25 places with two stations: 9 Newark-on-Trent

Saturday 3rd May 2025

Unlike Wakefield (featured in March) and Yeovil (featured last time) Newark’s two stations have no connecting line between them and furthermore are famous for the two separate lines on which they’re located – East Coast Main Line for Newark Northgate and the Nottingham-Lincoln line for Newark Castle, crossing each other on a flat crossing just north of Northgate and east of Castle.

It’s one of the very few such crossings on the network adding to the complexities of providing the much needed extra capacity on the busy East Coast Main Line.

There is a connecting line just north of Newark Northgate to and from the Nottingham-Lincoln line on a south to east curve but the junction lies east of Newark Castle facilitating trains between Newark Northgate and Lincoln including LNER’s through trains between Lincoln and Kings Cross.

It’s about a 20 minute walk for the one mile distance separating the two stations with Northgate lying to the north east of Newark-on-Trent’s centre and Castle much closer to the town centre, and, as its name implies, very close to Newark-on-Trent’s castle.

Newark Castle station came on the scene first, arriving in 1846, with Newark Northgate not far behind opening six years later in 1852. Unsurprisingly Newark Northgate is the busier of the two handling nearly double the number of passengers seen at Newark Castle. In 2023/24 the former had 957,000 passenger journeys while the latter had 549,000.

Station facilities reflect this difference with the Grade II listed structure at Newark Northgate (above) supplemented by other buildings…

… whereas over at Newark Castle the very grandeur original station building…

… has long been repurposed and is now occupied by a restaurant although it’s good to see there’s a small East Midlands Railway ticket office facility in a corner of the building rather grandly called a ‘Travel Centre’.

Back at the LNER run Newark Northgate there’s a more substantial ticket office with two windows at one end of the entrance hallway…

… with a ticket machine and another machine called a Hub which I realise I didn’t investigate so can’t explain what it does at the other end.

There are two further ticket machines in a shelter immediately outside that entrance hallway …

… and after passing through the hallway on to the northbound platform 1, in a small canopy/extension…

… you’ll find yet another ticket machine.

… and finally arriving on platform 1 you get a good view of this rather lovely clock which I was pleased to see was displaying the accurate time.

Facilities on the northbound platform 1 include a waiting room…

… with five times three seats…

… located along with other offices in a very traditional looking railway platform building…

… and further along the platform is another building but it’s not clear what lies within, probably more staff facilities.

At the other end of the platform, by that entrance hall, is a Costa Coffee.

The footbridge/lifts taking passengers over to the island platform 2 (generally for southbound trains) and 3 (generally for trains to/from Lincoln)…

… including the very occasional East Midlands Railway train which terminate here.

And very busy they are too.

Facilities on platforms 2/3 are more basic with a series of individual enclosed shelters spaced along the whole length of the platform…

… including one with toilets…

… and another with a caféxpresshop.

Newark Northgate receives two northbound and two southbound LNER trains an hour with the former alternating two-hourly to either Lincoln or as a stopper (Retford and Doncaster) to York and the other a semi-fast (Doncaster, York, Northallerton, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle) to Edinburgh while the latter both terminate at Kings Cross and either stop only at Peterborough (ex Edinburgh) or Peterborough and Stevenage (ex Lincoln/York). East Midlands Railway also provides a very occasional journey to and from Lincoln (in between LNER trains), but its principal, hourly service to Lincoln departs from Newark Castle.

There’s therefore a good variety of stations on the East Coast Main Line which can be reached from Newark Northgate without a change, the only downside being Wakefield and Leeds needing a change in Doncaster, but the connections are very good.

Over at East Midlands Railway run Newark Castle that company runs an approximate half-hourly service westwards to and from Nottingham with one train an hour terminating at the station which comes from Crewe and Derby while the other train links Leicester and Derby/Nottingham with Lincoln, Grimsby Town or Cleethorpes.

Looking east

As already mentioned the facilities at Newark Castle are much more limited than Northgate with both platforms offering just one basic shelter…

… with that on westbound platform 1 housing the Ticket Vending Machine.

