DARLINGTON'S Bank Top Station £100m redevelopment has ultimately one main objective – to increase capacity and allow thousands more rail passengers to pass through.

The station has many services every hour, including national services north to Edinburgh, south to London and west to Manchester; local services between Saltburn and Bishop Auckland and regular non-stop freight trans which pass the station on the fast lines.

The Northern Echo:

The station’s current problem comes due to a pinch point. Local and longer distance trains both need to use the same piece of infrastructure, with local train services using the platforms at Darlington having to “cross” other lines used by national trains. This is restricting the introduction of extra services and also means that small delays can have a large impact on other services.

The new station will see the creation of three new platforms and improved infrastructure, making the station more efficient by increasing capacity at the pinch points.

The Northern Echo:

A new platform five is likely to be normally used for national services heading south, which reduces the need to cross over the fast lines. The new platforms six and seven would be mostly used by local services travelling between Darlington and Saltburn and also provide capacity for new services in the future.

Overall, this means there is capacity for more local train services and increased reliability for national and freight trains.

The Northern Echo:

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, said: “With the track realignment, it means the local part of the station and the local line that cuts across the east the East Coast mainline will no longer do that, it will stop before it cuts across the southern line that heads south through Darlington Station.

The Northern Echo:

“That will mean that at the moment we get roughly, two trains an hour from the rest of the Tees Valley into Darlington Station, and that’s because the local line cutting across the East Coast mainline limits the number of movements you can have and the East Coast Mainline takes priority.

“Whereas with the work that we do, that means we could potentially go up to six or eight trains an hour.

“That means that you can get on a train anywhere within the Tees Valley every seven or eight minutes, whereas now you have to wait once every half an hour, assuming it will turn up on time, assuming the timetable hasn’t been affected by delays on the track.

The Northern Echo:

Peter Gibson, MP for Darlington, said: “We’ll be able to see a greater number of trains running North to South, and we’ll also be able to see an increased flow of trains from Darlington to Middlesbrough and Saltburn, Redcar and Stockton and Hartlepool.

“It will increase the connectivity of Darlington to the rest of the Tees Valley. It also makes the station ready for HS2’s Eastern leg, Northern Powerhouse Rail.

“Working with my colleagues in County Durham, Dehenna Richard and Paul, we’re working on plans to improve rail connectivity through Bishop Auckland and up into Crook into North-West Durham.”

The new station will provide accessible pedestrian and cycling links over the East Coast Mainline which will provide better cycling and walking connections to Central Park via a new cycle and footbridge that will also connect the old and new station.