1862, an Act of Parliament was passed allowing the S&DR-backed Frosterley and Stanhope Railway to extend the line to , thus allowing trains to transport limestone from the Newlandside Estate on the south side of the town. This brought about the extension of the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway from into Bishop Auckland in 1862, and with the final addition of traffic from an extension of the Clarence Railway at , eventually resulted in the NER rebuilding the station again in December 1867. The final extension of the Weardale Railway to opened on 21 October 1895, with the NER having resited the station at to provide a more suitable gradient for the heavy limestone trains. Between Eastgate and Westgate at Cambo Keels, sidings were established to serve the Weardale Iron Company's Heights limestone quarry, which is still in operation today. This final extension of the Weardale Railway bought about the final and largest layout of Bishop Auckland railway station, which was now rebuilt in triangular form with four platforms in 1905. Only three of these were normally used for passenger trains, with platform 1 handling trains towards Crook and Wearhead, and platforms 2 and 3 dealing with services on the Barnard Castle, Ferryhill and Durham lines. Platform 4 (on the chord linking the Durham & Crook lines) was mostly used for parcels & newspaper traffic and for racing pigeon specials. Decline As elsewhere the UK, rail traffic in the area declined after World War II, with the Wearhead branch the first to lose its passenger trains in 1953. The principal closures came in the 1960s mainly as a result of the Beeching cuts, with services to: Barnard Castle via West Auckland ending in June 1962; Durham in May 1964; and Crook in March 1965. This left only the former original S&DR line to line in operation, along with the freight-only branch traffic to Eastgate. In 1976, the disused platform was reinstated avoiding need for passengers to use a footbridge. The station remained more or less intact (although increasingly forlorn and run-down) for more than 20 years thereafter, though by the early 1980s only the former platform 3 was in use (along with the former Bishop Auckland East signal box). It was eventually replaced by the current structure on 6 June 1986. This stands on the site of the former Crook branch platform, on a siding off the now single