Glenrothes with Thornton railway station

Glenrothes with Thornton
Location
Place	Thornton
Local authority	Fife
Coordinates	56°09′44″N 3°08′33″W / 56.1623°N 3.1426°WCoordinates: 56°09′44″N 3°08′33″W / 56.1623°N 3.1426°W
Grid reference	NT291972
Operations
Station code	GLT
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	46,906
2005/06	47,661
2006/07	54,559
2007/08	53,661
2008/09	52,934
2009/10	52,648
2010/11	51,298
2011/12	57,534
2012/13	60,906
2013/14	63,002
2014/15	67,346
History
Key dates	Opened 11 May 1992
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Glenrothes with Thornton from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Glenrothes with Thornton railway station serves the communities of Glenrothes and Thornton in Fife, Scotland. The station is managed by Abellio ScotRail and is on the Fife Circle Line, 31¾ miles (51 km) north of Edinburgh Waverley.

History

The station is situated on the Dunfermline Branch of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, just west of its divergence from the E&NR main line via a triangular junction.^[1] It is a completely new structure, having been built by British Rail with the support of Fife County Council to serve the two communities that it is named after. Glenrothes (as a post-war new town) had never previously had its own station (though Markinch station is nearby) whilst Thornton had lost its station (Thornton Junction) on the main line in October 1969 in the aftermath of the Beeching Axe (services on the line westwards to Cardenden and on the Leven branch had ended at the same time).

The successful inauguration of the Fife Circle Line service in 1989 had seen the Dunfermline branch section reopened to passengers and this provided the catalyst for the construction of the station. It was completed in the spring of 1992 and it was opened to traffic on 11 May that year, at the summer timetable change.^[2]

Though it has the appearance of a standard two platform station on a double track line, it is actually sited east of Thornton West Junction, where the double line from Cardenden splits into two parallel single lines that diverge after passing through the station to join the main line. One of these runs southwards to Thornton South Junction and is used by all trains to and from Edinburgh via the coast, whilst the other curves to the north and is used by trains heading for Markinch & Perth or Dundee. As a consequence of this, both platforms are bi-directional (a similar layout exists at Bare Lane in Lancashire) but the southern one (platform 1) is much busier than the northern one (2) due to the service pattern in use on the Fife Circle.

Services

On Mondays to Saturdays, there are three trains per hour to Edinburgh. The majority of services in either direction depart from Platform 1 as noted. Two trains per hour run via Kirkcaldy (one of which terminates/starts here), whilst the other (slightly longer) service runs via Dunfermline Town. In the evenings there is an hourly service via Dunfermline only and on Sundays an hourly service on each route to Edinburgh. There are also limited services to and from Perth and intermediate stations via Markinch & Ladybank; these services use Platform 2.^[3]

References

1. Railscot - Dunfermline Branch (Edinburgh & Northern Railway) Railscot; Retrieved 2014-01-31
2. A list of New and Reopened Stations in Scotland since 1960 www.scot-rail.co.uk; Retrieved 2014-01-31
3. GB National Rail Timetable 2013-14, Table 242 (Network Rail)

External links

• Train times and station information for Glenrothes with Thornton railway station from National Rail
• Railscot - Glenrothes with Thornton