North Eastern Railway (UK) - Principal Stations

Principal Stations

Having inherited the country's first ever great barrel-vault roofed station, Newcastle Central, from its constituent the York Newcastle & Berwick railway, the NER during the next half century built by finer set of grand principal stations than any other British railway company, with examples at Alnwick, North Shields, Gateshead East, Sunderland, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Darlington Bank Top, York and Hull Paragon; the rebuilding and enlargement of the last-named resulting in the last of the type in the country. Thankfully the four largest, at Newcastle, Darlington, York and Hull survive in transport use, and Alnwick in non-transport use as (currently) a second hand book warehouse, the others having been demolished during the 1950s/60s state-owned railway era, two (Sunderland and Middlesbrough) following World War 2 blitz damage, the others through sheer wanton disregard for the industrial North East region's architectural heritage.

• York station (York) was the hub of the system, and the headquarters of the line was located here. The basis for the present station was opened on June 25, 1877. Until the advent of modern signalling, the 295-lever box was the largest manually worked signal box in Britain.

• Newcastle Central station (Newcastle), opened August 29, 1850, became the largest on the NER.

Other principal stations were located at Sunderland, Darlington and Hull. The station at Leeds was a joint undertaking with the London and North Western Railway.