Kettering railway station

Coordinates: 52°23′35″N 0°43′56″W / 52.39307°N 0.73215°W / 52.39307; -0.73215

Kettering National Rail
Platform 2
Location
Place Kettering
Local authority Borough of Kettering
Grid reference SP863780
Operations
Station code KET
Managed by East Midlands Trains
Number of platforms 4
DfT category C2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2012/13 Increase 1.019 million
2013/14 Decrease 1.004 million
2014/15 Increase 1.022 million
2015/16 Increase 1.042 million
2016/17 Increase 1.062 million
History
Key dates Opened 1857 (1857)
Listed status
Listed feature Kettering Railway Station, including the main building and platforms 1,2,3 and 4 and their associated buildings and canopies
Listing grade Grade II listed (since 26 November 2014)
Entry number 1372596 [1]
Added to list 5 May 1981
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Kettering from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Kettering railway station serves the town of Kettering in Northamptonshire, England. It lies south-west of the town centre, on the Midland Main Line, 71 miles (115 km) north of London St. Pancras.

History

Kettering railway station from the Illustrated London News 23 May 1857

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. In 1857 the leather trade being in recession, over half 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.

The original station with a single platform was designed by Charles Henry Driver, with particularly fine "pierced grill" cast ironwork on the platform.

From 1866 the station was also the terminus of the Midland cross country branch line from Cambridge via St Ives & Huntingdon until closure in June 1959.

In 1879 the line was quadrupled. New fast lines were built to the west of the original slow lines. Three new platforms were built: numbers 2 and 3 on an island between the fast and slow lines, and number 4, to the west of the fast lines. The Midland Railway commissioned single-storey weather-boarded waiting rooms and canopies with cast-iron columns and spandrels for the island platforms 2 and 3 and platform 4 to match those designed in 1857 by Charles Henry Driver.

From 1879 (for freight) and 1880 (for passengers) Kettering was also a junction for the direct line from Kettering to Nottingham via Oakham and Melton Mowbray. This closed to passengers in 1966 but was left as a through route for freight (as far as Melton Mowbray only from 1968.) For later services on this line see "Corby Services" below.

Other additions included a two-bay engine shed, erected by C. Deacon & Company for the Midland Railway at the north end of the forecourt around 1875, and a goods shed with offices, built at the south end around 1894.

The Midland Railway replaced the main station buildings on platform 1 between 1895 and 1898 with a new booking hall, booking office, parcels office and refreshment room. These current buildings may be by Charles Trubshaw.[1] It is regarded as one of the best remaining examples of Midland architecture.[2]

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.

London, Midland and Scottish Railway

Until the line through Buxton was closed in the Beeching era, the 'main lines' were those from London to Manchester, carrying named expresses such as The Palatine. Express trains to Leeds and Scotland such as the Thames-Clyde Express generally used the Erewash Valley Line then on to the Settle and Carlisle Line. Expresses to Edinburgh, such as The Waverley, travelled through Corby and Nottingham.

Services

A Map of East Midlands Trains InterCity services showing the current service pattern each hour

There is a half-hourly service to London St. Pancras and hourly services to either Nottingham via Leicester or to Corby, both operated by Meridian trains. During peak, one Nottingham services is extended to start and finish at Lincoln via Newark and one Corby service goes to and from Melton Mowbray.

Faster East Midlands Trains services to/from Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby run through Kettering at high speed, but do not call. Interchange with faster services can be made at Leicester and St Pancras.

At the weekend there is one train per day to York, and in the summer months the York service on a Saturday is extended to and from Scarborough.

Corby services

Just north of Kettering on Engineers Line Reference SPC2 (St Pancras to Chesterfield) is Glendon 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. CrossCountry trains use the line via Leicester to Peterborough for their Birmingham to Stansted airport service.

Passenger services were withdrawn from this line in the 1960s, though it remained open for freight. In 1987 Network SouthEast 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 was often regarded as being the largest town in western Europe with no rail station. East Midlands Trains, and Midland Mainline before it, was committed through its franchise to run 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.

