Northampton railway station serves the county town of Northampton in England. It is on the Northampton Loop of the West Coast Main Line. The station is served by West Midlands Trains services southbound to London Euston and northbound to Birmingham New Street and Crewe. A handful of Avanti West Coast services also serve the station, however, these have been greatly reduced due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
The station was known as Northampton Castle until 1966, as it is built on the site of the former castle of the same name. A proposed reinstatement of the Northampton Castle name following redevelopment of the station in 2015 did not take place.
Facilities
The station has toilets, a newsagent, coffee shops, and a car hire office. As part of the re-development in 2015 there were proposals to build a multi-storey car park with direct access to the station. In June 2020 it was suggested that this will be put in place "in the not-too-distant future".
Services
Northampton is served by West Midlands Trains services to London Euston and Birmingham New Street. WMT maintain their fleet of Class 350 EMUs at the Siemens depot just to the north of the station, as well as maintaining a Train Crew Depot at the station.
The typical Monday-Saturday off-peak service consists of:
Southbound
3 trains per hour to .
Northbound
3 trains per hour to Birmingham New Street
The service along the Trent Valley Line to via and no longer calls here (since December 2012); this service now runs on the direct (fast) lines between Milton Keynes Central and Rugby arising from the London Midland decision to run 110 mph regional services on the West Coast Main Line. Passengers wishing to travel from Northampton to Crewe now have to change at Rugby. However, there are still six Crewe services on Mondays to Fridays (Three in the mornings, three in the evenings), three on Saturdays (In the morning only) and an hourly service on Sundays.
Avanti West Coast operate two trains per day to London Euston (southbound only); one in the early morning and one in the late evening. These services originate from Rugby or Wolverhampton. However no northbound Avanti West Coast services are timetabled as serving Northampton. The lack of fast services at Northampton is caused by the town being bypassed by the fast lines of the West Coast Main Line (which follow the original route of the London and Birmingham Railway). Connections to Manchester and other long-distance destinations can be made by changing at Rugby or Birmingham New Street.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Avanti West Coast services only stop at Northampton to drop passengers off, and most services run through fast, either via the Northampton Loop, or a lot more commonly via the fast West Coast Main Line
History
At one time there were three railway stations in Northampton: Northampton (Bridge Street), Northampton (St. John's Street) and Northampton (Castle), only the last of which now survives as the town's only station.
The railway reaches Northampton
Although the promoters of the London and Birmingham Railway had considered routes passing close to Northampton in 1830, the town was skirted by the final choice of alignment via and a loop line to remedy this had to wait for several decades. The decision to omit Northampton was not due to local opposition but rather engineering decisions taken by the railway company's engineer Robert Stephenson. The difference in gradient in the between Northampton and Blisworth, on the floor of the Nene Valley, is likely to have played a key role in the decision. Robert Stephenson is reported to have said that he could easily get trains into the town but not out again. As a result, Northampton lost out as a commercial centre to towns such as Leicester which had better transport links. The town was considered as the southern terminus of the Midland Counties Railway in 1833 but lost out to on account of the shorter distance with Leicester.
Bridge Street station on the Northampton and Peterborough Railway from to was thus the first station in Northampton, opening on 13 May 1845.