Harringay railway station

Not to be confused with Harringay Green Lanes railway station.

Harringay

Harringay Station northbound platform
Harringay Location of Harringay in Greater London
Location	Harringay
Local authority	Haringey
Managed by	First Capital Connect
Owner	Network Rail
Station code	HGY
Number of platforms	2
Fare zone	3
Interchange	Harringay Green Lanes
National Rail annual entry and exit
2002–03	0.388 million
2004–05	0.328 million
2005–06	0.318 million
2006–07	0.775 million
2007–08	1.102 million
2008–09	0.902 million
1 May 1885	Opened
Lists of stations	DLR · Underground · National Rail · Tramlink
External links	Departures • Layout
	Facilities • Buses

Down local train in 1958

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.

Down 'Blue Spot' fish empties passing in 1958

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. A300-foot-long footbridge (91 m) 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 and go arrived at this station on the confirmed date of 2 January 2010, this has finally allow customers to make use of the oyster machines at the station. Harringay has a ticket office on the footbridge connecting it to Wightman and Quernmore roads. Its 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), this 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 and shops both here and just beyond the Wightman Road exit.

Services

FCC Great Northern Route

Legend King's Lynn Watlington Peterborough Downham Market Littleport Ely Huntingdon Waterbeach Cambridge St Neots Foxton Shepreth Sandy Meldreth Royston Biggleswade Ashwell & Morden Baldock Arlesey Letchworth Garden City Hitchin Stevenage Knebworth Watton-at-Stone Welwyn North Hertford North Welwyn Garden City Bayford Hatfield Cuffley Welham Green Crews Hill Brookmans Park Gordon Hill Potters Bar Enfield Chase Hadley Wood Grange Park New Barnet Winchmore Hill Oakleigh Park Palmers Green New Southgate Bowes Park Alexandra Palace Hornsey Harringay Finsbury Park London King's Cross Drayton Park Highbury & Islington Essex Road Old Street Moorgate

Trains run southbound from the station 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 (when there is no engineering work) this drops to:

• 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) toward Crouch End Broadway and Archway tube station and Oakfield Road (westbound) toward Harringay Green Lanes railway station reached from the station's west exit. On the east side of the station bus routes, 29, 141 and 341 are 5 minutes walk away on Green Lanes.

Infrastructure

Trains calling at this station 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.

These 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 nearby estate Chettle Court.

Route

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Finsbury Park		First Capital Connect Great NorthernStopping		Hornsey

Gallery

Harringay Station Images

Eastern entrance from Station Approach off Wightman Road   Ticket office from the bridge connecting the station to the two entrances   View south from southbound platform   View north from northbound platform   Staircase to southbound platform   The mural outside the Quernmore road exit.   The message on the mural.

References

• Butt, R.V.J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1 85260 508 1. R508. 
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers.

External links

• Train times and station information for Harringay railway station from National Rail
• Local Bus Map
• National Rail
• Google maps view of western entrance to station bridge from Quernmore Road
• Harringay Online's Harringay Timeline
• Pictures of the station and its environs on the Harringay Flickr group