There are plenty of bike stands alongside the restaurant on platform 1…

… and some rather intriguingly designed ones on platform two.

Both platforms are accessible…

… thanks to a level crossing at the western end of the platforms…

… which sits alongside a rather sad looking, partly vandalised signal box.

And that’s about it for Newark Castle. Being close to the town centre, there are bus stops a short walk away, whereas back at Northgate there’s a bus stop right outside the station building but it doesn’t get to see many departures – Centrebus hourly route 24 to Long Bennington and Grantham, four journeys on route 354 to Bingham and four on Central Connect’s 92 to Bingham and Nottingham.

One final oddity is the map of London’s Rail and Tube services on Northgate’s platforms 2/3 making it, what is believed to be, the furthest north siting of such a map.

Newark’s station pair certainly offer an interesting contrast

Roger French

Did you catch the eight previous blogs in this series? 1: Hertford; 2: Canterbury. 3: Wigan, 4 Dorchester, 5 Windsor, 6 Wakefield, 7 Reddish, 8 Yeovil.

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

33 thoughts on “25 places with two stations: 9 Newark-on-Trent”

  1. Credit for the fact that the traditional clock at Northgate actually works belongs to David Horne, LNER’s Managing Director.

    Pre-Covid, as part of a small team carrying out dwell time studies, we were told by staff that it had been defunct for as long as they could remember.

    We mentioned this to David and it was fixed within weeks. Even more remarkable I think. for such an oddity within a large rather bureaucratic organisation, is that it has been kept in operation all these years later.

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      1. yes, I think Dorking has three stations and two of them have no connecting line to the third, although close

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        1. Near me there is Coulsdon South and Coulsdon Town, different lines with no direct connection.

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          1. Edenbridge Town and Edenbridge are another set of stations with no connection. Altho there was a connection for the lines in the past now lifted.

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  2. Roger, I think some LNER trains from Northgate call at Grantham, so Centrebus 24 isn’t the only public transport between the two towns.

    Ian McNeil

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  3. There is one train per day connecting Northgate to Castle, the 0516 from Lincoln to Nottingham travels to Northgate, where it reverses, and departs at 0548, heads back towards Lincoln, stops clear of the junction, and reverses again arriving at Castle at 0558, making just quicker than a walk.

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    2. Note that Realtime Trains correctly shows this train as Reversing at Northgate, but you have to open the ‘Advanced’ listing to see that it reverses again at Newark Crossing East Junction a few minutes later!

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  4. From what I can see, it makes a reasonable connection with a Leeds train at Northgate, giving an early arrival into London at 07.27. The first direct train from Lincoln doesn’t get to St Pancras until 08.56, travelling via Nottingham.

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  5. I didn’t realise we had any flat crossings in the UK – I’ve seen pictures of some in the USA, but didn’t know any exusted here. Maybe the theme for another series?

    Aso, the two lines which crossed presumably were built and owned by different rail companies. It must have been an interesting conversation to get agreement to lay the lines and signalling!

    MotCO

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    1. The Welsh Highland narrow gauge railway line intersects the National Rail’s Cambrian Coast line on a flat crossing, just east of Porthmadog as well.

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  6. It would be expensive to get the Lincoln line to cross over or under the East Coast line but really it needs to be done to get safer, faster , journeys along the East Coast, and indeed allow for greater use of the Lincoln line. The connection can be maintained , but the only place I could see is somehow to actually take the Lincoln line underground (diesels but lets assume bi-modes in place by 2040) on a new alignment either further north , or under then north on a more southern route-this could allow a form of Newark Metro – with stations near the City Church, then Beacon Hill , then something near Coddington then north to the Showground before joining line of route. (for the connection spur allowing still the Leeds reversal connection- indeed this could be enhanced to 1 or 2 tph if needed) This may also allow for some residential expansion (green belt, sorry) around Coddington but the main benefit of costs must add another couple of through paths non stop and a couple of stopping trains per hour ? London / Edinburgh

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    1. There’s a minor obstruction to your desire to take the Flat Crossing underground. It’s called the River Trent.

