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Royston
The two platforms
General information
Location	Royston, District of North Hertfordshire England
Grid reference	TL353412
Managed by	Great Northern
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	RYS
Classification	DfT category D
History
Opened	1850
Passengers
2019/20	1.436 million
Interchange	20,466
2020/21	0.290 million
Interchange	2,650
2021/22	0.835 million
Interchange	9,630
2022/23	1.081 million
Interchange	14,420
2023/24	1.272 million
Interchange	42,985
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Royston railway station serves the town of Royston in Hertfordshire, England. The station is 44 miles 72 chains (72.3 km) from London Kings Cross on the Cambridge Line. Trains serving the station are operated by Thameslink and Great Northern.

The station is an important stop on the commuter line between King's Cross and Cambridge as the majority of semi-fast services between London and Cambridge stop at Royston - one exception being the 'Cambridge Cruiser' fast services from London. It is also the last station before Cambridge with platforms capable of handling 12-car trains. Therefore, it is used by many commuters, not only from Royston but also from smaller stations north of Royston who transfer from stopping services to faster trains at the station.

The station was opened by the Royston and Hitchin Railway in October 1850 as its initial eastern terminus. The line was subsequently extended as far as Shepreth the following year and through to Cambridge by the Eastern Counties Railway in 1852. The latter company took out a lease on the Royston company from then until 1866 and ran trains between Cambridge and the Great Northern Railway's main line junction at Hitchin until its lease expired. Thereafter the GNR took over and began running through trains from Cambridge to Kings Cross from 1 April 1866.

Royston station is still labeled as Royston (Herts) on tickets and information displays, even though the station serving the town with the same name in South Yorkshire closed in 1968.

Electrification

The railway from London King's Cross to Royston was electrified in 1978. Class 312 electric trains from King's Cross terminated at Royston; passengers wishing to travel to Cambridge had to change to a connecting diesel multiple unit train. From 1988 the whole line from London to Cambridge was electrified, ending the need to change trains at Royston. Full services commenced on 2 May 1988. Network SouthEast commissioned the electrification from Royston to Cambridge as a 'fill-in' scheme to link the wired routes either side (the ex-ECR main line electrification north of Bishops Stortford had been inaugurated the previous year).

Infrastructure

Both Up and Down lines through Royston station are signalled bi-directionally, meaning that Royston is the only place on the Cambridge Line where a train can overtake one ahead of it. The Signalling is controlled by Kings Cross Power Signal Box.

The station is located on a long sweeping curve, reducing the line speed in the Up direction to 50 mph, and a differential speed of 50/65 mph in the Down direction.

Services

Services at Royston are operated by Thameslink and Great Northern using Class 387 and 700 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:

• 1 tph to London King's Cross (stopping)
• 2 tph to Brighton via London Bridge and Gatwick Airport (semi-fast)
• 3 tph to Cambridge (2 of these run non-stop and 1 calls at all stations)

During the peak hours, the service to London King's Cross and the all stations service to Cambridge are increased to 2 tph, and the station is served by an additional half-hourly service between London King's Cross and King's Lynn via Ely which runs non-stop between London King's Cross and Letchworth Garden City.

On Sundays, the service between Brighton and Cambridge is reduced to hourly.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Ashwell & Morden		ThameslinkHitchin to Cambridge Line		Cambridge
Ashwell & Morden or Baldock		Great Northern Hitchin to Cambridge Line		Meldreth
Letchworth Garden City		Great NorthernFen LinePeak Hours Only		Cambridge

References

1. Padgett, David (October 2016) . Brailsford, Martyn (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 2: Eastern (4th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. map 24C. ISBN 978-0-9549866-8-1.
2. "Cambridge - Its Railways and Station"Disused Stations Site Record; Retrieved 23 August 2016
3. ^ "NR London North Eastern Sectional Appendix / LN125 Seq 001-005" (PDF). Network Rail. June 2015. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
4. Network Rail Line Speed article Retrieved 2015-06-28
5. Table 25, 52 National Rail timetable, May 2023

External links

• Train times and station information for Royston railway station from National Rail

52°03′11″N 0°01′37″W / 52.053°N 0.027°W / 52.053; -0.027

• Railway stations in Hertfordshire
• DfT Category D stations
• Former Great Northern Railway stations
• Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway
• Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1850
• Royston, Hertfordshire