</span> English railway company, 1825 to 1863

The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middleton St George</span> Human settlement in England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darlington and Barnard Castle Railway</span> United Kingdom legislation

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellfield railway station</span> Former railway station in Wingate, County Durham, England

Wellfield railway station was a railway station that served the village of Wingate in County Durham, England. It was built by the North Eastern Railway (NER) on the route of the Hartlepool Dock & Railway (HD&R) to allow interchange between the existing line and their newly opened line from Stockton-on-Tees.

References

  1. 1 2 Tomlinson, William Weaver (1914). The North Eastern Railway: Its Rise and Development. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Andrew Reid & Co Ltd. pp. 122–127 & 384–385. ISBN   9781296562458.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Making an unremarkable wall truly remarkable | The Northern Echo". The Northern Echo. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 Hoole, K. (1973). Forgotten Railways: North-East England. Newton Abbot: David & Charles Limited. pp.  142 &151–152. ISBN   0715358944.
  4. ↑ Hill, Norman (2001). Teesside Railways A View From The Past. Hersham: Ian Allan Publishing Ltd. p. 42. ISBN   0711028036.
  5. ↑ Body, Geoffrey (1989). PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Eastern Region Volume 2. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens Limited. p. 56. ISBN   1852600721.
  6. ↑ "SDR Booklet 6 Darlington to Goosepool via Fighting Cocks 2016-08-03.pdf" (PDF). Friends of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
Preceding station Historical railways Following station
Stockton (Stockton & Darlington Railway)
Line and station closed		  North Eastern Railway
Stockton & Darlington Railway (Stockton Branch), (Middlesbrough Branch) & (Yarm Branch)		  Darlington North Road
Line closed, station open
Thornaby
Line closed, station open		  
Yarm Depots
Line and station closed		  
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