Bourne railway station

Bourne
The station approach in 1961
Location
Place	Bourne
Area	South Kesteven
Grid reference	TF095197
Operations
Original company	Bourne and Essendine Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Northern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway Eastern Region of British Railways
Platforms	2
History
16 May 1860	Opened (Bourne)
May 1872	Renamed (Bourn)
1 July 1893	Renamed (Bourne)
2 March 1959	Closed
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z

[ ] Bourne to Sleaford branch
To Grantham To Lincoln Sleaford To Boston To Peterborough Aswarby and Scredington Billingboro and Horbling Rippingale Morton Road To Spalding Bourne To Saxby To Essendine

Bourne was a railway station serving the town of Bourne in Lincolnshire which opened in 1860 and closed to passengers in 1959.

The station was on the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway main line between the Midlands and the Norfolk Coast. It was finally closed in 1959 when the M&GN was closed. The line from Spalding and also the Sleaford branch as far as Billingborough remained in use for goods until 1964. The remaining station buildings were demolished in 2005 to make way for new residential development.

The original station opened in 1860 as the terminus of the Bourne & Essendine Railway, which provided connecting services to the Great Northern main line, and the local Stamford and Essendine. It was this company which took over the Red Hall rather than demolishing it. The line was operated by the GNR, and later owned by them. The line closed and was lifted in June 1951.

The next development was the opening of the Bourne and Spalding Railway in 1866, converting the site into a through station.

In 1870 the Great Northern exercised its powers to build the Bourne and Sleaford Railway, opening in 1872. Although operated by the same company, this line was run separately from the Essendine line, and had its own goods yard. This line closed to passengers in 1930 although a 'special' for the Festival of Britain ran in 1950.

The last line to open was the Saxby to Bourne line, which was part of the Midland & Great Northern project, which subsumed the Bourne & Spalding route. This connection opened in 1894 and was closed to passengers, along with the Spalding line, in 1959.

The original down platform remained outside the Red Hall, after conversion to a through layout, but was no longer used. A hedge was planted along the running line edge to prevent passengers approaching the line. From the Bourne & Spalding period, a single island platform was used by passengers, later reached by an iron lattice footbridge from the disused platform next to the Red Hall. The footbridge was a characteristic Midland Railway design, and is likely to have been provided when the M&GN arrived. All passenger trains used the two faces of the island platform.