Penshaw railway station

The first Penshaw station was opened on 9 March 1840[1] by the Durham Junction Railway on the north side of the railway bridge over Station Road. It was initially a stop on the passenger service between Rainton Meadows and Oakwellgate in Gateshead but on 19 June 1844, southbound services to were diverted to Gilesgate and Ferryhill along the newly constructed Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway, allowing through running to London Euston to commence. Further extensions to this route ultimately led to creation of the Leamside line.[2]

On 20 February 1852, the N&DJR opened a branch from the Leamside line, slightly to the north of Penshaw station, to a junction with the Durham & Sunderland Railway at Sunderland although passenger services between Penshaw and Sunderland Fawcett Street did not commence until 1 June 1853.

The original station was replaced by a new one situated south of the bridge over Station Road on 1 July 1881 by the North Eastern Railway. To the east of the station, there were goods sidings and a goods warehouse. To the south of the warehouse was a cattle dock reached by a dead-end siding. As traffic declined the station was demoted to an unstaffed halt on 14 August 1961 and it was shown as an unstaffed stating on the timetable from 18 June 1962, although it was not referred to as a halt. The Beeching Report dealt with a lot of stations in County Durham which included the closure of the Washington Line, which happened on 9 September 1963, though by this time the few remaining services on the Pelaw to Fencehouses route did not actually stop at Pelaw. There were little to no objections to the line closing. The station closed to passengers on 4 May 1964, with the withdrawal of passenger services between Sunderland and Durham, and closed to goods traffic on 30 April 1981.[3]