Cambridge railway station serves central Cambridge, in Cambridgeshire, England. Situated at the end of Station Road, it lies south-east of the city centre. With over ten million passengers passing through the station in 2023–24, it is both the busiest station in the East of England region and the thirteenth busiest outside of London.
The station serves as the northern terminus for both the West Anglia Main Line from , and of the Cambridge line from . The station is also the southern terminus of three secondary routes: the Fen line to , the Breckland line to , and the Ipswich–Ely line to .
The station is managed and served by Greater Anglia, with services also operated by Great Northern, Thameslink and CrossCountry. It is one of three railway stations in Cambridge; the others are , approximately away, and .
History Up to 1923
Although the first main line inter-city railway was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830, surveys for a railway through Cambridge had been conducted as early as 1822. After many failed attempts for a railway, the Eastern Counties Railway (Ely, Brandon and Peterborough Extension) Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. lxii) was passed in 1844, which allowed the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) to extend their line as far as Ely via Cambridge from its terminus at Bishop's Stortford, which had been reached in May 1842.
The 1844 Act also included an extension of the line north of Cambridge to Brandon, which ended the concept of a connection through to Norwich. Robert Stephenson was appointed engineer and, on 29 July 1845, the station opened with services operating from station in London, via and .
In the years following the opening of the main line from Cambridge through to Norwich in 1845, other railways were built to the city. Initially, some of these planned to have separate stations but opposition from the university saw them all eventually using the same station. The first line to arrive was the to line, which opened in 1847 and was built by the East Anglian Railway. Services to also commenced that year, with the opening of the line from via to Peterborough, which also became the main route for coal traffic into East Anglia which was built by the ECR.
The following year, the ECR opened a line between St Ives and March, which saw some passenger services, although the coal traffic was then diverted on to this route.
In 1851, a branch line from Newmarket to Cambridge (Coldham Lane Junction) was opened which partly used the alignment of the Newmarket and Chesterford Railway which subsequently closed. In 1854, the Newmarket line was extended eastwards to meet the Eastern Union Railway line at , allowing through running to Ipswich.
An act of Parliament, the Royston and Hitchin Railway Amendment (Shepreth Extension) Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. cxix) was granted to the Royston and Hitchin Railway to extend its line from . Although Cambridge was its goal, Parliament sanctioned only an extension as far as Shepreth, as the ECR had opposed the extension to Cambridge. The line was completed in 1851 and initially the Great Northern Railway (GNR), which had leased the Royston and Hitchin Railway in the interim, ran a connecting horse-drawn omnibus service. This proved unsuccessful so, in April 1852, the line was extended to join the ECR main line south of Cambridge and was leased to the ECR for 14 years, with a connection to enable it to run trains from Cambridge to .
In 1862, the Bedford and Cambridge Railway opened. Originally a local undertaking, it was soon acquired by the London & North Western Railway (LNWR), extended to , and saw services between and Cambridge introduced on what became known as the Varsity Line.
By the 1860s, the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble and most were leased to the ECR; they wished to amalgamate formally, but could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed by amalgamation. Thus Cambridge became a GER station in 1862.
The University of Cambridge helped block later 19th-century attempts to create a central station.
The GER opened the cross-country line from Marks Tey via Sudbury and Haverhill to Shelford in 1865, which enabled the introduction of direct services to Colchester.
The Midland Railway built a line from Kettering to Huntingdon which opened in 1866 and services ran to Cambridge using running powers over the Huntingdon to St Ives line. In 1866, the GNR reapplied to run services from King's Cross, as the lease on the line to Hitchin was ending. Initially the GER opposed this but eventually agreement was reached and, from 1 April 1866, services started operating between Cambridge and King's Cross from a dedicated platform at Cambridge station.
In 1882, the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway was opened. As well as becoming the major route for coal traffic from the North East to East Anglia, it saw the introduction of direct services between London, Cambridge and . Goods trains generally passed Cambridge on dedicated goods lines to the east of the station. Between these and the station, a number of carriage sidings existed.
The next line to open was in 1884, when the Fordham line opened, joining the main line towards Ely at Barnwell Junction. The following year the branch to opened and services operated direct from there to Cambridge.
Each of the four companies also had its own goods facilities in the station area and, except for the MR, its own motive power depot. The GER maintained a special locomotive for the Royal Train here for workings between London and Sandringham.
Services Great Eastern Railway: Main line from London Liverpool Street to Norwich and King's Lynn Cross-country services to via and to Cross-country services via Ely, , and the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Line to northern England Branch line to and beyond Branch line to .
Great Northern Railway: Services to London King's Cross, via , including the Cambridge Buffet Car Expresses.
