KETTERING RAILWAY STATION

'Kettering railway station' is to the south-west of the Kettering town centre in Northamptonshire, England. It lies on the Midland Main Line, 115 km (72 miles) north of London St. Pancras and is served primarily by slower Midland Mainline Class 222 "Meridian" services, with HST services at peak times.

Contents

History

Services

Facilities

Corby

External links

History

The station was opened in May 1857 by the Midland Railway on a line linking the Midland to the Great Northern Railway at Hitchin. (Later the Midland gained its own London terminus at St Pancras railway station)
It was designed by C H Driver, with particularly fine "pierced grill" cast ironwork on the platforms. Although it was altered between 1879 and 1884 when the line was quadrupled and again n 1896, it is one of best remaining examples of Midland architecture.
At the time, the leather trade being in recession, over half of its population was on poor relief. The railway enabled the town to sell its products over a much wider area and restored it to prosperity.
In the 1970s the glass canopies became a maintenance headache for British Rail, who proposed to remove the tops of the cast iron columns and replace the glass canopies with plastic sheeting. Kettering Civic Society objected to the plans and the canopies and columns were reprieved, later to be sympathetically restored by Railtrack in 2000.

Services

There is a half-hourly service to London St. Pancras International and via Leicester to either Derby (on the hour) or Nottingham (on the half hour), both operated by Midland Mainline Meridian trains.
The morning and evening peak periods see additional trains stop, these are generally operated by Inter City 125 (HST) trains. Northbound evening peak trains opperate to Sheffield and Leeds. In addition to these the Meridian services are extended to Burton upon Trent and in the new franchise Lincoln, Lincolnshire
The weekend see's trains opperating to Barnsley, York and Scarborough.

Facilities

★ Lifts to all platforms.

★ Large pay and display carpark (currently 2007 - £5.50 per day).

★ Waiting rooms on all platforms.

★ Pumpkin Cafe.

★ Less able toilet and Baby change.

★ Corby bus link (connecting with all arrivals).

★ Fast ticket and ticket vending machine.

★ Food Vending machines.

★ Payphones.

★ Txis.

Corby

Just to the north of Kettering is the junction for the Oakham to Kettering Line, which leads through Corby to Manton Junction where it joins the Leicester to Peterborough Line. This historically provided an alternative route for expresses to Nottingham via Old Dalby.
Passenger services were withdrawn from this line in the 1960s, though it remains open for freight. In 1987 Network South East experimentally introduced a shuttle service between Kettering and a new station in the nearby town of Corby. The service was however withdrawn a few years later. Corby is often quoted as being the largest town in western Europe with no rail station. There is a campaign on to have the service reinstated. In the mean time Midland Mainline runs a shuttle bus from Corby to Kettering station. Occasionally the line is used as a diversionary route when the route between Kettering and Leicester is closed for whatever reason.

External links

'Future arrangement when Corby station opens (in new franchise)'