This page is about general tracks and stations around the county. At the moment the research on this site is limited to Northampton Castle Station but we hope to expand this as time allows.
Click to view Northampton (Castle) Station.
www.smjr.info - This site includes some information about Blisworth, Towcester and Easton Neston. This is a very interesting site with lots of information and an impressive collection of home videos.
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Looking for Train Times? Up-to-date train times and a real-time 'Arrivals Board (click)' for Northampton are available at the National Rail website. Click 'here' for the Journey Planner |
Northampton (Castle) railway station is the railway station that serves Northampton and parts of the south of Northamptonshire. Other parts of South Northants are better served by Kings Sutton, Banbury and Milton Keynes stations.
At one time there were three railway stations in Northampton: Northampton (Bridge Street), Northampton (St. John's Street), and Northampton (Castle). The latter was named after the castle which formerly occupied the site and now survives as the town's only station.
Bridge Street station was the first station in Northampton, which opened in 1845. The first railway line to be built in to Northampton was a branch line off the London and Birmingham Railway from Blisworth to Peterborough. Northampton was served on this line by Bridge Street station.
Castle station (as it is still known to this day) was the second station to be opened, on the site of the This is the site of the old Northampton Castle. It first opened in 1859 but was originally only a minor station serving the branch line to Market Harborough.
The third station was St John's Street station, which was opened in 1872, and was the terminus of the Midland Railway's branch line from Bedford, and was completely separate from the other stations.
With the construction of the Northampton loop off the West Coast Main Line in the late 1870s, Castle station was dramatically expanded and soon became Northampton's main station, serving the main line to London and Birmingham. The enlargement of the station completely demolished the surviving remains of the castle, with the exception of a "postern gate" which is incorporated into a boundary wall.
St John's station was an early victim of closure, closing to passengers and freight in 1939. Bridge Street station survived until 1964, when the Northampton to Peterborough line was closed, leaving only Castle station serving the town.
The current station was the result of a rebuilding in the 1960s, as part of the modernisation of the West Coast Main Line that saw its electrification.
The 2005 film Kinky Boots featured a station named 'Northampton', although the scenes were filmed at nearby Wellingborough on the Midland Main Line.