page_title: York railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: York railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: 1903 Petrol Electric Autocar of the North Eastern Railway at York Station. Date unknown, most likely pre-First World War
context_page_description: York railway station is on the East Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom, serving the city of York, North Yorkshire. It is 188 miles 40 chains north of London King's Cross and on the main line it is situated between Doncaster to the south and Thirsk to the north. As of June 2018 the station is operated by London North Eastern Railway.
  York's station is a key junction approximately halfway between London and Edinburgh. It is approximately five miles north of the point where the Cross Country and TransPennine Express routes via Leeds join the main line, connecting Scotland and the North East, North West, Midlands and southern England. The junction was historically a major site for rolling stock manufacture, maintenance and repair.
  In Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations by Simon Jenkins, the station was one of only ten to be awarded five stars.
context_section_description: The first York railway station was a temporary wooden building on Queen Street outside the walls of the city, opened in 1839 by the York and North Midland Railway.  It was succeeded in 1841, inside the walls, by what is now York old railway station. In due course, the irksome requirement that through trains between London and Newcastle needed to reverse out of the old York station to continue their journey necessitated the construction of a new through station outside the walls.
  The present station, designed by the North Eastern Railway architects Thomas Prosser and William Peachey, opened on 25 June 1877.  It had 13 platforms and was at that time the largest in the world.  As part of the new station project, the Royal Station Hotel (now The Principal York), designed by Peachey, opened in 1878.
  In 1909 new platforms were added, and in 1938 the current footbridge was built and the station resignalled.
  The building was heavily bombed during the Second World War. On one occasion, on 29 April 1942, 800 passengers had to be evacuated from a King's Cross-Edinburgh train which arrived during a bombing raid. On the same night, two railway workers were killed, one being station foreman William Milner (born 1900), who died after returning to his burning office to collect his first aid kit. He was posthumously awarded the King's commendation for gallantry. A plaque in his memory has been erected at the station. The station was extensively repaired in 1947.
  The station was designated as a Grade II* listed building in 1968.
  The track layout through and around the station was remodelled again in 1988 as part of the resignalling scheme that was carried out prior to the electrification of the ECML shortly afterwards by British Rail. This resulted in several bay platforms (mainly on the eastern side) being taken out of service and the track to them removed. At the same time a new signalling centre (York IECC) was commissioned on the western side of the station to control the new layout and also take over the function of several other signal boxes on the main line. The IECC here now supervises the main line from Temple Hirst (near Doncaster) through to Northallerton, along with sections of the various routes branching from it. It has also (since 2001–2) taken over responsibility for the control area of the former power box at Leeds and thus signals trains as far away as Gargrave and Morley.
  In 2006–7, to improve facilities for bus, taxi and car users as well as pedestrians and cyclists, the approaches to the station were reorganised.  The former motive power depot and goods station now house the National Railway Museum.
caption: York station in the early 20th Century
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