Eryholme railway station

Eryholme railway station, originally named as Dalton Junction until May 1901, was a railway station located on the East Coast Main Line between Northallerton and Darlington in North Yorkshire, England. It was the point at which the now closed Eryholme-Richmond line diverged from the East Coast Main Line.

The station opened 10 September 1846 as Dalton Junction, and was renamed to Eryholme (sometimes Eryholme Junction) in May 1901.^[1][2] It closed to regular passenger services in October 1911, though services continued to call unadvertised at the station for the railway families that live at Eryholme.^[3][4] Although there is no evidence that the station forwarded or received any goods in the 1960s, it officially closed to goods traffic in June 1964.^[5] One non-passenger revenue service was the sidings for the Darlington Rolling Stock Company which provided wagon maintenance.^[6]

The junction was 2.25 miles (3.62 km) south of Croft Spa railway station, 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Cowton railway station (both on the ECML), and 2 miles 24 chains (3.7 km) north-east of Moulton station on the Eryholme to Richmond line.^[7][8] When it was still open to passengers, the station had four platforms; two on the main line and two on the branch, with the down platform of the main line merging into the Richmond-bound platform on the branch. Connecting the main platforms was a footbridge, but passengers alighting from Darlington-bound trains from Richmond, had to cross the tracks at the level.^[9]

The locality was sparsely populated, there being no road access to the station, and Eryholme's existence was solely to allow passengers to transfer between trains on the Richmond line with those on the main line between Darlington and York.^[10][11] Originally, services on the branch connected with Eryholme only and passengers transferred between trains at the junction station. When the station closed in 1911, Croft Spa was used as the interchange station, but before the LNER assumed control in 1923, trains started running through to Darlington.^[12]

The station probably saw its greatest number of passengers during World War II as it was the drop off point for servicemen arriving at the nearby RAF Croft.^[5] After the war it was also used by railwaymen living in nearby cottages for which trains stopped there but were not advertised in the timetables. This arrangement continued until 1969 when services on the Richmond Branch were withdrawn. Passing the site today passengers on the East Coast Main Line would be hard pressed to pinpoint the location of Eryholme, as apart from some remains of the branch platforms, all signs of the station have been demolished.^[5]

• List of closed railway lines in Great Britain
• List of closed railway stations in Britain

• 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 (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
• 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.
• Ludlam, A. J. (1993). The Catterick Camp Railway and the Richmond Branch. Headington: Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-85361-438-5.
• Suggitt, Gordon (2007) [2005]. Lost stations of North and East Yorkshire. Newbury: Countryside Books. ISBN 978-185306-918-5.
• Young, Alan (2015). Lost stations of Yorkshire; the North and East Ridings. Kettering: Silver Link. ISBN 978-1-85794-453-2.

• Eryholme station, SubBrit disused stations project
• Station site on navigable 1947 O. S. map.