Leicester railway station

This article is about the National Rail station. For other uses, see Leicester station (disambiguation).

Leicester
Leicester railway station as seen from London Road (Northern Entrance)
General information
Location	Leicester, City of Leicester England
Coordinates	52°37′55″N1°07′26″W / 52.632°N 1.124°W / 52.632; -1.124
Grid reference	SK593041
Managed by	East Midlands Railway
Platforms	4
Other information
Station code	LEI
Classification	DfT category B
History
Original company	Midland Counties Railway
Pre-grouping	Midland Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
5 May 1840	Opened as Leicester
1 June 1867	Renamed Leicester Campbell Street
12 June 1892	Renamed Leicester London Road
1894	First Rebuild
5 May 1969	Renamed Leicester
1978	Second rebuild
Passengers
2019/20	5.323 million
Interchange	0.487 million

The main entrance to the station is on London Road. The ticket office and travel centre are located in the concourse; the lost property office and lockers were formerly located here also although East Midlands Trains took these facilities away in 2009 citing cost and the recession. This concourse gives access to the main station overbridge to all platforms, and via a corridor to the lifts. There is a footbridge at the northern end of the station giving access to the long-stay car park and Campbell Street.

The station is based on two island platforms which are wide with a long series of buildings. There is a newsagent and several food outlets including a licensed restaurant. There are also toilets and a large waiting room.

Midland Mainline erected a first class lounge at the southern end of the up island platforms during 2000. Passenger information systems were updated at the same time and now use dot matrix display screens. Leicester has automated announcements, which replaced the previous manual public address system in September 2011. In 2006, automatic ticket barriers were installed on all approaches to the station.

The station has an office for the British Transport Police and Cash point in the porte-cochere as well as a taxi rank and short-stay drop-off and pick-up area.

Services

A map of East Midlands Railway's InterCity and Connect services showing the current service pattern each hour

Routes run north–south through Leicester on the Midland Main Line, south to Kettering, Bedford, Luton and London; and north to Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln and Sheffield. Junctions north and south of the station serve the east-west cross country route, going east to Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport; and west to Nuneaton and Birmingham New Street.

Leicester station is owned by Network Rail and operated under a franchise by East Midlands Railway. Most services are provided by East Midlands Railway, with CrossCountry operating on the Birmingham to Stansted Airport corridor. Due to a 15 mph maximum speed to the south of the station, as well as the size and importance of the city, all passenger trains stop at the station. Up until the winter 2008 timetable, the morning southbound The Master Cutler express from Leeds to London St Pancras was an exception although it eventually called here prior to the service ending.

Leicester is a bottleneck station as it has only four platforms. All platforms are well utilised, especially platforms two and three which receive freight as well as passenger trains. A freight loop goes to the east of the station alongside the carriage sidings which run adjacent to platform four.

Leicester is a penalty fare station, a valid ticket or permit to travel must be shown when requested. The station offers the Plusbus scheme which allows bus and train tickets to be bought together at a saving. ^[11]

East Midlands Trains High Speed Train awaits departure to London from platform 3 after arriving from Leeds.

Leicester has had direct services in the past to destinations as varied as Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds, York, Scarborough, Norwich, Coventry and Abersytwyth. However, changes to the rail franchises and the unprofitability of some routes have led to many curtailments over the years.

Monday to Friday off-peak service patterns as of June 2024 in trains per hour (tph) and trains per day (tpd):

East Midlands Railway: ^[12]

• 4 tph to London St Pancras International (2 fast, 2 semi-fast via Kettering)
• 2 tph to Nottingham (1 fast, 1 semi-fast via Beeston)
• 2 tph to Sheffield (1 fast, 1 semi-fast) via Derby and Chesterfield
• 1 tph to Lincoln Central (stopping) via Syston, Nottingham and Newark Castle, of which 1 tp2h is extended to Grimsby Town via Market Rasen, of which 2 tpd are extended to Cleethorpes

CrossCountry: ^[13]

• 2 tph to Birmingham New Street (1 semi-fast, 1 stopping) via Nuneaton
• 1 tph to Stansted Airport via Peterborough and Cambridge

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
South Wigston		CrossCountry Birmingham-Leicester		Terminus
Narborough
Nuneaton		CrossCountry Birmingham-Stansted Airport		Melton Mowbray
London St Pancras International		East Midlands Railway Midland Main Line London to Sheffield		Derby
				Loughborough
Market Harborough		East Midlands Railway Midland Main Line London to Nottingham		Nottingham
				Loughborough
Terminus		East Midlands Railway Ivanhoe Line		Syston
	Historical railways
Terminus		Midland Railway Leicester to Burton upon Trent Line		Kirby Muxloe Line open, station closed

Future

Regeneration of the station

Prospect Leicestershire led plans which aimed to regenerate the city centre area of Leicester, ^[14] the station was to be incorporated into a new business quarter. ^[15] Plans for the station included to rotate the passengers facilities so that they exited into a new open city plaza rather than the current busy ring road. Renewed plans were released in 2008 for the £150 million redevelopment, promising over 2,800 new jobs in the area due to the new shops and offices which would be created. ^[16] However, the 2008–2012 global recession also saw these plans fail to materialise. Network Rail and East Midlands Trains started work on a £3.5 million scheme in 2012. ^[17] Platforms have been resurfaced, toilets and both first and standard class waiting areas refurbished. The majority of work has taken place in the concourse and porte corche area where a new travel centre is being provided.^{[ citation needed ]}

Network Rail adopted a Route Utilisation Strategy for freight in 2007 ^[18] which will create a new cross country freight route from Peterborough (East Coast Main Line) to Nuneaton (West Coast Main Line). One of the next stages (around 2013) will create additional lines through Leicester during a re-signalling scheme. During this period additional platforms may be provided at Leicester. ^[19]

