| Appleby | |||||||||||
| Symbol Location: | gb | ||||||||||
| Symbol: | rail | ||||||||||
| Borough: | Appleby-in-Westmorland, Eden | ||||||||||
| Country: | England | ||||||||||
| Coordinates: | 54.5804°N -2.4865°W | ||||||||||
| Grid Name: | Grid reference | ||||||||||
| Owned: | Network Rail | ||||||||||
| Manager: | Northern Trains | ||||||||||
| Platforms: | 2 | ||||||||||
| Tracks: | 2 | ||||||||||
| Code: | APP | ||||||||||
| Classification: | DfT category E | ||||||||||
| Original: | Midland Railway | ||||||||||
| Pregroup: | Midland Railway | ||||||||||
| Postgroup: | London, Midland and Scottish Railway British Rail (London Midland Region) | ||||||||||
| Years: | 1 May 1876 | ||||||||||
| Events: | Opened as Appleby | ||||||||||
| Years1: | 1 September 1952 | ||||||||||
| Events1: | Renamed Appleby West | ||||||||||
| Years2: | 6 May 1968 | ||||||||||
| Events2: | Renamed Appleby | ||||||||||
| Footnotes: | Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road | ||||||||||
| Embedded: |
| ||||||||||
| Map Type: | United Kingdom Eden#Cumbria | ||||||||||
Appleby is a railway station on the Settle and Carlisle Line, which runs between and via . The station, situated 30miles south-east of Carlisle, serves the market town of Appleby-in-Westmorland, Eden in Cumbria. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.
The station was formerly known as Appleby West, with the older Appleby East station located nearby on the Eden Valley Railway. The buildings of Appleby East still survive.
The station was designed by the Midland Railway company architect John Holloway Sanders.[1] 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.
When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Regional Railways until the privatisation of British Rail.
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 miles from London (St Pancras) on the Midland Railway route via Leicester, Derby, Sheffield and Leeds.
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).[2] 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 customer information screens on both platforms and public address to announce trains.
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) 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.[3]
There is generally a service every two hours daily northbound to Carlisle and southbound to Leeds[4] - 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 introduced at the December 2012 timetable change, a second from Nottingham and returning to was added in December 2018 but withdrawn in May 2019). The summer "DalesRail" service from Blackpool via Preston that formerly stopped here is not running in 2023. Northern hope to restore the service at a later date.
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.