Harringay railway station

Harringay railway station (also known as Harringay West for part of its history ) is a railway station located off Wightman Road in Harringay, North London. It is on the East Coast Main Line between Finsbury Park and Hornsey and opened on 1 May 1885. Harringay is managed and served by First Capital Connect.

History
A formal agreement to build a station at Harringay was made between the British Land Company and the Great Northern Railway in April 1884. The Land Company needed the station to serve housing it was building to the east of the railway line on the site of Harringay House, so it contributed £3,500 to the cost and agreed to bear the working costs of the station for an initial period. Contracts to build the station (including the footbridge) and a road bridge over the Tottenham & Hampstead line went to S.W. Pattinson of Ruskington for £8,000 and £3,999 respectively in August the same year.

The station was constructed with an up platform as an island serving the up main and up slow, and a single-sided down platform serving the down slow only. A 300 ft was constructed to give access to the station. It stretched from a station approach road off Wightman Road to the west side of the cutting, where Quernmore Road would eventually be built some fifteen years later. A booking office was built on the footbridge above the platforms.

The station opened to passenger traffic on 1 May 1885 with a staff complement of a station master, two assistant clerks, two ticket collectors, and three porters. Although it had been agreed that the station would be named Harringay Park, the GNR public timetable from May 1885 shows that station was in fact named Harringay from the outset. A goods yard was built to the east of the line, but the exact date it opened for public traffic is not recorded.

In 1900 a second down slow passenger line was added and the down platform was made an island and widened along its entire length.

The 1885 booking office building suffered fire damage in the 1960s and had been almost entirely removed by 1969. It was replaced by a small timber shack, which still serves as a ticket office today.

The station was renamed Harringay West on 18 June 1951, but reverted to Harringay on 27 May 1971.

In 1975 the platform layout was altered with the west sides of both acting as single sided platforms. A replacement waiting room/canopy block was provided on each.

Since 1976 only the central part of the footbridge, and the girders built to carry the old booking office building, remain from the 1885 station structure.

Under plans approved in 1897, the station was to be served by the Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR), a tube railway supported by the GNR which would have run underground beneath the GNR's tracks from Alexandra Palace to Finsbury Park and then into central London. The GN&SR stations on each side would have been the same as the main line stations. The GN&SR route and stations north of Finsbury Park were cancelled in 1902 when the GN&SR was taken over by Charles Yerkes' consortium, which planned to merge it with the Brompton & Piccadilly Circus Railway to form the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith (now part of the London Underground's Piccadilly line).

Facilities
Oyster pay as you go was introduced at this station on 2 January 2010.

The ticket office opening hours are:


 * Monday - Friday: 06:05 - 14:35
 * Saturday: 07:05 - 15:35
 * Sundays: Closed.

In Autumn 2008, a new SHERE self-service ticket machine, accepting both cash and credit cards, was installed here and at other local FCC stations.

The station has four electronic timetables: one per platform, one inside the ticket office and one outside the ticket office (for when it is closed); the station is also fitted with a hearing loop.

There is a basic waiting room and sheltered area on each platform with some bench seating. The station has cycle access but no wheelchair access.

A payphone is situated just outside the station on Quernmore Road.

Services
Trains run southbound to Moorgate on Monday - Friday until 22:00 and to Kings Cross outside these times. Trains run northbound to Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City, Hertford North, Stevenage and Letchworth. Services are operated by First Capital Connect.

The typical off-peak service is:
 * 6tph (trains per hour) to Moorgate
 * 3tph to Welwyn Garden City, via Potters Bar
 * 3tph to Hertford North railway station, with 1tph extended to Letchworth Garden City railway station via Stevenage railway station

On Saturdays and Sundays the service is:


 * 4tph to Kings Cross Station
 * 2tph to Welwyn Garden City Station, via Potters Bar railway station
 * 2tph to Hertford North railway station, with 1tph extended to Stevenage railway station.

Local connections
Harringay Green Lanes station is a short walk from Harringay station for transfers.

The W5 bus route serves Stapleton Hall Road (eastbound) towards Crouch End Broadway and Archway tube station, and Oakfield Road (westbound) towards Harringay Green Lanes railway station, both reached from the station's west exit. On the east side of the station, bus routes, 29, 141 and 341 are five minutes' walk away on Green Lanes.

Infrastructure
Trains calling at Harringay use the low-speed rail tracks in front of the platforms; there are five more tracks passing through and around the vicinity of the station. Two of these are used for high-speed East Coast, First Hull Trains, Grand Central and other First Capital Connect services, and the other three are used for freight services. Occasionally, when these lines are busy, the low-speed tracks are used for the faster services.

During the week, trains use dual-voltage class 313 EMUs because these are the only units cleared to run to Moorgate; however, some weekend services may use class 317s as these run to Kings Cross.

Local station projects
Outside the Quernmore Road exit there is a mural depicting the lifestyle of people living in the area; it was painted by locals and residents of the nearby Chettle Court estate.