Firsby railway station

Firsby
Location of the station in 1992
Location
Place	Firsby
Area	Lincolnshire
Operations
Original company	East Lincolnshire Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Northern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway Eastern Region of British Railways
Platforms	3
History
3 Sep 1848	Opened
1 May 1868	Spilsby and Firsby Railway Company formed
30 Nov 1958	Spilsby branch line closed
5 Oct 1970	Station and line 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

Firsby railway station was a busy station in Firsby, Lincolnshire which closed in 1970 as a result of the Beeching Axe. Firsby served as a main line station and a terminus for two branch lines, one to the seaside resort of Skegness and one to the market town of Spilsby. Firsby station was located in a small rural linear village 36 miles (58 km) east from the county town of Lincoln, 4 miles (6.4 km) south east of the nearest market town of Spilsby and 8 miles (12.9 km) inland from the popular holiday resort town of Skegness.

The station, originally named Firstby, opened on 3 September 1848, and was a substantial structure for a country station, totally unlike the majority of small isolated rural halts. The station had three platforms each two hundred and twenty yards long and covered with buildings, booking offices, several waiting rooms (male, female and general), restaurants, toilets, baggage and goods halls, crew rooms, staff canteen and housing, and several railway offices. The main line tracks were crossed by a substantial passenger footbridge and most of the station was covered by an ornate cast-iron and glass canopy normally only seen at main city stations. The station also had signal boxes, water towers, extensive goods sidings and engine repair sheds.

The station was served by two public houses, one of which doubled as the Firsby Railway Hotel. There are several mentions in old records of a second drinking establishment around 1852, called Whyley's Beerhouse, that stood adjacent to Firsby railway Station.

Firsby was a junction for the Skegness line and the Spilsby line on their short branches from the main Great Northern Railway's London Kings Cross to Cleethorpes East Coast Main Line railway. During the summer months holiday passenger traffic from all over the country alighting at Firsby for their connection to Skegness was substantial with hundreds and sometimes thousands of passengers passing through the station at a weekend and the platforms would be teeming with families and their luggage. In the Victorian era most holidaymakers travelled by train and Firsby was one of the busiest stations on the east coast main line. The station was the major employer in the area and between the station master and his assistants, ticket office staffs, ticket inspectors, signalmen, porters, catering staffs, drivers, firemen, guards and track maintenance staff for three separate railway companies, several hundred people worked at or from Firsby station on a regular daily basis.