Appleby railway station

Appleby railway station is a Grade II listed[1] railway station which serves the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria, England. The station is owned by Network Rail and is operated by Northern who provide all passenger train services. The station is 30 ¹⁄₂ miles (49.1 km) south east of Carlisle on the Settle-Carlisle Line.

This article is about the railway station in Cumbria, England. For other similarly named railway stations, see Appleby railway station (disambiguation).

Appleby
Location
Place	Appleby-in-Westmorland
Local authority	Eden
Grid reference	NY686206
Operations
Station code	APP
Managed by	Northern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	E
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2014/15	57,078
– Interchange	3
2015/16	53,036
– Interchange	2
2016/17	61,446
– Interchange	22,490[note 1]
2017/18	60,254
2018/19	57,526
History
1 May 1876	Station opens as Appleby
1 September 1952	Renamed Appleby West
6 May 1968	Renamed Appleby
Listed status
Listed feature	Appleby Station, Main Building
Listing grade	Grade II listed
Entry number	1311476[1]
Added to list	14 May 1990
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Appleby from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.

The station was formerly called Appleby West, the older Appleby East station was nearby on the Eden Valley Railway. The buildings of Appleby East still survive.

Well-known railway photographer and enthusiast Bishop Eric Treacy died at Appleby railway station on 13 May 1978 after suffering a heart attack whilst waiting to photograph Evening Star, which was due to pass through the station on a rail tour. A plaque located on the down platform commemorates the spot.[2]

History

The station was designed by the Midland Railway company architect John Holloway Sanders.[3] Opened by the Midland Railway at the same time as the line itself in May 1876, it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. It was one of only two stations on the Settle-Carlisle line to remain open (Settle being the other) following the withdrawal of local stopping trains in May 1970.

A 1903 Railway Clearing House Junction Diagram showing (right) railways in the vicinity of Appleby. Present station is shown as MIDLAND STA.

When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Regional Railways until the privatisation of British Rail.

Mile post at Appleby

The line through the station is often used as a diversionary route for the West Coast Main Line for both passenger and freight trains. A pre-nationalisation milepost on the southbound platform marks the station's location ​277 ¹⁄₄ miles from London (St Pancras) on the Midland Railway route via Leicester, Derby, Sheffield and Leeds.

Facilities

The main brick-built station building with booking office and waiting room is located on the northbound platform. This is the original building of 1876. A smaller brick-built waiting room, also of 1876, is located on the southbound platform. A period wrought iron lattice footbridge links the two platforms. Step-free access to both is also available (via the road underbridge & ramps to the southbound platform, direct from the station entrance for northbound travellers).[4] The booking office is open for 9 hours, six days per week (not Sundays) - tickets can be purchased from a ticket vending machine when the office is closed. Train running times are available via telephone and timetable posters, with digital information screens also in the process of being commissioned here (and at other stations on the line).

To the north are a number of engineers sidings (which once formed the connection to the Eden Valley branch to Warcop, Kirkby Stephen East and Barnard Castle) and an active signal box (which was repaired and refurbished in the autumn of 2019 to fix issues with rotten timbers and box foundations).

The main station building is Grade II listed; the waiting room on the northbound platform and the station's footbridge are separately Grade II listed. The footbridge was moved to Appleby West from Mansfield Station in 1901.[5]

Services

Northern Trains Route 7: Bentham & Settle to Carlisle Lines
Carlisle Armathwaite Heysham Port Lazonby and Kirkoswald Morecambe Langwathby Bare Lane Appleby Lancaster Kirkby Stephen Carnforth Garsdale Wennington Dent Bentham Ribblehead Clapham Horton-in-Ribblesdale Giggleswick Settle Long Preston Hellifield Gargrave Skipton Keighley for Keighley & Worth Valley Railway Bingley Shipley Leeds

There is generally a service every two hours daily northbound to Carlisle and southbound to Leeds[6] - eight each way in total since the May 2018 timetable change, a modest improvement on the former schedule of seven northbound & six southbound trains on weekdays, plus an extra SX early morning departure to Kirkby Stephen only and an extra morning departure for Leeds on Saturdays that applied prior to May 2011.

Six services each way call on Sundays (including one service to and from Nottingham introduced at the December 2012 timetable change, a second from Nottingham and returning to Sheffield was added in December 2018 but withdrawn in May 2019) - plus an extra train in summer - the DalesRail service to/from Preston & Blackpool North.

Services had been disrupted from 28 January 2016, due to a landslip at Eden Brows (north of Armathwaite) which destabilised the embankment on the eastern side of the railway, where it passes through the Eden Gorge. An emergency timetable was put into operation, with trains from the south terminating or starting at Appleby, and buses running between Appleby and Carlisle.[7] Since 27 June 2016 some rail services were restored further north to Armathwaite, with bus links to and from Carlisle, Penrith, Appleby and Armathwaite continuing to supplement the train service.[8] Repair works were due to continue until the end of March 2017.[9] These were completed on schedule, with the line reopening through to Carlisle on 31 March 2017.

Steam Specials

There is a water tank with water crane at the south end of platform 2 which is used to supply steam locomotives which stop with southbound trains during special excursions on the Settle and Carlisle line.

• 
  The watering crane stood at the end of platform 2 waiting to water the next steam engine.
• 
  6201 Princess Elizabeth at Appleby about to stop to take on water.
• 
  46233 Duchess of Sutherland parked up opposite the water tank and crane while working a southbound railtour.
• 
  45596 Bahamas stopped in platform taking on water while working "The Bahamas Renaissance II" railtour north to Carlisle on Feb 16th 2019.
• 
  46115 Scots Guardsman taking on water from the crane while working a southbound "Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express" on Feb 8th 2020.

See also

• Listed buildings in Appleby-in-Westmorland

Notes

1. The spike in the interchange statistics is down to Appleby being a temporary southern terminus of the line between April 2016 and March 2017 due to the Eden Brows landslip

References

1. Historic England. "Appleby Station, Main Building (1311476)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 6 January 2017.
2. The Settle and Carlisle line ISBN 978-1-85895-263-5
3. "Notes by the Way". Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald. British Newspaper Archive. 1 November 1884. Retrieved 12 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
4. Appleby station facilities National Rail Enquiries; Retrieved 5 December 2016
5. Appleby Station Co-Curate; Retrieved 1 October 2018
6. GB National Rail Timetable May 2019 Edition, Table 42 (Network Rail)
7. "Latest Network Rail landslip disruption closes the Settle-Carlisle line". Rail.co.uk. 26 February 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
8. "Trains run Leeds to/from Armathwaite". The Settle - Carlisle Railway. 26 September 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
9. "Landslip-hit Settle-to-Carlisle line section shut until 2017"BBC News; Retrieved 7 July 2016

• Butt, R. V. J. (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.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.

External links

• Train times and station information for Appleby railway station from National Rail
• Station on navigable O.S. map. Southerly of the two stations.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Kirkby Stephen		Northern Settle-Carlisle Line		Langwathby
	Historical railways
Ormside		Midland Railway Settle-Carlisle Railway		Long Marton