A photograph of an old poster showing the opening of the new station at Billingham, 1966.
Photograph and details courtesy of Gordon Armes.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A photograph of an old poster showing the opening of the new station at Billingham, 1966.
Photograph and details courtesy of Gordon Armes.
Picture Stockton Archive 
I remember watching the steam trains from our nana’s bedroom window, she used to live in Conifer Crescent and there used to be cows in the fields where Allendale Road is now. Also loved the excitement of the days waiting on the platform to get on the train to Seaton, loaded down with buckets and spades – they were the days.
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I’ll never know why they moved the station or demolished what was an excellent and human facility. The new station was out of the way and provided nothing more than a bus shelter.
I think that this poster is affixed to the signal box, and there was another notice board on the other side of the level crossing which had five bar gates. We’d stand there with our Ian Alan books spotting. When a train came through we’d run up onto the footbridge to get swamped in the steam. I recall a train riding up onto the platform on one occasion – was it “Christopher Columbus”? I don’t know how we knew as kids, but we always were told when the “Flying Scotsman” or “Mallard” were going to go through Billingham. When it was to be “the midnight exee” we were allowed to stay up and watch it from the back of Cotswold Crescent.
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I agree, it was never much of a place to look at, but I have fond memories of catching the “One O’Clocker” to Stockton from there every Saturday afternoon in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. This was an express train and regularly pulled by a “Deltic”, which was the great attraction to those of us lads who were members of the Old Station train spotters gang; Chris ‘Sham’ Samuels, Jimmy Miller, Trevor Hodgeson, Colin March, Duncan Barker, Jeffrey “Pengy” Illingworth and his brother Raymond, ‘Psycho John’ (sorry, but I never knew him as anything else) and many more. Furthermore, you bought your ticket from an actual person in the ticket office (honestly!).
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There was a proposal some years ago to relocate the station to the old site. Unlikely, however, that anything will come of it. The transport links in this region are in need of a drastic overhaul, particularly links between Teesside and Newcastle by rail, with faster journey times and new rolling stock needed, the Pacer trains often in use are a disgrace. A lot of people do this expensive commute every day and deserve better. Plans exist on paper, but…
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A new station? No one knew where it was and most locals preferred the ‘old one’. The new station was the most miserable welcome to visitors one could imagine. It soon fell into disuse and became vandalised.
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