page_title: Huntingdon railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Huntingdon railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: Pre Grouping railway junction around Bedford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, St Ives, Sandy, Shepreth &amp; Wellingborough
context_page_description: Huntingdon railway station serves the town of Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, England. It is on the East Coast Main Line, 58 miles 70 chains from London King's Cross, and has three platforms: one bay and two through platforms. Huntingdon is managed and served by Great Northern. During engineering works or periods of disruption London North Eastern Railway services sometimes call at Huntingdon, but there is no regular London North Eastern Railway service from the station.
context_section_description: When originally opened by the Great Northern Railway on 7 August 1850, the station was just named Huntingdon, however, from 1 July 1923 until 15 June 1965 the station was known as Huntingdon North to distinguish it from the nearby Huntingdon East on the line between Cambridge and Kettering via St Ives.  The latter closed to passenger traffic in June 1959, along with the line.
  From the mid 1970s to the late 1980s the station was slowly rebuilt, going from a station with one platform connected to the ticket office and an island platform to an electrified station with the main platform, a bay platform as well as a separate platform for the slow line. The reason for this was that pre-1976, only three tracks went through the station causing a major bottleneck in the area.
  From 1977, when King's Cross suburban electric services were introduced, until the main line to Peterborough was electrified in 1988, local services were provided by a diesel multiple-unit shuttle from Hitchin that started and terminated here – passengers for stations further south had to change at Hitchin onto the King's Cross–Royston outer suburban electric service. Certain East Coast main line services between London, Doncaster and York or Hull stopped here to provide onward connections for through passengers and offer direct trains to the capital. There were also a number of King's Cross–Peterborough through trains for commuters at peak times. Once electrification began, stops by longer-distance trains were gradually removed and had ceased by the time British Rail was privatised in 1995, as can be seen from the East Coast Main Line timetable of that era.
  The station sustained an arson attack in 2005. Much of the station roof had to be rebuilt, as did the booking hall.
caption: A 1914 Railway Clearing House map showing (upper centre) railways in the vicinity of Huntingdon (shown here as G.N. STA.)
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