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| General information | |||||
| Location | Dumfries,Dumfries and Galloway Scotland | ||||
| Coordinates | 55°04′22″N3°36′16″W / 55.0728°N 3.6045°W /55.0728; -3.6045 | ||||
| Grid reference | NX976765 | ||||
| Managed by | ScotRail | ||||
| Platforms | 2 | ||||
| Other information | |||||
| Station code | DMF | ||||
| Key dates | |||||
| 1848 | Opened | ||||
| 1850 | Line to Glasgow opened | ||||
| Passengers | |||||
| 2019/20 |  0.389 million | ||||
| 2020/21 | 44,712 | ||||
| 2021/22 |  0.232 million | ||||
| 2022/23 | 0.291 million | ||||
| 2023/24 | 0.360 million | ||||
Listed Building – Category B | |||||
| Designated | 6 March 1981 | ||||
| Reference no. | LB26343[2] | ||||
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Dumfries railway station serves the town ofDumfries inDumfries and Galloway,Scotland. It is located on theGlasgow South Western Line. The station is owned byNetwork Rail and managed byScotRail who provide all passenger train services. It is staffed on a part-time basis throughout the week.
Opened by theGlasgow, Dumfries and Carlisle Railway in 1848, the line serving it was extended northwards toKilmarnock andGlasgow two years later (the GD&CR became part of theGlasgow and South Western Railway at the same time). It subsequently became the junction for branches toCastle Douglas andStranraer (opened between 1859 and 1861),Lockerbie (opened in 1863 and taken over in 1865 by theCaledonian Railway) and latterly toMoniaive (Cairn Valley Railway, opened in 1905). All of these later lines have now closed (thePort Road to Stranraer being the last to go in June 1965), leaving only the original G&SWR main line open to serve the town. TheBeeching Axe cutting theCastle Douglas and Dumfries Railway andPortpatrick and Wigtownshire Railway has resulted in adverse mileage to connectStranraer with a longer line viaKilmarnock andAyr. The journey by railway and ferry viaStranraer toLarne Harbour or since the line closed to thePort of Belfast is much longer.
Historic Scotland have designated the station and separately the adjacent station hotel as category B listed buildings.[2][3]
Carnation built anevaporated milk factory in Dumfries that opened in 1935, eventually constructing three units producingtin cans, evaporated milk and latterlyCoffeemate. The original factory had private siding access to the station's goods yard, which gave access formilk trains to the facility, in both delivering raw product as well as distribution toLondon. Milk trains stopped in the mid-1970s. The United States parent company was bought byNestle in 1985, after which a decline in the facility began. CoffeeMate production ceased in 2000, after which the site was fully redeveloped as anindustrial estate.[4]
In 2023 it was confirmed that step-free access to both platforms would be added.[5]
The station features in the novelThe Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) byJohn Buchan. Richard Hannay, fleeing from German secret agents, travels fromLondon St Pancras to Galloway, changing trains at Dumfries. In 1939,T.S. Eliot included Dumfries in hisOld Possum's Book of Practical Cats.Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat, speaks with the police at Dumfries Station during the night.
The service from the station is somewhat infrequent with trains running to different patterns during the day, these are as follows:
On Monday to Saturdays, there is a regular hourly service southbound to/from Carlisle with extra trains running at peak times. There are 9 trains per day northbound to Kilmarnock and Glasgow which run every 2 hours. On Sundays, there is a 2 hourly service southbound to Carlisle (5 in total) but a very limited service of 2 trains per day northbound to Kilmarnock and Glasgow. There was a direct service to Stranraer via Kilmarnock but this ceased in 2009. Services running through Carlisle to Newcastle were stopped at the May 2022 timetable change.[6]
| Preceding station |  National Rail | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annan | ScotRail Glasgow South Western Line | Sanquhar | ||
| Historical railways | ||||
| Maxwelltown Line and station closed | Glasgow and South Western Railway Castle Douglas and Dumfries Railway | Terminus | ||
| Locharbriggs Line and station closed | Caledonian Railway Dumfries, Lochmaben and Lockerbie Railway | Terminus | ||
