Acklington Station

Acklington railway station is on the East Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom, serving the village of Acklington, Northumberland. It is down the line from and is situated between to the south and to the north. Its three-letter station code is ACK.

In the current (December 2018) timetable the only trains calling at Acklington are one northbound and two southbound local services operated on Mondays to Saturdays only by Northern, which also manages the station. Acklington is the least used station in Northumberland.

History

Opened in 1847 by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, then joining the North Eastern Railway, it became part of the London and North Eastern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The line then passed on to the Eastern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.

When Sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by Regional Railways until the Privatisation of British Railways. Intercity Sector trains passed through on the East Coast Main Line.

The station has a substantial main building on the northbound side, which is Grade-II listed and now used as a private residence. It also had a goods yard and signal box. The station avoided the Beeching Axe in the late 1960s that claimed several others on the East Coast main line and until the late 1980s had through trains to and Edinburgh Waverley (though only 3-4 per day each way in total). Electrification of the ECML and a rolling stock shortage led to the timetable being cut to the present residual level in 1991.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed (so tickets must be purchased in advance or on the train) and only has basic amenities - a sizeable stone shelter and payphone on the southbound platform and a cycle rack on the northbound side. Step-free access is available to both platforms.

Service

The three departures each weekday run at 18:33 northbound to Alnmouth and Chathill and southbound at 07:39 and 19:35 to Newcastle. The Saturdays timetable has the same frequency but southbound trains depart at 07:39 and 19:50 and the northbound service at 18:40. Both southbound trains extend beyond Newcastle onto the Tyne Valley Line (since the December 2017 timetable change), the morning one to Prudhoe and the evening to Carlisle.