The Cambridge line is a railway line in the East of England; it connects the East Coast Main Line at Hitchin to the West Anglia Main Line at Cambridge. The line is owned by Network Rail and is in length, serving ten stations. Train services are operated by Thameslink and Great Northern, both sub-brands of Greater Thameslink Railway.
Originally opened in 1851, the Royston and Hitchin Railway built a route between Hitchin and Shepreth. There, it met the Shepreth Branch Railway, and the two were joined in 1862 to form the modern route. A station at Letchworth was added in 1905 in conjunction with its opening as the world's first garden city. However, the line fell into decline throughout the mid 1900s, and Harston station was closed as part of the Beeching Axe in 1963.
The line was electrified as far as Royston in 1978, which severed through services on the line. Network SouthEast then expanded electrification to Cambridge in 1988, which was combined with major track improvements. In 2013, the new Hitchin Flyover marked the end of the historic bottleneck for trains entering the line at Hitchin. A new station opened at Cambridge South in 2026.
History
1846–1850: Beginnings of the railway
The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) completed its main line from London to Norwich on 30 July 1845, running from the south through Cambridge and on to Ely. Cambridge was an important industrial and agricultural centre. The year 1846 was a peak time for the authorisation of railway schemes, part of the railway mania. The Great Northern Railway obtained its authorising act of Parliament, the Great Northern Railway Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. lxxi), on 26 June 1846; this was a huge project: it was to build a line from London to York, with a number of small branch lines.
The Royston and Hitchin Railway (R&HR) had been submitted to Parliament as a proposed Cambridge and Oxford Railway, which would have run as a single track through Royston, Hitchin and Dunstable, but the scheme was very considerably cut back by the Lords in Parliament; there were other contenders in the field for occupation of the route. The railway as actually authorised in the (9 & 10 Vict. c. clxx), on 16 July 1846, was renamed the Royston and Hitchin Railway, and the Lords demanded double track for the truncated version.
The Great Northern Railway (GNR) had encouraged the Cambridge and Oxford Railway scheme (now the Royston and Hitchin Railway), and had guaranteed the shareholders 6% on paid-up capital. The GNR wanted to use the line to get access to Cambridge, and at all costs it wanted to keep the Eastern Counties Railway out. If the ECR could seize control of the R&HR it would have yet another penetrating line into GNR territory. The Eastern Counties Railway had secured the Eastern Counties (Cambridge to Bedford Railway) Act 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. clviii) giving approval for a Cambridge to Bedford line, and the GNR tried to get its Cambridge connection using that line, but this attempt failed too, in 1848.
However the Royston and Hitchin Railway had more success: on 14 August 1848 it obtained an act of Parliament, the (11 & 12 Vict. c. cxix) to extend its line from Royston to Shepreth, joining the Cambridge to Bedford branch there. If the Eastern Counties failed to construct its Cambridge to Bedford line in a reasonable time, the R&HR would have power to build the line itself.
Construction of the Royston and Hitchin Railway was not difficult and not expensive, and the miles from Hitchin junction to Royston were opened on 21 October 1850. The route was hilly and the line had a series of gradients. Beyond Royston the line, still under construction, was also beset by gradients, one as steep as 1 in 100. The line served a purely agricultural district, but a connecting bus service ran between Royston and Cambridge.
There was a condition in the Eastern Counties (Cambridge to Bedford Railway) Act 1847 which forced the ECR to open its extension from Cambridge to Shepreth without any delay. The line was in length between Shelford Junction and Shepreth, where it met the R&HR's line with an end-on design.An end-on junction meant that the two railway lines were connected to form a single line, but were owned and operated by two separate companies. As of July 1851, Robert Laffan reported that the Shepreth Branch Railway was complete from east of Shepreth to near Shelford railway station, creating a completed route from London to Cambridge via Hitchin. However, the Shepreth Branch Railway was only a single track and Laffan urged it to be doubled; the ability for the railway to be doubled had been incorporated into the original design.
1851–1865: Completion of the railway Operations began on the extension from Royston to Shepreth on 1 August 1851. A service of five omnibuses per day was also introduced; it took 40 minutes to travel the route. There were still no direct trains from London King's Cross and the journey took 130 minutes at its quickest. Although the GNR's fares were lower than that of the ECR's, the service did not prove financially viable. Due to the lack of the development, the Royston and Hitchin Railway remained a purely agricultural area; the GNR was paying almost £15,000 (£ in ) every year for the guarantee of operating the line without any guarantee of breaking even. The ECR's Shepreth Branch Railway opened a year later than the R&HR's line on 1 April 1852.
