Kentish Town station

Kentish Town station is a London Underground and National Rail station in the Kentish Town area of the London Borough of Camden. It is located at the junction of Kentish Town Road (A400) and Leighton Road.

The station is served by the Northern Line on the High Barnet branch, and by First Capital Connect Thameslink trains on National Rail's Midland Main Line. It is between Camden Town and Tufnell Park stations on the Northern Line and between West Hampstead and St. Pancras International on the National Rail network. It is also the only station on the High Barnet branch of the Northern line of the London Underground which has an interchange with a National rail line. It is in Travelcard Zone 2.

There are four main line platforms on the surface and two deep tube platforms in tunnels below ground. East Midlands Trains InterCity services from Leeds, Sheffield and Leicester run through at high speed, but do not stop.

History

The National Rail station was opened by the Midland Railway (MR) in 1868 when it built its extension to its new London terminal at St. Pancras. Before that, MR trains had used the lines of the London and North Western Railway to Euston or the Great Northern Railway to King's Cross. North of the station was the second largest motive power depot and repair facility on the Midland. In 1861, a collision occurred at a sidings near the station site, resulting in 16 fatalities and 317 injured.

For a short period from 1878 and 1880, the MR operated the Super Outer Circle service through the station from St. Pancras to Earl's Court Underground station via tracks through Cricklewood, South Acton and Hammersmith.cite web |url=http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/circle.html#history |title=Circle Line, History |work=Clive's Underground Line Guides |accessdate=2008-02-13 ] The mainline station was rebuilt in 1983 and nothing of the original station building remains.

The separate London Underground station was opened on 22 June 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR, a precursor of the Northern line).cite book |last=Rose |first=Douglas |title=The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History |year=1999 |publisher=Douglas Rose/Capital Transport |isbn=1-85414-219-4 ] The station was designed by Leslie Green and features the standard ox-blood red glazed terracotta façade with semi-circular windows at first floor level common to the majority of the original stations on the CCE&HR and its sister railways, the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway and Great Northern Piccadilly & Brompton Railway opened the previous year. At opening, the next station south on the CCE&HR was South Kentish Town but this station was closed in 1924 due to low passenger numbers.cite book |last=Connor |first=J.E. |title=London's Disused Underground Stations |year=1999 |chapter=South Kentish Town |pages=p. 22 |publisher=Capital Transport |isbn=185414-250-X]

Future

To enable the Thameslink Programme to go ahead some trains from Sevenoaks and even Maidstone East will terminate at Kentish Town from March 2009 until December 2011.Ian Allan Publishing. "Modern Railways". March 2008 page 34".] .

In popular culture

The 1980 "Rumpole of the Bailey" special, "Rumpole's Return", made extensive use of the Underground station for a scene in which someone is stabbed to death on the northbound platform.

References

External links

*ltmcollection|07/9886707.jpg|London Transport Museum Photographic Archive Station building in 1925.

Gallery

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Former Services