Trains at Cambridge, WAML, 07/07/24

Cambridge railway station is the principal station serving the city of Cambridge in the east of England. It stands at the end of Station Road, 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of the city centre. It is the northern terminus of the West Anglia Main Line, 55 miles 52 chains (89.6 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street, the southern terminus.
The station is managed by Greater Anglia. It is one of two railway stations in the city (the other being Cambridge North, approximately 2.5 miles (4 km) away). Cambridge is noted for having the third-longest platform on the network in England.
Cambridge is also the terminus of three secondary routes: the Fen line to King's Lynn, the Breckland line to Norwich and the Ipswich-Ely line to Ipswich. It is the thirteenth busiest station in the UK outside London.
In the years following the opening of the main line from Cambridge through to Norwich in 1845, other railways were built to Cambridge. 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 St Ives to Huntingdon line which opened in 1847 and was built by the East Anglian Railway. Services to Peterborough also commenced that year, with the opening of the line from Ely via March to Peterborough, which also became the main route for coal traffic into East Anglia which was built by the Eastern Counties Railway.
The following year, the Eastern Counties Railway opened a line between St Ives and March which saw some passenger services although the coal traffic (mentioned above) was then diverted on to this route.
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 was formed by amalgamation. Thus Cambridge became a GER station in 1862.
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 Great Northern Railway (GNR) again applied 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.
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 Mildenhall railway station opened and services operated direct from there to Cambridge.
The Stour Valley Railway route to Colchester via Haverhill and Sudbury closed on 6 March 1967 although the Sudbury-Marks Tey section remains operational as a branch line. The Varsity Line to Oxford also saw passenger services to Bedford 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.
Duration of the video: 13:03 - 15:40
We’ll be seeing services by Greater Anglia, Cross Country, Great Northern & Thameslink as well in the duration of the video.
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I really enjoyed my session that was spent at Cambridge especially with what I managed to see in the time I was there for however I don’t usually do any train spotting on Sundays however it was a last minute I was told I’ll be heading for Cambridge and even though there was engineering works for Cross Country between Peterborough & Birmingham New Street however it didn’t stop me to be visiting there though.
My next station will be Norwich which is the terminus of the GEML and part of the Wherry lines as well so until then thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.