Immingham Halt railway station
Former railway station in England
53°37′03″N 0°10′35″W / 53.6175°N 0.1765°W / 53.6175; -0.1765
Immingham Halt railway station was a temporary terminus serving people involved in building Immingham Dock, Lincolnshire, England. It was originally named "Immingham Road", but was renamed Immingham Halt when it was upgraded from an unadvertised halt for contractors' workmen to a publicly advertised station in 1910, though it appeared in Bradshaw as plain "Immingham".[3]
History
In 1906 Lady Henderson ceremonially cut the first sod to start the Great Central Railway's project to build Immingham Dock on an almost uninhabited, greenfield site on the south bank of the Humber.[4]
The location had no rail access and few of its roads were better than farm tracks, so the Great Central planned three railways to the new dock:
- The Humber Commercial Railway, which was, and in 2015 remained, the main goods artery to and from the dock
- The Grimsby District Light Railway (GDLR), which connected the new dock with the established railways of Grimsby, and
- The Barton and Immingham Light Railway whose main purpose would be to transport workers between the dock and Hull.
The GDLR was the first to reach Immingham, being used by contractors to ferry men and materials from and to Grimsby, including guests for the sod cutting.[5][6] Contractors obtained a rake of ex-Metropolitan Railway coaches[7] to run unadvertised workmen's services to match their shifts, using makeshift platforms.[8]
This arrangement continued until the Great Central decided there was sufficient demand for a passenger service between Grimsby and Immingham Dock and village to justify upgrading the termini to two unstaffed halts, each with a single 240 feet (73 m) wooden platform, one at the Immingham end of the GDLR, to be known as Immingham Halt, and the other at the Grimsby end, to be known as Grimsby Pyewipe Road.[9] The company would run a service along the line until the planned electric tramway - subsequently to be widely known as the Grimsby and Immingham Electric Railway - opened.[10][11]
This is exactly what happened. The Great Central's 1904-built steam railcar[7][12][13] started to ply between the two termini on 3 January 1910 and continued to do so until 15 May 1912 when the Barton and Immingham had been in business for a year, the Humber Commercial railway was completed and, most importantly for the service along the GDLR, the electric tramway opened, removing the reason for the temporary service.
The Dock was formally opened by The King on Monday 22 July 1912, though some traffic had been handled before then, the first of all being the Great Central steamer Dewsbury which was coaled from the Western Jetty on 17 June 1910;[14] the first to use the dock itself was the Swedish SS Max, also on 15 May 1912.[15]
The GDLR's line through Immingham Halt and Grimsby Pyewipe Road was used for four return special trains on the dock opening day,[16] after which it reverted to its intended goods and internal transfer role, which it retained in 2017, albeit on a much reduced scale.
By 2015 no trace of the station remained.
Immingham East, an unbuilt neighbour
Immingham Halt was the nearest thing the village of Immingham has ever had to a conventional heavy rail station. Plans have been discovered for a station to be called Immingham East, which would have been a two-platformed island structure located on the Grimsby District Light Railway a short distance west of Immingham Halt, adjacent to the concrete road overbridge which carries Queens Road over the tracks to this day. The station was never built.[11]
Former Services
| Preceding station | Disused railways | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grimsby Pyewipe Road | Great Central Railway Grimsby District Light Railway | Terminus |
References
- ^ Quick 2009, p. 224.
- ^ Butt 1995, p. 127.
- ^ Bradshaw 1968, p. 645.
- ^ Dow 1965, p. 231.
- ^ King & Hewins 1989, Photo 24.
- ^ Ludlam 2006, p. 420.
- ^ a b Price 1991, p. 61.
- ^ Price 1991, p. 60.
- ^ Bates & Bairstow 2005, Map, p.81.
- ^ Price 1991, p. 62.
- ^ a b King 2019, p. 93.
- ^ Mummery & Butler 1999, p. 101.
- ^ Bates & Bairstow 2005, p. 86.
- ^ King & Hewins 1989, p. 25.
- ^ Dow 1965, p. 234.
- ^ Dock opening special trains using the halt flickr
Sources
- Bates, Chris; Bairstow, Martin (2005). Railways in North Lincolnshire. Leeds: Martin Bairstow. ISBN 978-1-871944-30-3.
- Bradshaw, George (1968) [April 1910]. April 1910 Railway Guide. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 978-0-7153-4246-6. OCLC 30645.
- Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
- Dow, George (1965). Great Central, Volume Three: Fay Sets the Pace, 1900–1922. Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-0263-0. OCLC 500447049.
- King, Paul K.; Hewins, Dave R. (1989). Scenes from the Past: 5 The Railways around Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Immingham and North-east Lincolnshire. Stockport: Foxline Publishing. ISBN 978-1-870119-04-7.
- King, Paul (2019). The Railways of North-east Lincolnshire, Part 2: Stations. Grimsby: Pyewipe Publications. ISBN 978-1-9164603-1-7.
- Ludlam, A.J. (July 2006). Kennedy, Rex (ed.). "Immingham-Gateway to the Continent". Steam Days (203). Bournemouth: Redgauntlet Publications. ISSN 0269-0020.
- Mummery, Brian; Butler, Ian (1999). Immingham and the Great Central Legacy. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7524-1714-1.
- Price, J. H. (1991). The Tramways of Grimsby, Immingham & Cleethorpes. Light Rail Transit Association. ISBN 978-0-948106-10-1.
- Quick, Michael (2009) [2001]. Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology (4th ed.). Oxford: Railway & Canal Historical Society. ISBN 978-0-901461-57-5. OCLC 612226077.
External links
- The station site, upper left edge, near SB on a 1930 OS map National Library of Scotland
