Bishop Auckland is a railway station that serves the market town of Bishop Auckland in County Durham, North East England, north-west of Darlington. The station is the Western terminus of the Tees Valley Line, which links it to via . It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains. History Opening Bishop Auckland gained its first rail link in 1842, when the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) backed Bishop Auckland & Weardale Railway (BA&WR) gained the powers via an Act of Parliament to build a railway line from the S&DR's station at via Bishop Auckland and Witton-le-Wear into Crook, County Durham. The company initially built a temporary terminus at South Church, which opened on 19 April 1842. A road coach service then extended the service into Bishop Auckland, and a secondary road coach service also ran to Rainton Meadows. After completion of the Shildon tunnel, the BA&WR erected a permanent station on the current site, which opened to freight on 8 November 1843, and passengers on 30 January 1843. All operations were sub-leased as agreed to the S&DR. Early developments In 1844, after the West Durham Railway extended from a junction with the Clarence Railway at to Crook, the S&DR extended the BA&WR from Bishop Auckland along the river valley to Witton-le-Wear, and then into . In 1845, the S&DR came to an agreement with the Derwent Iron Company to sub-lease the southern section of the former Stanhope & Tyne Railway. It extended the line from Crook to and then to Blackhill, and it was opened as the Weardale Extension Railway (WXR). In July 1845 Parliament passed the Wear Valley Act, which allowed the extension of the BA&WR from a junction at Witton-le-Wear to , and a small branch line across the river to Bishopley. With all works again undertaken by the S&DR, this line opened on 3 August 1847. After these works had been completed, the BA&WR amalgamated with the WXR. All service were operated by the S&DR, which officially took over the new company in January 1857. On 1 April 1857, the North Eastern Railway (NER) started a service from to Bishop Auckland at a new terminus in Tenter Street. However, the S&DR and NER quickly came to the agreement of development of a joint station in the town, and so rebuilt the existing former BA&WR station, with NER trains using it from December 1857. In