Wick railway station

Wick railway station is a railway station located in Wick, in the Highland council area in the far north of Scotland. It serves the town of Wick and other surrounding areas in the historic county of Caithness, including Staxigoe, Papigoe and Haster. The station lies adjacent to Caithness General Hospital and Wick police station; it is also the nearest station to Wick Airport (about 1.1 miles (1.8 km) to the north), although no passenger flights currently operate, and to the village of John o' Groats (approximately 17 miles (27 km) to the north) at the northeastern tip of mainland Britain.

Wick Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Ùige[1]
An external view of Wick railway station
Location	Wick, Highland Scotland
Coordinates	58.4416°N 3.0975°W
Grid reference	ND360509
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Platforms	1
Other information
Station code	WCK
History
Original company	Sutherland and Caithness Railway
Pre-grouping	Highland Railway
Post-grouping	LMS
Key dates
28 July 1874	Opened[2]
Passengers
2015/16	19,776
2016/17	18,438
2017/18	17,546
2018/19	17,890
2019/20	16,664
Invalid designation
Designated	28 November 1984 (amended 15 December 1998)
Reference no.	LB42321[3]
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

The station is the terminus of the Far North Line, 161 miles 35 chains (259.8 km) from Inverness.[4] It is managed by Abellio ScotRail, which also operates all trains serving the station.

History

Wick station, August 1980 under British Rail.

The station was designed by Murdoch Paterson and built by the Sutherland and Caithness Railway, opening the line in 1874.[2][5] A wrought-iron turntable, 45 feet (14 m) in diameter, was installed at the station by the Railway Steel and Plant Company of Manchester,[6] along with an engine shed capable of housing four engines and a special loading bank for the loading of herring for the southern markets.

On 1 July 1903, the Wick and Lybster Light Railway was opened, and Wick became a junction station.[7] The last trains to Lybster ran in 1944, although the line was not officially closed until 1951.

On 30 June 1909, Peter Doull, a coal trimmer, was killed by a train in the coal siding.[8]

On 3 May 1941, a goods train pulling into the station collided with an empty carriage at the platform. The buffers failed to stop the carriage, which carried forward and piled up onto the platform, where one end crashed into the Menzies bookstall. The platform buffers were found buried beneath the wreckage of the bookstall.[9]

Until 2000, trains from Inverness would split in half at Georgemas Junction, with one portion going to Wick and the other to Thurso. This practice ended when Class 158s were introduced on the line – since then all services run in full between Inverness and Wick via Thurso, in both directions, adding up to 30 minutes to journey times to and from Wick.[10]

Trivia

On 19 August 2017, Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe, presenters of the documentary series All the Stations, completed their 14-week journey at Wick, having started at Penzance[11] on 7 May 2017. That marked the end of their successful project to visit all 2,563 railway stations in Great Britain.[12]

Facilities

The station has a single platform, which is long enough to accommodate a ten-carriage train.[4] The station is fully wheelchair-accessible, but it is not monitored by CCTV.[13]

The station has a ticket office, staffed between 10:10 and 17:14 every day except Sundays. There are no self-service ticket machines or smartcard top-up facilities, although there are smartcard validators. Other facilities include: a free car park with 12 parking spaces, a sheltered bike stand with 10 spaces, a payphone that accepts both cash and card, waiting rooms with designated seating areas, toilets (only open during staffing hours) and a post box.[13]

There is no bus stop located directly outside the station.[13]

Services

On weekdays and Saturdays Wick station receives four trains per day in each direction, to and from Inverness (via Thurso, Helmsdale, Golspie, Lairg, Tain and Dingwall). On Sundays this drops to just one train per day each way.[10]

References

Notes

1. Brailsford 2017, Gaelic/English Station Index.
2. Butt (1995), page 250
3. "WICK RAILWAY STATION". Historic Scotland. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
4. Brailsford 2017, map 20E.
5. "The Sunderland and Caithness Railway". The Scotsman. British Newspaper Archive. 27 July 1874. Retrieved 14 August 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
6. "The Sutherland and Caithness Railway". John o’Groat Journal. Scotland. 9 July 1874. Retrieved 15 July 2017 – via British Newspaper Archive.
7. "The Wick and Lybster Light Railway. The Opening Ceremony". Aberdeen Journal. British Newspaper Archive. 2 July 1903. Retrieved 15 August 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
8. "Fatal Accident at Wick Railway Station". Aberdeen Journal. British Newspaper Archive. 1 July 1909. Retrieved 15 August 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
9. "Wick Station Crash". Aberdeen Weekly Journal. British Newspaper Archive. 8 May 1941. Retrieved 15 August 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
10. GB eNRT May 2016 Edition, Table 239 (Network Rail)
11. "Train mad couple complete marathon 14-week journey to visit all of Britain's 2,563 railway stations". The Yorkshire Post. 24 August 2017. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
12. "Meet Geoff and Vicki: The 'gorpcore' couple visiting every train station in Britain". The Telegraph. 12 August 2017. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
13. "Facilities". ScotRail. ScotRail. Retrieved 25 January 2020.

Sources

• Brailsford, Martyn, ed. (December 2017) [1987]. Railway Track Diagrams 1: Scotland & Isle of Man (6th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. ISBN 978-0-9549866-9-8.
• Vallance, H.A. (December 1966). "The Northern Highland Lines Today, Part two: Inverness to Wick viewed from the cab of a type "2"". Railway Magazine. Vol. 112 no. 788. pp. 681–685.
• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
• Railscot: Sutherland and Caithness Railway
• Railscot: Wick and Lybster Light Railway
• ScotRail North Highlands Timetable

External links

• Annotated video of Wick railway station