Electrification

Main article: Midland Main Line railway upgrade

As of 2022 the railway through Leicester is not electrified. Plans to carry out full electrification of the Midland Mainline were paused ^[20] on 20 July 2017, after being previously announced, ^[21] commenced, ^[22] suspended ^[23] and resumed. ^[24] From 2024, services will be operated using bi-mode electro-diesel trains running in electro-pantograph mode between London St Pancras and Wigston, just 4 miles (6,5 km) south of Leicester railway station switching to electro-accumulator/diesel-electric mode northwards from there. ^[25]

In the decade starting 2020 various events changed the prospects for the station even though improvements had been on and off the political agenda for over a decade. Various news outlets reported in December 2020 that prospects for electrification to Market Harborough were improving. ^[26] On 23 March 2021, the Transport Select Committee published its sixth report in the Trains fit for the Future enquiry, which called for a rolling programme of electrification. ^{[27] [28]} It stated the Midland Main Line project would be divided into eight sections. ^[29] Modern Railways confirmed that the project would continue north of Market Harborough all the way to Leicester and Sheffield. ^[30]

Another major development was the publishing of the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) on 18 November 2021. This included full Midland Main Line electrification and upgrades. ^[31] F2N is still being upgraded in stages.

Ivanhoe Line

After phase one of the Ivanhoe Line was completed in the mid-1990s, it was originally planned that phase two would extend the line west to Burton upon Trent on the current freight-only line via Coalville and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The possibility was studied in 2008 ^[32] and again in 2016 but in both cases the conclusion was that the cost was not justified by the benefits.

The most recent study, in 2016, costed the work at up to £175 million and claimed that an additional 206,000 houses would need to be built along the route to generate enough passengers to make the line profitable. ^[33]

See also

• Leicester Central railway station
• Leicester Belgrave Road railway station
• Leicester West Bridge railway station

References

1. "Office of Rail & Road".
2. Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 141. ISBN   1-85260-508-1. R508.
3. "Leicester". spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 February 2008. Retrieved 12 March 2008.
4. "Midland Counties' Railway". Railway Times. 2 (85): 626. 17 August 1839.
5. UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth . Retrieved 7 May 2024.
6. Billson, P., (1996) Derby and the Midland Railway Derby: Breedon Books
7. Gough, John (1980). "Leicester (London Road) Station". In Williams, Daniel (ed.). The Adaption of Change: Essays upon the History of 19th Century Leicester and Leicestershire. Leicester: Leicestershire Museums. ISBN   978-0-85022-067-4.
8. "UK stations have facelift". Railway Engineer International. Vol. 3–5. Mechanical Engineering Publications, Limited. 1978. p. 15.
9. "Station upgrade - then and now". Leicester Mercury . 23 May 2012. Retrieved 5 March 2016.^{[ permanent dead link ‍]}
10. "Impact>Station Improvements coming soon" (PDF). East Midlands Trains . September 2010. Retrieved 1 October 2010.^{[ permanent dead link ‍]}
11. "Leicester PLUSBUS" . Retrieved 19 October 2013.
12. "Timetables | EMR". East Midlands Railway. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
13. https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/media/7352/book2-v3-web-version-1.pdf ^{[ bare URL PDF ]}
14. "Home". Prospect Leicestershire. Archived from the original on 2 June 2011.
15. "City Centre Masterplan > New Business Quarter". Prospect Leicestershire. Archived from the original on 12 April 2010.
16. "Plans for £150m station facelift". BBC News. 6 March 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2010.
17. "All change! Sneak preview of Leicester railway station's revamp". This Is Leicestershire. 5 March 2012. Archived from the original on 18 October 2013. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
18. "Route Utilisation Strategy > Freight". Network Rail.
19. "East Midlands". Network Rail. Archived from the original on 17 January 2016. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
20. "Sheffield, Swansea and Windermere electrification cancelled". Railway Gazette. 20 July 2017. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
21. "Investing in rail, investing in jobs and growth" (Press release). Department for Transport. 16 July 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
22. "Midland Main Line closures for bridge works ahead of electrification". Rail Technology Magazine. 11 September 2014.
23. "Today's House of Commons debates – Thursday 25 June 2015: Network Rail". UK Parliament. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
24. Savage, Danny (30 September 2015). "Electrification of train lines to be restarted by Network Rail". BBC News. Sheffield: BBC English Regions.
25. "Electrification to reach Market Harborough". Railway Gazette. 5 March 2019.
26. "Rail Electrification to Market Harborough moves closer". Harborough FM. 8 December 2020.
27. Lancefield, Neil (23 March 2021). "MPs call for rolling programme of rail electrification projects to cut carbon". Evening Standard. London. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
28. "MP's call for immediate start of 30-year rail electrification plan". Rail Technology Magazine. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
29. Trains fit for the future? Sixth report of session 2019-2021 (Report). London: UK Parliament. 23 March 2021.
30. "MML Wires towards Market Harborough". Modern Railways. April 2021: 23. March 2021.
31. "Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands" (PDF) (Press release). London: Department for Transport. 18 November 2021.
32. "A blow to Ivanhoe hopes". Leicester Mercury. 3 December 2008. Archived from the original on 16 June 2009.
33. Ashe, Isaac (2 June 2016). "Reopening of Ivanhoe Line between Leicester and Burton unlikely to get funding says Leicestershire County Council". The Hinckley Times. Retrieved 3 January 2018.

External links

• Train times and station information for Leicester railway station from National Rail
• Leicester Train Station Information
• Leicester Train Station Car Parking

1. https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/media/3150/download?inline