page_title: Newcastle railway station
section_title: Inaugurated by the Queen
hierarchical_section_title: Newcastle railway station / Construction and opening / Inaugurated by the Queen
caption_attribution_description: English: Newcastle railway station in 1850, when it opened
context_page_description: Newcastle railway station is a major station in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is located on the East Coast Main Line, around 268 miles north of London King's Cross.
  The station opened in August 1850, as part of the then Newcastle & Carlisle Railway and York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway. Now a Grade I listed building, it is located in the city's Grainger Town area, to the west of the Castle Keep. In Simon Jenkins' Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations, the station was one of only ten to be awarded five stars.
  The main line serving the station is the East Coast Main Line from London to Edinburgh via Yorkshire and Newcastle. It also serves the Durham Coast Line to Sunderland, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, and the Tyne Valley Line to Hexham and Carlisle. Long-distance services are operated by LNER, TransPennine Express and CrossCountry, while Northern Trains operate local services. A Tyne and Wear Metro station, Central Station, is situated beneath the rail station.
context_section_description: The trainshed proved faster to construct and on 29 August 1850 Queen Victoria visited the station by train and formally opened it. The day was declared a public holiday in Newcastle. The following day YN&BR trains were diverted into it.
  The trainshed was, jointly with the Lime Street station in Liverpool, the first to be designed and built in Britain using curved wrought iron ribs to support an arched roof. The large section of the ribs was fabricated using curved web plates specially rolled using bevelled rolls; the novel technique was created by Thomas Charlton of Hawks Crawshay, and was estimated to have saved 14% on the cost of the roof ironwork, compared with cutting rectilinear plates to the curve.
  The station was lit by gas; a demonstration of electric arc-lighting was made, but was not at that date a practical possibility for the large station space. The platforms were positioned 15 inches above rail level.
  The station was shared from the beginning by the Newcastle and North Shields Railway, which abandoned its earlier terminus at Carliol Square to the east which had operated since 1839. The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway started using Central station from 1 January 1851, and also abandoned its earlier terminus at Forth.
  In 1861 the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway had already merged with others to form the North Eastern Railway, and now it was desired to amalgamate with the Newcastle and Berwick Railway too. The Corporation of Newcastle used the opportunity of the necessary Parliamentary Bill for the amalgamation to insist on construction of the abandoned porte-cochère, and this was designed by Thomas Prosser and completed in 1863.
caption: The trainshed soon after opening.
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