Scarborough, formerly Scarborough Central, is a Grade II listed railway station serving the seaside town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire. It lies east of York and is one of the eastern termini on the North TransPennine route; it is managed by TransPennine Express and is also served by Northern Trains. The station is also at the northern end of the Yorkshire Coast line and is reputed to have the longest station seat in the world at .

From 1907 until 2010, the station approaches were controlled from a 120-lever signal box named Falsgrave; this is sited at the outer end of platform 1 and close to the former excursion station at . In its final years, Falsgrave box controlled a mixture of colour-light and semaphore signals, including a gantry carrying 11 semaphores. The signal box was decommissioned in September 2010 and the gantry was dismantled and removed in October 2010. Its new home is at Grosmont railway station, on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. The new signalling is a relay-based interlocking with two- and three-aspect LED signals controlled from an extension to the existing panel at nearby .

History

Scarborough station opened on 8 July 1845, following the completion of the line from York. To accommodate excursion traffic, two new platforms were added in 1883, now known as platforms 1 and 2. Separate waiting rooms and more facilities were provided. The station clock, built by Potts of Leeds and costing £110 (), was added in about 1884. After a three-year planning dispute, remodelling of the station concourse began in 2026.

Accidents and incidents On 10 August 1943 Scarborough station was the scene of an accident between two trains at platform 5. The late-running 09:05 express from Hull was wrongly routed by the signalman and hit the 11:18 stopping train, which was waiting to depart. Four passengers in the first coach of the stopping train – all soldiers – were killed, eight received serious injuries and a further 22 suffered minor injuries. Nobody was injured on the express train.

Facilities

Scarborough station has a Travel Centre, ticket office, touch-screen ticket machines and a Pumpkin Cafe. The main building has a small waiting room.

Platforms 3–5 are partly covered, as is platform 1, which reputedly features the longest railway bench in the world at in length.

Benches are provided throughout the station, which is staffed at all times. The station also has two payphones, a vending machine and luggage trolleys, as well as toilets and cycle racks. Step-free access is available to all platforms.Scarborough station facilities National Rail Enquiries; Retrieved 8 December 2016

Passenger volume +Passenger Volume at Scarborough2002–032004–052005–062006–072007–082008–092009–102010–112011–122012–132013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–192019–202020–212021–222022–23Entries and exits666,788747,858751,998765,730772,824803,466828,594857,430906,544880,202910,637927,022940,706979,098989,952958,026973,424270,262840,994862,784Interchanges–1,0319093,2702,0292,2791,7811,9072,0432,4122,3201,0881,2653,2283,3611,7290000 The statistics cover twelve month periods that start in April.

Services

The typical daily service from the station is: TransPennine Express The basic Monday - Friday off-peak service pattern, as of May 2025, is as follows::

1 tph to via , and

There is 1 tpd that extends to serve

Rolling stock used: Class 185 Desiro and Class 802 Nova 1.

Northern Trains Monday to Saturday: 1 tph to Sheffield via , and 1 tpd to via Beverley, Hull Paragon and

Sunday 1 tph to Sheffield via , and

Other operators From 2000 until 2019, Midland Mainline and successors East Midlands Trains and East Midlands Railway operated one return service from and to London St Pancras via Doncaster on summer Saturdays; these were run initially with Class 170s and later Class 222s.Now it's Midland Mainline to Scarborough The Railway Magazine issue 1189 May 2000 page 39A New Era for the East Midlands as Abellio starts its fifth franchise Today's Railways UK issue 214 October 2019 page 24

Previously in summer, West Coast Railways operated a steam locomotive-hauled Scarborough Spa Express services from York; however, a regular planned service has not operated for some years, and now only the occasional charter train is operated.

Service improvements The new TPE and Northern franchises, which started in April 2016, were committed to improved service frequencies and rolling stock on both lines – the York route was have two departures per hour instead of the previous one as of December 2019, both operators offering an hourly service as far as York, whilst the Hull line now has an hourly timetable seven days per week."Northern franchise improvements". Department for Transport. n.d. The latter was introduced at the May 2019 timetable change, but plans for the York line to go to 2tph have since been put on hold due to lack of available rolling stock."New train service for Malton and Norton delayed" Dunning, D Minster FM news article 15 October 2019; Retrieved 19 November 2019

Trains to Liverpool were also diverted west of Stalybridge to travel via Manchester Victoria and (reverting to the route they used prior to May 1989). The improved service saw a new £7 million train servicing depot built in Scarborough to maintain the rolling stock.

Local connections

See also Listed buildings in Scarborough (Castle Ward)

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

The Flying Scotsman arriving in Scarborough – Webshots.com Scarborough's Urban Renaissance – Scarborough Station Re-development