Derby station

Derby's central location and former importance as a "railway town" — until recently, major carriage and locomotive workshops as well as the railway technical centre were housed there — have made it an important node of the rail network and the station is an interchange point between long-distance services on the Cross-Country route through Birmingham and trains to and from London St Pancras via the Midland Main Line. Local services to Matlock along the Derwent Valley Line originate from Derby, and the station also sees local and semi-fast services to Nottingham and Skegness, Stoke-on-Trent and Crewe, and Birmingham, Hereford, and Cardiff.

Derby station today has six platforms (all but platform 5 are through-platforms), connected by a footbridge. This bridge previously gave access to the Carriage and Wagon works (part of BREL, Derby Works), which have now closed. Today, this end of the bridge is used as an exit to Pride Park football stadium.

1836 saw the approval by Parliament of plans for the construction of three railways to Derby: the Birmingham & Derby Junction Railway from the south, the Midland Counties Railway from the east, and the North Midland Railway from the north. Separate stations were initially envisaged but the town council farsightedly suggested the three companies build a joint station, and after much haggling a site was finally selected beside the River Derwent on the southeastern side of the town. The first departure from this Tri-Junct station, as it was known, was on 4 June, 1839 when a Midland Counties train ran to Nottingham. The first train to Birmingham departed on 12 August in the same year, though construction of the North Midland line took longer: it was opened from Derby to Masborough on 11 May 1840, and completed to Leeds seven weeks later.

In 1844 all three railways amalgamated to become the Midland Railway, and Derby station became the new company's headquarters. The station and the extensive complex of railway workshops adjoining it were of sufficient strategic importance, it seems, for them to have been the target of a Zeppelin bombing raid during World War I, in 1916, though only slight damage was inflicted. In World War II, however, the station was attacked again, becoming one of the few locations in Derby to suffer significant bomb damage. The overall roof of the original train shed was detroyed, although the Victorian frontage of the station survived. Comparison of photographs taken of the street side of the station in the early 1900s and the 1970s show little outward change; on the track side, however, extensive rebuilding of the platform buildings and awnings in 1952, using pre-stressed concrete, gave the station a very different appearance. Further work in 1985 saw the final replacement of the Victorian station entrance by a more modern design. The entrance's original clock was moved to the car park and the coats of arms of the Midland Railway and of the City of Derby were affixed to the new frontage. More recent refurbishments have seen the installation of a very large electronic departure board in the station entrance hall and the opening of a new footbridge in 2005.

Facilities