Oakham railway station
Oakham railway station serves the town of Oakham in Rutland, England. The station is situated almost halfway between Leicester – to the west – and Peterborough – eastward on the (as built) Syston and Peterborough Railway, the line is the Birmingham to Peterborough Line. Oakham is the only surviving passenger railway station in Rutland. The line is served by Cross Country trains between Birmingham New Street and or . Until recently, the line from Oakham to Kettering via Corby (which branches off just east of Oakham) was rarely used by passenger trains, being almost exclusively a freight line, but now infrequent  East Midlands Trains services to London St Pancras, as well as occasional diversionary trains which would have used the Midland Main Line serve the station. History. The station was opened by the Midland Railway on 1 May 1848. The building was designed by the company architect, Edward Wood of London, and is Grade II listed. In October 2020, work began to refurbish and repaint the footbridge. This was completed and the footbridge reopened in April 2021. Buildings. The station building, the nearby level crossing signal box and footbridge are each listed buildings. The signal box was the prototype for the  Airfix kit signal box. Since 2007 some of the station buildings have been used as the headquarters of the charitable organisation Change Agents UK. Services. From Oakham there is an hourly service in both directions operated by CrossCountry, with some additional peak-hour trains. Services run westbound to Birmingham New Street via , , Narborough, , and whilst services eastbound run to or via , , , and . Despite managing the station, East Midlands Railway (EMR) only operates a limited number of services to/from it. A few trains operate at either end of the day, mainly for train crew route knowledge retention purposes. An early  morning service runs from to and an evening service operates from via Peterborough to Nottingham. The station retains a ticket office which is staffed seven days a week, a car park and help points for times where there are no staff present. A single daily return service to London St Pancras commenced on 27 April 2009 running via Corby and is notable for being the first regular passenger service to cross the spectacular and historic Welland Viaduct since 1966. The company introduced a further return service from Derby via East Midlands Parkway (for East Midlands Airport) from May 2010. Further  services may be introduced in the future. The initial London service had been due to start on 14 December 2008 but because of a delay in reaching agreement with the Department for Transport and the rolling stock company (ROSCO) for the four additional trains needed for the service EMT started the service around four months later. Former services. Prior to the Beeching Axe, trains used to stop at a number of smaller village destinations in Rutland. These were closed between 1961 and 1966.