Kettering railway station

Railway station in Northamptonshire, England

Kettering railway station serves the market and industrial town of Kettering in Northamptonshire, England. It lies south west of the town centre, on the Midland Main Line, north of London St. Pancras.

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. In 1857, the leather trade was in recession and so over half of Kettering's population was on poor relief; the railway enabled the town to sell its products over a much wider area and restored it to prosperity. The original station with a single platform was designed by Charles Henry Driver, with particularly fine 'pierced grill' cast ironwork on the platform. In 1858, it was reported that the station was now lit by gas lamps with gas supplied from the town mains. It was also reported that the line was one of the very few without telegraphic wires. From 1866, the station was also the terminus of the Midland cross country branch line from via St Ives and Huntingdon, until closure in June 1959. In 1879, the line was quadrupled. New fast lines were built to the west of the original slow lines. Three new platforms were built: numbers 2 and 3 on an island between the fast and slow lines, with number 4 to the west of the fast lines. The Midland Railway commissioned single storey weather boarded waiting rooms and canopies, with cast iron columns and spandrels for the island platforms 2 and 3 and platform 4, to match those designed in 1857 by Charles Henry Driver. From 1879 (for freight) and 1880 (for passengers), Kettering was also a junction for the direct line from Kettering to Nottingham, via Oakham and Melton Mowbray. This closed to passengers in 1966, but was left as a through route for freight (as far as Melton Mowbray only from 1968.) For later services on this line, see "Corby Services" below. Other additions included a two bay engine shed, erected by C. Deacon & Company for the Midland Railway, at the north end of the forecourt around 1875 and a goods shed with offices, built at the south end around 1894. The Midland Railway replaced the main station buildings on platform 1 between 1895 and 1898 with a new booking hall, booking office, parcels office and refreshment room. These current buildings may be by Charles Trubshaw. 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.

Until the line through Bakewell 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, generally used the Erewash Valley Line then on to the Settle and Carlisle Line. Expresses to Edinburgh, such as The Waverley, travelled through Corby and Nottingham.

Just north of Kettering, on Engineer's Line Reference SPC2 (St Pancras to Chesterfield), is Glendon Junction for the Oakham to Kettering Line. This 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. Passenger services were withdrawn from this line in the 1960s, though it remained open for freight. In 1987, Network SouthEast experimentally introduced a shuttle service between Kettering and a new station in the nearby town of Corby. The service was withdrawn a few years later. Corby was often regarded as being the largest town in western Europe with no railway station. East Midlands Trains, and Midland Mainline before it, was committed through its franchise to run a shuttle bus from Corby to Kettering station. Occasionally the line 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, but this was delayed until extra trains were 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 provided hourly trains between Corby and London St Pancras International until the May 2021 timetable change when the service was increased to half hourly under the new franchise holder Abellio.

It was originally planned that all platforms would be extended by up to 50 metres by 2012, to allow longer trains to be accommodated. This was not actioned until years later, as the platforms were extended by August 2020 in preparation for the May 2021 timetable change. This is because 21 new 4 carriage Class 360 EMU units are occasionally used in formations of threes, equivalent to 12 carriages per train, and require the extra platform length to fit fully. Until very recently, the railway through Kettering was not electrified, this changed in May 2021, when Class 360 EMUs began running on the newly electrified section between Bedford and Corby, along its route between London St Pancras and Corby. Diesel Class 222 Meridians and 180 Adelantes were cascaded in order to solely run the inter city services north to Nottingham, Sheffield, Derby, Leeds and Lincoln; these services continue to call frequently at Kettering. The Class 180s were removed from service in May 2023, and direct trains to Lincoln and Leeds no longer serve Kettering. Kettering is also now a major interchange for the south end of the Midland Main Line. In the May 2021 timetable change, the EMR inter city services stopped calling at Wellingborough, Bedford, Luton and Luton Airport Parkway. Passengers from these stations now have to change at Kettering in order to take an EMR inter city train north to destinations such as Leicester, Nottingham and Derby.

The ticket office is open from 06:00 until 20:30, seven days a week. At all other times a vending machine is available. Ticket gates were installed and made operational during 2023.