Kettering railway station

Kettering
General information
Location	Kettering Borough Council
Managed by	East Midlands Trains
Platforms	4
Other information
Station code	KET
History
Opened	1857

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 semi-fast East Midlands Trains Class 222 "Meridian" services, with HST services at peak times.

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.

Being relatively close to London, the frequency of trains to the capital in the morning and evening peak is excellent for commuting, with a train running (occasionally non stop) every twenty minutes with the quickest journeys taking forty-five minutes.

As of late 2009 Kettering is a Penalty fare station, a valid ticket or Permit to travel must be shown when requested.

It is planned that all platforms will be extended by up to 50 metres by no later than 2012 to allow longer trains to be accommodated.

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 in 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.

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 tended to use the Erewash Valley Line then onto 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 modern Meridian trains. During the daytime, some Nottingham services are extended to Lincoln via Newark while some Corby go to or start from Melton Mowbray.

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

The weekend sees trains operating to York and in the summer months there are also weekend trains to Scarborough. EMT plan to run a through service (possibly around 2010) to Skegness, although this depends on when Network Rail have completed track upgrade works.

Corby services

Just to the 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. Arriva Cross Country trains use the line via Leicester to Peterborough for their Liverpool to Norwich (via Stansted airport) service.

Passenger services were withdrawn from this line in the 1960s, though it remained 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 was often regarded as being the largest town in western Europe with no rail station. East Midlands Trains, and Midland Mainline before them, were committed through their franchise to run a shuttle bus from Corby to Kettering station. Occasionally the line was and 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, however this was delayed until extra trains have been 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. 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. One of the train pairs is extended North of Corby to Oakham.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Market Harborough towards Nottingham		East Midlands Trains Corby-London		Wellingborough towards London St Pancras
Corby towards Corby		East Midlands Trains Midland Main Line
	Disused railways
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.

• Lifts to all platforms.
• Two pay and display car parks (for charges see http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/ket/details.html).
• Waiting rooms on all platforms. Platform 4 has a very nice painting of a girl looking into a box, artist unknown till present.
• Pumpkin Cafe.
• Accessible toilet and Baby change.
• X1 bus to Corby
• FastTicket machine
• Food Vending machines.
• Payphones.
• Taxis.

The station is included in the PlusBus scheme where bus travel can be added to train tickets for a small additional charge.

The station formerly had a nightclub, in the basement of the station building, closed due to fire regulations. 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.

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)

• London (St Pancras International) - 50–65 minutes
• Derby - 55 mins
• Nottingham - 55 mins
• Sheffield - 1 hour 25 mins
• Luton - 40 mins

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)

• Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe - Change at Derby
• Edinburgh, Newcastle - Change at Sheffield or Derby
• Manchester, Liverpool - Change at Nottingham
• Inverness - Change at York
• Birmingham, change at Leicester

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.

Local important centres

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

• Bedford - 20 mins
• Corby - 8 mins
• Loughborough - 36 mins
• Market Harborough - 10 mins
• Wellingborough - 7/9 mins

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

• Bradford, Halifax - change at Leeds
• Norwich - Change at Nottingham
• Huddersfield, Rotherham, Hull, Grimsby - Change at Sheffield
• Grantham, Skegness, Boston, Lincoln Central - Change at Nottingham
• Mansfield - Change at Nottingham (Via Robin Hood Line)
• (Worksop) - change at Nottingham (Via Robin Hood Line)

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.

External links

• Train times and station information for Kettering railway station from National Rail