The Board of Trade inspecting officer only allowed the ECR to open their line on the condition that they were able to use the R&HR's turntable at Shepreth. Despite the line being owned by two different companies, through services were worked between King's Cross and Cambridge nonetheless. The ECR paid £300 (£ in ) to the R&HR per annum in return for their use of Hitchin railway station. The ECR was always far behind on its rent to the R&HR, as was its successor the Great Eastern Railway.
During the construction of its extension to Shepreth, the ECR opened negotiations to lease the R&HR; a fourteen-year lease was agreed in February 1852 which started upon the connection of the lines at Shepreth. As part of the lease, the ECR would pay £16,000 (£ in ) every year of rent and interest. The movement of the financial obligation for the R&HR to its rival was incredibly beneficial to the GNR; it agreed to pay the company 60% of any revenue it made from stations east of Ashwell & Morden from Hitchin or London King's Cross. During the tenure of the lease, the Railway Clearing House referred to the line as the "Shelford & Hitchin Railway". Three services per day were provided on the line between Hitchin and Cambridge, which was later expanded to four. There were also two trains per day on Sundays.
On 7 August 1862, the (25 & 26 Vict. c. ccxxiii) received royal assent; the act amalgamated the Eastern Counties Railway with three smaller railways (the Newmarket Railway, the Eastern Union Railway, and the Norfolk Railway) to form the Great Eastern Railway (GER). This took over the responsibilities of the ECR in its ownership of the line.Towards the end of the GNR's fourteen-year lease, the company considered purchasing the R&HR outright; however, there was opposition to this from the GER, who did not want the GNR to use their tracks all the way to Cambridge. Additionally, the Bedford–Cambridge section of the Varsity line had been opened by the Bedford and Cambridge Railway on 7 July 1862. The line was worked by the London and North Western Railway, which had a friendly relationship with the GNR at the time.
As a result, the companies brought forward two proposals to extend the railways in the area. The first involved the GNR being able to run between Shepreth and Cambridge, doubling of the track on this section of the line, the GNR being able to use the GER's station at Cambridge, and then a extension from Cambridge to a different terminal for the GNR to use. The alternative option was that the GNR built their own extension from Shepreth to the Bedford and Cambridge Railway, joining the line from Lord's Bridge station, and then extending that line into Cambridge over which the GNR would be able to run.
As the second proposal would render the GER's branch to Shepreth a short, useless section of railway, they agreed to the first proposal. On 2 May 1864, they signed an agreement with the GNR which would allow the company to build their extension and use the GER's track and station at Cambridge. This was enacted in the (27 & 28 Vict. c. cxxiv), which conceded to the GNR full running powers to Cambridge station, where all facilities and a separate platform would be provided for the GNR to use. The GER would also convert the Shepreth branch into a double-track railway capable of carrying express services, which was promised to be enacted between Shepreth and Shelford Junction by 31 March 1866, which was the last day of the lease; on this date, the R&HR line was returned to the GNR.
1865–1870: Track maintenance shortcomings The GER, were responsible for keeping the line well-maintained, however their poor financial health led to them failing to do so adequately. On 31 May 1865, the 7:10pm service from Cambridge derailed between Shelford Junction and Shepreth; there were no serious casualties. In December 1865 the GNR and the GER engineers made a joint inspection of the R&HR line, finding that the track bed was in a dilapidated state, and there were insufficient sleepers on the line. As a result, the GNR's engineer demanded that 11,400 sleepers should be renewed.
When the line was handed back on 1 April 1866, it was found that although the sleepers had been supplied, they had not been installed, and this responsibility was left with the GNR. Between April and July, of track and 5,000 new sleepers were laid. Despite this, on 3 July 1866, a fatal derailment occurred near Royston.
Captain H. W. Tyler was tasked with reporting on the causes of the derailment; he found that the track bed was built with rails, and the joints did not have fishplates. Furthermore, the sleepers were very widely spaced, and many were "in the last stages of derailment", particularly near the site of the accident, where the track geometry was described to be "wavy".
The poor quality of the GER section between Shepreth and Shelford Junction went far beyond the poor track layout; the section had not been doubled as promised, and there was no accommodation provided at Cambridge, where there was no shelter for GNR passengers either. The contractors for these works, W. Bell & Sons, ceased delivering the project when the GER was unable to pay them. Instead, the GNR paid £5,000 (£ today) for the work; they also provided their own staff at Cambridge to make up for the GER's shortcomings. Doubling the line between Shelford Junction and Shepreth was completed early in May 1867, and the electric telegraph system was working between Hitchin and Cambridge a few months afterwards.
1870–1910: Competition and absorption
Slip carriages were first used on the line in the August 1872 timetable. These were useful as they allowed for faster journey times with more stops; this would allow the GNR to compete more effectively against the GER's alternative route.