The new station at Corby was originally planned to open in December 2008, but this was delayed until extra trains were acquired. It eventually opened on 23 February 2009, initially served by one return train to London St Pancras per day, operated by East Midlands Trains.[3] Full service, with 13 daily returns to London, started on 27 April 2009. The service provides one train each hour calling at Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford, Luton and St Pancras, with a minimum journey time from Corby to London of 1 hour and 14 minutes.[4] One of the train pairs is extended north of Corby to Oakham.[5]

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Market Harborough   East Midlands Trains
Midland Main Line		   Wellingborough
Corby   East Midlands Trains
Corby-London		  
Disused railways
Glendon and Rushton   Midland Railway
Midland Main Line		   Isham and
Burton Latimer

Facilities

Kettering is staffed during operational hours (05:00-00:30), and is locked and inaccessible during non operational times (01:00-04:30). The station is monitored via CCTV cameras which are monitored locally and at the town council offices.

From 2009 Kettering became a Penalty fare station: a valid ticket or Permit to travel must be shown on request.

The station is included in the PlusBus scheme where bus travel can be added to train tickets for a small additional charge. Through fares were made available from 68 UK towns and cities to Paris, Brussels and other destinations in France and Belgium in late 2007, which must be booked through Eurostar.[6]

The station formerly had a nightclub in the basement of the station building. The nightclub has recently had a licence granted, which shall re-open and as a bar and music venue. A subway and barrow crossing was used at the station to access the various platforms until the lifts and stairs were constructed in the 1990s. The former station masters flat has remained available for rent for several years.

Future

It is planned that all platforms will be extended by up to 50 metres by 2012 to allow longer trains to be accommodated.[7]

The railway through Kettering is not electrified therefore all services are operated by diesel trains. This is set to change by 2019 when a scheme to electrify the remainder of the Midland Main Line is to be completed, this along with faster line speeds, means the town will be less than 60 minutes from the capital.[8] Combined with improvements on the Marston Vale line, new direct services may be introduced.

Destinations

Major urban centres

Many of the UK's major cities can be reached with one or two changes. Many continental cities can be reached via one change at St Pancras International.

The following places can be reached directly from Kettering (Journey times approximate)

The following places are only reached directly from Kettering at certain times:

  • Doncaster - 1 hour 45 mins (Evenings)
  • Wakefield - 1 hour 55 mins (Evenings)
  • Leeds - 2 hours 15 mins (Peak times)
  • York - 2 hours 30 mins (1 journey each way - weekends only)

The following places can be reached from Kettering by changing once (Journey times approximate)

Passengers are able to travel to Paris and Brussels by changing at St Pancras Int. East Midlands Trains,have said they will introduce earlier journeys to London to allow passengers to arrive in Paris or Brussels before 9am.[9]

Local important centres

The following places can be reached directly from Kettering (Journey times approximate)


The following places can be reached from Kettering by changing once (Journey times approximate)

Tickets

The ticket office is open to retail all rail products for any journey from 06:00 until 20:30 Monday to Sunday, at all other times a vending machine is accessible to issue tickets for that day.

References

  1. 1 2 Historic England, "Kettering Railway Station, including the main building and platforms 1,2,3 and 4 and their associated buildings and canopies (1372596)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 9 December 2016
  2. ↑ Radford, J.B. (1988) [1983]. Midland Line Memories: a Pictorial History of the Midland Railway Main Line Between London (St Pancras) & Derby. London: Bloomsbury Books. ISBN 978-1-870630-21-4.
  3. ↑ "East Midlands Trains announces first trains for Corby". East Midlands Trains. 17 December 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  4. ↑ "East Midlands Trains announces start date for full services from Corby". East Midlands Trains. 7 April 2009. Archived from the original on 10 March 2010. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  5. ↑ "Passengers from Oakham set to benefit from direct link to London". East Midlands Trains. 7 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  6. ↑ "Through-fares from 68 UK towns and cities to continental Europe now available on eurostar.com" (Press release). Eurostar. 18 December 2007. Archived from the original on 30 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
  7. ↑ "CP4 Delivery Plan 2009 Enhancements programme: statement of scope, outputs and milestones" (PDF). Network Rail. December 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
  8. ↑ "Investing in rail, investing in jobs and growth" (Press release). Department for Transport. 16 July 2012. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
  9. ↑ "East Midlands Trains > General Information > Our Plans > Fleet improvement". Archived from the original on 9 November 2007.
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