Four young artists from Darlington have visited the Grade II listed station to show the artwork they designed that will be displayed on construction hoardings inside the station during its multi-million-pound upgrade.

Students in years 7, 8 and 9 at Wyvern Academy in the Branksome area of Darlington took the theme of ‘rail through the ages’ to create artwork that thousands of rail passengers would see this autumn.

The station will display the winning designs from September, and on Thursday, 18th July, the competition winners visited the station to see where the enlarged versions of their designs will be shown.

The four winning students were Jack Freeman, Ellen Atkins, Alwin Binu, and Sophia Cocks. Ellen, Alwin, and Sophia were accompanied by their art teacher, Jo Cass. Jack Freeman could not be there, and his picture was held up by school careers advisor Jodie Longstaff.

The children were met at the station by workers from contractor BAM Nuttall who are currently working inside the existing station, and who, with the support of Network Rail, organised the art competition.

The station upgrade is a £140m project between Network Rail, Tees Valley Combined Authority, station operator London North Eastern Railway, Darlington Borough Council, and the Department for Transport, and being delivered across two main work sites:

,At work site one, Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) has invested £36m to build a new station concourse building and multi-storey car park east of the existing station. This work is nearly ready for handover by TVCA’s contractor Wilmott Dixon to Network Rail to complete the fit-out.

At work site two, Network Rail and the Department for Transport are investing £98m to build two new platforms, new track, and signalling systems, and a fully accessible link bridge from the existing station building to the new Phase One concourse building.

Further information on the Darlington station upgrade can be found by clicking here to visit the Network Rail website.

It’s been great to work with Wyvern Academy and get its students engaged and involved with our work to transform their local station, and see how enthusiastic they are about this major investment for Darlington.

School kids don’t usually wish away their long summer break, but our winning entrants certainly are looking forward to coming back and seeing their work on prominent display for thousands of rail passengers in the station.

Jo Hall, BAM Nuttall social sustainability coordinator

There are lots of changes happening inside Darlington station at the moment, so it’s great these eye-catching designs will go on display for passengers making their journeys.

We’d like to thank people for their continued patience while we carry out these transformational upgrades at Darlington. We’ll continue to work closely with station operator LNER to make people’s journeys as smooth as possible during construction.

Luke Durston, Network Rail principal programme sponsor

We’re creating a modern gateway Darlington can be proud of – and it’s great to see our future generations literally making their mark on our station.

Be it through big projects like this one, new jobs in the civil service or by taking on the creative arts, we always want to inspire our young people and help them pursue good careers close to home.

This art is yet another reminder of the rich talent we have.

Ben Houchen, Tees Valley Mayor