Huntingdon railway station

Huntingdon Railway Station serves the town of Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, England. The station is on the East Coast Main Line and has three platforms; one bay and two through platforms. Huntingdon is managed and served by First Capital Connect, with East Coast services often calling during engineering works and periods of disruption. But other than that, East Coast services do not call here.

History


When originally opened by the Great Northern Railway on 7 August 1850, the station was just named Huntingdon, however, from 1 July 1923 until 15 June 1965 the station was known as Huntingdon North.

From the mid 1970s to the late 1980s the station was slowly rebuilt, going from a station with one platform connected to the ticket office and an island platform to an electrified station with the main platform, a bay platform as well as a separate platform for the slow line. The reason for this was that pre-1976, only three tracks went through the station causing a major bottleneck in the area.

The station was subject to an arson attack in 2005, and much of the station roof had to be rebuilt, as well as the booking hall.

Facilities
Huntingdon is staffed for most of the day. Automatic ticket barriers have been installed, as part of a wider First Capital Connect programme to place them across large parts of the network as a revenue protection exercise and to help increase security. The station has 3 touch screen ticket machines.

There are male and female toilet facilities at the station, as well as shelters on all platforms. The station has a combined newsagent and buffet on the London bound platform, and a vending machine on the Peterborough bound platform.

There is a taxi rank situated directly outside the entrance to the London bound platforms. A considerable amount of parking is provided - there are large car parks adjacent to both platforms.

Services
Huntingdon station is served by a half-hourly service southbound to London Kings Cross and northbound to Peterborough. There is an hourly service in each direction on Sundays. Journey times range from around 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes on these services.

There are also extra services during the peak that run fast and direct to/from Kings Cross calling at St. Neots, as well as some that additionally call at Biggleswade or Stevenage, then are fast to Kings Cross, and these services usually take around 40–45 minutes to Kings Cross.

First Capital Connect Timetables for Huntingdon can be seen and downloaded here.

During times of engineering work in the Hitchin area, Huntingdon often operates as the terminus for East Coast services from Scotland and the north-east of England, which are normally destined for Kings Cross. A rail replacement service usually runs from Huntingdon to Biggleswade/Stevenage to connect with services to/from London Kings Cross. Huntingdon is also used as a stop for East Coast services if Peterborough cannot be used.

Ticket office opening times and station staffing hours
Below are the current opening and staffing times for Huntingdon, as of 2010.

Transport links
A bus service is provided to and from Godmanchester (Bus 476 - 5 times daily), Hartford and St Ives (Bus 55 - normally every 20 minutes), from a stop directly adjacent to the station. More buses are available from a stop on the main road (George Street) nearby - buses 65/66 to and from St Neots and St Ives via Hinchingbrooke Hospital/Brampton, and Houghton/Wyton respectively; Bus 30 to Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Warboys and Ramsey; 35 to Wyton, Chatteris, Doddington and March.