Trains at Hitchin, ECML, 14/12/23

Описание: Hitchin railway station serves the market town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire. It is located approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) north east of the town centre and 31 miles 74 chains (51.4 km) north of London King's Cross on the East Coast Main Line.

Until the current Stevenage station opened in 1973, many Intercity services stopped at Hitchin.

In August 2007 Hitchin was awarded Secure Station status after improvements to station security were made by First Capital Connect, including new lighting, extra CCTV and the installation of automatic ticket gates.

On 21 October 1850 Hitchin became a junction station with the opening of the first section of the Royston and Hitchin Railway, between Hitchin and Royston (it was extended to Shepreth on 3 August 1851). The Midland Railway (MR) opened a route from Leicester via Bedford to Hitchin on 1 February 1858, by which MR trains used the GNR to reach London.

After the opening of the Midland Railway's own line from Bedford via Luton to London, and the line's terminus at St. Pancras in 1868, their line between Bedford and Hitchin was reduced to branch status. It lost its passenger service in 1961 and was closed completely in 1964, with the exception of a stub from Bedford to Cardington which itself was closed in 1969. In May 1964 part of the line was used for the railway scene in the film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. The embankment for the line could, until early 2012, still be walked from just north of the station, through the fields to Ickleford, but this section is now closed off. Opened in June 2013 a new embankment now carries a single-track line onto a viaduct for Letchworth-bound trains over the East Coast Main Line as part of the Hitchin Flyover project.

Hitchin railway station is managed by Great Northern and has two platforms situated on the slow lines. Platform 1 is used for trains towards London and a few starting/terminating services to/from London. Platform 2 is used for trains towards Peterborough and Cambridge. Platform 1 also provides access to the sidings, used for removing stone and scrap metal.

It is proposed that a two trains per hour service from Cambridge to Maidstone East via Welwyn Garden City and Swanley will begin operating once the Thameslink Programme is fully complete. This would see the existing Cambridge to London service extended through the Thameslink Core and down to Maidstone.

It was initially proposed that this service would run to Tattenham Corner. However this proposal was cancelled and replaced with the Maidstone East service.

This service was due to commence in December 2019 but has now been postponed to an unknown date.

Duration of the video: 14:25 - 15:56

We’ll be seeing services by LNER, Hull Trains, Grand Central, Great northern, Thameslink, Lumo and hopefully some freight as well in the duration of the video.

I hope you enjoyed the video if you did smash that like button and don’t forget to subscribe for more upcoming content that’ll be featured on the channel and feel free to leave any comments and recommendations of stations you want me to do in the comments below as I’ll try get back to them as soon as possible.

I really enjoyed my time that was spent at Hitchin especially with the amount of variety I managed to catch in the time however it wasn’t the best station to come to as much for the first time especially when you’ve got multiple services turning up at the same time but apart from that it was an alright station to come to though.

My next station will be Potters Bar I haven’t been to that station before as I recall but I’m sure it’ll be a good station that’ll be worth visiting so until then thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.