      Taking the Midland line over the ECML runs into an equally minor obstruction called the A46 flyover.

      Removing the Flat Crossing at Newark has been on the wishlist since BR days, but unless someone has a few billion to spare, it’s just not going to happen.

      As for a “Newark Metro”, you can have it if you are going to pay for it. The town bus services are barely viable so there’s no way on God’s earth that a shuttle train service would be within a million miles of viable, and any attempt to obtain government funding would be met with hysterical laughter.

      Put the money somewhere where it would be of most benefit, which won’t be a market town on the Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire border.

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  7. In the 1960s the plan to alleviate the crossing was to divert the Nottingham to Lincoln trains via Bingham and an ex Great Northern line that ran from Bottesford to Newark. All services would have served Northgate but Nottingham to Lincoln trains would have had to still weave across the ECML. The line from Carlton to Newark would have closed.

    When plans were being considered for the A46 Newark bypass one option was to use the railway alignment of the Nottingham to Lincoln line. I believe that included putting the trains under Newark as described above.

    Before the Robin Hood line reopened, it was easier to get from Mansfield to London via Newark. Connections were advertised using the X67 Lincman service which used to link Lincoln and Manchester via Newark, Mansfield & Chesterfield.

    Richard Warwick

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  9. I’m not sure that I can agree that that crossing at Castle is "accessible" !! I can’t get a manual wheelchair across it.   Chris Bates  

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  10. “Welcome to Newark Castle Train Station “. That’s the first time I’ve seen “train station” on a railway owned sign. Sad times.

    Peter Brown

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    1. That’s not actually a railway owned sign, strange as it may seem.

      The ticket office was contracted out by the then East Midlands Trains (back in Stagecoach days) to a company run by what could be described as a bunch of well-meaning enthusiasts who have weird ideas of their actual function; one of the old boys has a habit of telling people that he’s the station master, for example, when in the terminology of that era he’s actually a booking clerk.

      The sign belongs to them, not to the TOC or Network Rail. I suspect they probably don’t even have permission to display it.

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  11. There’s a Ticket Office and Ticket Machine on platform 1 at Newark Castle but neither on platform 2. I’ve never understood why there is no machine on platform 2 – the station is a penalty fare station and it’s a long walk from platform 2 to the machine on platform 1 and back (especially if the barriers come down mid trip you are done for)!

    Mitch in Notts

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    1. If you look at all the ticket machines fitted by EMT/EMR, they’re all too often in places that seem less than ideal. At some stations they’re in the car park some distance away from the platforms, with little or no signage to say they’re there.

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  12. Not sure the “Welcome to Newark Castle Train Station” sign which irks Peter Brown is entirely official, because surely if it was it would refer correctly to Railcards, not “Saver Travel Cards”.

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  13. we live in Rhyl and my daughter lives in Newark just two trains to get there, Rhyl to Crewe direct and Crewe to Newark Castle direct brilliant

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  14. Excellent article as always Roger. It’s not an area I know or use but your article paints a perfect vivid analysis- Many Thanks it is much appreciated.

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  15. Hi Roger, would love to hear your thoughts on the expanded Compass Travel operation in Brighton and the loss of the Big Lemon’s contracts 🙂

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  16. Re. the cost of removing the flat crossing, I’d like to suggest a new unit of currency, an HS2. How many of these would be needed?

    Garry Brown

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    1. I’d like to suggest a new unit of currency, an HS2. How many of these would be needed?

      However many were initially quoted, the final price would be at least five times as many by the time the politicians finished meddling, changing the scope, gold-plating regulatory requirements and so on.

      And that’s without any contractual issues or cost increases resulting from discovering that the plans were designed by someone using Google StreetView images from ten years ago rather than any actual understanding of the site!

      Liked by 1 person

  17. Very good article Roger, enjoying this series. At one time there was confusion on the station signs as to whether it is Northgate or North Gate.

    Oliver

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