page_title: Railways in Northallerton
section_title: 1901–1948
hierarchical_section_title: Railways in Northallerton / History / 1901–1948
caption_attribution_description: English: Northallerton: a Down freight heading for Tees-side View SW, on the upper line towards Northllarton station and the ex-North Eastern ECML to York and the South. This Class F freight is headed (perhaps unusually) by an A! Pacific (No. 60153 Flamboyant) has come off the main line from York, which is seen above heading for Darlington, on the Low Level avoiding-line and is heading for Eaglescliffe and probably Newport Yard, Thornaby. An enormous amount of freight traffic ran through Northallerton to Tees-side as well as along the ECMl, making Northallerton one of the busiest junctions in the whole country.
context_page_description: The network of railways in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, England, was constructed by three companies whose lines through the town were built between 1841 and 1852. They were all amalgamated into the North Eastern Railway which in turn was subsumed into the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923 and British Rail in 1948. British Rail closed two lines, the Wensleydale line in 1954 and a section of the Leeds Northern Railway to Harrogate in 1969. The Wensleydale line was retained as a freight branch and resurrected as a heritage railway in 2003 but the line to Harrogate closed completely. Despite closures and rationalisation, the station still is at a major junction on the East Coast Main Line.
  Northallerton is on the East Coast Main Line and Transpennine Express Northern Line. The station is 200 miles north of London King's Cross, 30 miles north of York railway station and 175 miles south of Edinburgh Waverley railway station.
context_section_description: In 1911, the station was remodelled when an improved connection was installed on the western side for access to the Wensleydale line. The down platform (Darlington-bound) was converted into an island platform with two running lines and a north-facing bay for Wensleydale services. Another bay was installed on the up platform (York-bound) which allowed services to depart south for the Ripon line, although the stopping service until 1901 had used the low platforms.
  Starting in 1897, the tracks were "widened" in several sections between York and Northallerton. In 1931, the London and North Eastern Railway quadrupled most of the line and created the grade separated Longlands Junction south of Northallerton by 1933. It connected to the original formation from Ripon and allowed freight to avoid the station from the York direction. Trains heading south accessed the line south via the Longlands Tunnel (55 yards (50 m)) under the fast lines through the station. In 1942, the LNER installed up and down slow lines between Pilmoor and Thirsk as wartime necessities led to an upsurge in traffic. British Rail completed the quadrupling of the line in 1959 and 1960.
  In 1941, concerns about wartime bombing prompted building a chord from north of Romanby Road level crossing to Castle Hills Junction  to connect the lower and upper lines and opened in November 1941. Should Northallerton station be bombed, it provided an alternative route. The new section was engineered with a unique feature; because of the gradient it was too low to bridge the Wensleydale line and too high to dive under the railway. Engineers created two moveable sections on rail wheels which when pushed together, created a bridge allowing trains bound to and from Wensleydale to traverse the section. If the wartime chord needed to be used, the moveable sections could be moved onto sidings on either side of the running lines. The bridge was constructed from two 17-foot (5.2 m) girders that straddled the lower running lines. The bridge completed the track circuits and prevented trains from running under when the bridge was in place, or from running over it if the lower wartime lines were in use. Trains could still access the Wensleydale line by reversing at Castle Hills Junction. Apart from testing, there is no evidence that the chord was used as Northallerton was rarely attacked (some bombs did land on one of the livestock marts). Closure of this section came in 1946.
caption: Northallerton - a Down freight heading for Teesside
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