Trains at: Cambridge, WAML, 03/11/18

A very enjoyable evening spent at Cambridge station on the West Anglia Mainline where we see plenty of services from Greater Anglia, Great Northern, Thameslink and Cross Country. Last year the station handled 11.4 million passengers Cambridge station was built in 1845 to commemorate the opening of the line from Cambridge to Norwich, along with several other lines. But with the other lines coming into the area they actually all wanted to be served by different stations which would've been completely unfeasible plus it was met with fierce protest from the local university which eventually meant that a single station was agreed upon. The first line to arrive was the St Ives to Huntingdon line which arrived in 1847, later in the same year the line to Peterborough was opened going through Ely and March. This also meant that local coal traffic into East Anglia was able to run via that route. The next year the East Counties Railway opened a line between St Ives and March which saw a small flow in passenger traffic but was mostly used for diverted coal trains. In 1851 a branch line was opened from Cambridge to Newmarket and was eventually extended to meet the line at Bury St Edmunds which was run by the Eastern Union Railway which then meant that trains had a direct line from Cambridge to Ipswich. At the time there wasn't a direct link from the East Coast Mainline to the line serving Cambridge. The Royston and Hitchin Railway had been putting through permissions through parliament to extend there line but they couldn't get permission as the Eatsern Counties Railway were apposed to the idea for around 5 years before finally being overturned by the government so it meant that for a period of 14 years the line south of camridge was leased to the Eatsern Counties Railway. During the remainder of the 1800's several other lines were being opened and extended which meant more trains could serve the area and also allowed for greater access of freight from the north to the South of the country, especially coal traffic. When the LNER took control of the station from 1923 - 1947 they completely replaced the 5 signal boxes controlling the local area and built 2 brand new electrically controlled boxes, these would be worked on by the British Power Railway Signalling Company. When British Railways took control of the network loads of changes were made including a lot of lines coming under the Axe of a Dr Beeching, but it wasn't all bad news as when BR came into operation they immediately targeted the Anglia region as one of the first to be rid of steam and as such saw a sharp increase in diesel traffic for both freight and passenger use. When the line from Bishops Stortford to Cambridge was electrified it completely irradicated the use for diesel trains along that section of line. Platforms were added and extended during the station's lifetime to cope with the growing number of passengers and the amount of trains coming in and out of the station. Ticket Barrie were installed and more modern signalling was brought in by Railtrack and eventually Network Rail. Terminating platforms were built to ease congestion getting into the station and also allowed for a greater throughput of passengers as they wouldn't be crowding to much on platforms. My next station is Orpington on the Southeastern Mainline. You can now find me on Facebook through the group Tornado922, there you will find regular updates, videos and photos from all of my goings on throughout 2018. You can also find me on Instagram through the name tornado922.