Gainsborough Central Railway Station

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Gainsborough Central railway station is a railway station in the town of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England. The town's other station is the busier Gainsborough Lea Road. Until as recently as 2006, the station was shown to be one of the least busy in the country as trains only call there one day a week.

In the Strategic Rail Authority's 2002/3 financial year, only 5 fare-paying people (excluding season ticket holders) boarded trains at Gainsborough Central station, and 3 disembarked, making it the least busy station in the United Kingdom, with Barry Links. The 2004/05 figures suggested 21 passengers used the station that year, putting it slightly below Watford West, a station closed since 1996 and on a line which is currently missing both track and bridges.

The station was opened by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) on 2 April 1849. The opening day was a gala occasion, shops were closed and the town was full of visitors. The station off Spring Gardens was crowded with onlookers, and at noon the train whistle was heard in the distance. Some hundreds of people saw 'a veritable locomotive on a line of railway at Gainsborough' for the first time. It came over the track by a wooden trestle bridge across the Humble Carr and backed into the station. The directors of the line and the chief engineer were greeted by leading inhabitants and then went in procession to the old coaching inn, the White Hart, for a champagne lunch.

The station buildings were designed by architects Weightman and Hadfield. A substantial stone frontage with full-height portico with 4 attached Roman Ionic columns and triple arcade with moulded round arches.

The MS&LR became the Great Central Railway (GCR) on 1 August 1897, which in turn amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) at the end of 1922. The LNER inherited two stations in Gainsborough, and to distinguish them, the ex-GCR station was renamed Gainsborough Central in September 1923, The station buildings were demolished in 1975, leaving just the two platforms and a footbridge over the two railway lines.

The line through the station was upgraded and refurbished in 2008 by contractors Arup and Carillon to allow it to carry increased levels of freight traffic from the port complex at Immingham to South Yorkshire and the East Midlands. This has been done to reduce congestion on the busy route via Scunthorpe.

Source: Wikipedia

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