London and North Western Railway: Cross-country Varsity Line to .
Midland Railway: Services to , via St Ives.
LNER (1923–1947) In the 1923 Grouping, the GER amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and Cambridge became a LNER station. The Midland and LNWR similarly amalgamated with other railways to form the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS).
In around 1928, the LNER resignalled the station replacing its five signal boxes with two electrically controlled boxes, with the work carried out by the British Power Railway Signal Company.
British Railways (1948–1996) Following nationalisation of the British railway network, Cambridge station was operated by the Eastern Region of British Railways.
East Anglia was one of the first areas in the country where British Railways wanted to phase out steam operation in favour of diesel traction. From 1959, diesels started to take over operation of services with Cambridge engine shed closing to steam in 1962. Diesel shunters and multiple units were allocated to another shed on the opposite side of the line, known as Coldham Lane.
The 1960s saw the closure of number of the lines serving Cambridge at this time. First to go was the lightly used line to Mildenhall, closed to passengers on 18 June 1962. The Stour Valley Railway route to , via Haverhill and , closed on 6 March 1967 although the Sudbury-Marks Tey section remains operational as a branch line today. The Varsity Line to Oxford also saw passenger services to withdrawn during this year, on 30 December 1967, as did the line between March and St Ives.
Passenger services along the Cambridge & St. Ives Branch managed to survive the Beeching Axe but, with British Rail citing heavy losses, the final passenger service ran between St Ives and Cambridge on 5 October 1970. Despite campaigns to reopen the service during the 1970s, the only subsequent rail traffic on the line was a freight service to Chivers in Histon, which ran until 1983 and a contract to ferry sand from ARC at Fen Drayton which continued until May 1992.
The line from Bishop's Stortford to Cambridge was electrified by British Rail in 1987, enabling electric trains to operate between Liverpool Street and Cambridge. The station also underwent a £650,000 refurbishment in 1987, funded jointly by Network SouthEast, the Railway Heritage Trust and Cambridge City Council.
When the link to from Liverpool Street opened in 1991, the Cambridge line became more important; all non-stop trains now take this route to London King's Cross, reducing congestion on the very busy stretch of the West Anglia Main Line between Liverpool Street and Bishop's Stortford.
Privatisation era (1994–present) The station won the Large Station of the Year award at the National Rail Awards in 2017.
Operations The Railways Act 1993 came into force on 1 April 1994; train operating units ran the services initially whilst the franchises were let.
A number of different train operating companies (TOCs) have operated services at Cambridge station since privatisation: West Anglia Great Northern which was initially owned by Prism Rail, but then bought by National Express, operated the West Anglia Great Northern franchise from January 1997 until March 2004. This covered services to both Liverpool Street and King's Cross stations, as well as King's Lynn. In April 2004, the Liverpool Street route became part of National Express East Anglia (NXEA) franchise whilst the Great Northern route to King's Cross remained part of WAGN until March 2006, when it became part of the First Capital Connect franchise. Services to Ipswich and Norwich were initially operated by Anglia Railways from January 1997; these routes later became part of the NXEA franchise. Services to and from the Midlands were operated by Central Trains from March 1997. In November 2007, the Central Trains franchise was split up with services through Cambridge becoming part of the Arriva CrossCountry network. The Thameslink franchise was operated first by Thameslink, then by First Capital Connect and then by Govia Thameslink Railway in September 2014.
Infrastructure On 1 April 1994, Railtrack became responsible for the maintenance of the National Rail infrastructure; it was succeeded by Network Rail in 2002, following financial difficulties.
The CB1 area in front of the station buildings had been due for redevelopment by Ashwell Property Group. In December 2009, the developers went bankrupt and reformed under the name of Brookgate. Part of the redevelopment scheme had included a £1 million contribution towards the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway scheme passing through the area.
A new island platform was brought into operational use in December 2011.
In 2012, the station infrastructure was under scrutiny as it emerged that passengers were forced to queue for over 40 minutes to purchase tickets.
Improvements in 2016 In 2014, the station operator Abellio Greater Anglia released plans to improve the station building at Cambridge, as part of the CB1 project. The works include a larger concourse, more ticket gates and machines, with a bigger ticket office. These opened in January 2017.
Accidents On 30 May 2015, the 09:14 Great Northern service from London King's Cross failed to stop when entering a platform; it collided at low speed with the stationary train it was due to couple with shortly after 10:00 BST. No damage was caused, but three passengers were slightly injured.
Motive power depots
Main shed
The Eastern Counties Railway opened a small motive power depot at the station in 1845. This was replaced by a larger depot on the west side of the line at the north end of the station in 1847; this became a Great Eastern Railway shed in 1862 and it was enlarged in 1913.