Doncaster railway station

Doncaster railway station serves the town of Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the East Coast Main Line 156 mi north of London Kings Cross, and is about five minutes walk from Doncaster town centre. The station is managed by East Coast. It is a major passenger interchange between the East Coast Main Line, Cross-Country services, and local services running across the North of England.

History
The station was built in 1849 replacing a temporary structure constructed a year earlier. It was rebuilt in its present form in 1938 and has had several slight modifications since that date.

Description
The station has 8 platforms on two islands. Platforms 1, 3, 4 and 8 take through trains. Platforms 2 and 5 are south-facing bays, and 6 and 7 are north facing bays. A First Class Lounge for passengers with 'First Open' tickets is available on platform 3A.

Platform 1 takes southbound East Coast Main Line trains towards (London) Kings Cross, and Northern Rail services to and from Hull.

Platform 2 is not available for public use.

Platform 3A takes southbound East Coast Main Line trains towards  (London) Kings Cross - these services generally call at most stations on the East Coast Main Line, and most southbound First Hull Trains services to  (London) Kings Cross.

Platform 3B takes services to Sheffield and Manchester /  Manchester Airport and a few services from Sheffield.

Between platforms 3 and 4 are the high speed up and down lines from London

Platform 4 takes (normally) northbound East Coast Main Line services towards York,  Newcastle and  Edinburgh; First Hull Trains services to  Hull; Northern Rail through services to Bridlington; and First TransPennine Express services to Cleethorpes. Also, CrossCountry services towards Birmingham New Street depart from this platform.

Platform 5 is a bay platform used for Northern Rail and East Midlands Trains services to Sheffield and Lincoln Central (some of which extend to  Peterborough).

Platform 6 is a bay platform used for Northern Rail commuter services to Leeds.

Platform 7 is seldom in public use.

Platform 8 is used for northbound East Coast Main Line services towards Leeds (and Newcastle); and local services to  Sheffield and   Adwick.

There are no ticket barriers in operation at this station; however on Race Days (at Doncaster Racecourse), manual ticket checks are in operation in the subway.

The station has recently been refurbished and is now directly connected to the new Frenchgate Centre extension in Doncaster town centre. The station now has a new booking office for tickets and information, three new lifts, refurbished staircases and subway. There is a newsagent and some food outlets.

Whilst all platforms are currently operational, platform 2 is not currently used for any timetabled service.

1951 accident
On 16 March 1951 a derailment occurred south of the station in which 14 passengers were killed and 12 seriously injured.

Services
Seven train operators (or TOCs) call at Doncaster, which is equal in number only to Crewe in the UK. Train operators include the following:

CrossCountry CrossCountry have dropped most Doncaster to Edinburgh services. They offer an hourly service to Newcastle and Reading with one service per day running through to both Edinburgh Waverley and Guildford.

East Coast East Coast offers regular direct trains services to London, which can be reached in 85-100 min, depending on the service. Nearly all services call at Doncaster. East Coast also offers services to the North, to cities such as Leeds (terminating services), York, Durham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. On Sundays, only the Highland Chieftain from London stops at Doncaster en route to Inverness.

East Midlands Trains East Midlands Trains offer a limited direct service to London St. Pancras and to Leeds and York. Services to London run via Sheffield, Chesterfield, Derby and Leicester but less often than East Coast; They also operate a local service to Lincoln which occasionally extends to Sleaford and Peterborough.

First TransPennine Express First TransPennine Express serve stations from Doncaster towards the east to Cleethorpes, and to the west, as far as Manchester Airport, providing Doncaster with a direct link to Manchester Piccadilly. First TransPennine services operate hourly in each direction generally.

First Hull Trains First Hull Trains operates services from London to Hull via Doncaster and Selby.

Northern Rail Northern Rail generally offers services from Doncaster to stations within Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, such as Sheffield, Leeds and Lincoln. It provides stopping services, stopping at every station along-route, and 'fast' services, stopping at just the principal stations. It is possible to travel on Northern Rail to Retford from Doncaster, via Sheffield, on a direct train. However, this involves a journey of 80 min. The direct East Coast service takes, on average, just 14 min.

Grand Central Grand Central Railway offers three trains a day between Bradford Interchange and King's Cross. All services call at Doncaster. South-bound the next stop is King's Cross and northbound it is Pontefract Monkhill, Wakefield Kirkgate or Mirfield,

There were plans to add platforms 9 and 10 to cope with Eurostar trains but this project was cancelled when it was decided that Eurostar would not serve Britain outside the South East of England.

In the media
In 1973 the station was featured in the first episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, entitled Strangers on a Train. It starred James Bolam and Rodney Bewes although only Bolam was featured in location filming at the station, which took place in late 1972.

Although it is not known whereabouts in the station the scenes were placed, signs for Grimsby Town and Scunthorpe are visible behind Bolam.