Lincoln Central railway station

Lincoln Central National Rail
Location
Place Lincoln
Local authority Lincoln
Coordinates 53°13′34″N 0°32′20″W / 53.226°N 0.539°W / 53.226; -0.539Coordinates: 53°13′34″N 0°32′20″W / 53.226°N 0.539°W / 53.226; -0.539
Grid reference SK976708
Operations
Station code LCN
Managed by East Midlands Trains
Number of platforms 5
DfT category C1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11 Decrease 1.462 million
- Interchange  18,983
2011/12 Increase 1.655 million
- Interchange  25,447
2012/13 Decrease 1.634 million
- Interchange  24,309
2013/14 Decrease 1.610 million
- Interchange  25,767
2014/15 Increase 1.650 million
- Interchange  25,994
History
Key dates Opened 17 October 1848 (17 October 1848)
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Lincoln Central from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Lincoln Central railway station serves the city of Lincoln in Lincolnshire, England. The station is owned by Network Rail and managed by East Midlands Trains (EMT) train operating company. EMT provide services along with Northern and Virgin Trains East Coast.

Lincoln Central is now the only station in Lincoln, following the closure of Lincoln St. Marks in 1985.[1] However, it has retained its "Central" suffix, similar to Rotherham Central. The station building was designed in 1848 for the Great Northern Railway by J H Taylor, in a stone "Baronial" style.

The station has the PlusBus scheme where train and bus tickets can be bought together.

In late 2010 East Midlands Trains announced that it intended to develop an improved customer service area and improve the café and toilets.[2]

Platform layout and services

Train services run between Lincoln and

There are also once daily services Monday to Saturday to London St Pancras operated by East Midlands Trains and to London Kings Cross operated by Virgin Trains East Coast.

There are five platforms at the station, numbered 1–5:

Lincoln station is also home to an East Midlands Trains train crew depot; trains are stabled overnight in any or all of the platforms as operationally convenient.

Types of trains

Lincoln often sees Class 150s, class 153s, class 156s, class 158s, class 142s and class 144s. The class 158s and class 156s are used by East Midlands Trains and the class 142s, class 144s and class 150 by Northern. The class 153 is used by both companies at the station. Lincoln sees two a day of Class 222, which is used by East Midlands Trains, and class 43 are use by Virgin Trains East Coast, these are only on the London services in the morning and evening.

Resignalling

The old layout and signalling, seen in 1977
View of the station in August 2007 showing then recently relaid track

Network Rail instituted a major resignalling scheme for Lincoln Central during the years 2007–2008 which saw:

As a direct result, terminating trains no longer need to shunt from one side of the station to the other to take up their return workings, reducing turnaround times for terminating trains and improve train service punctuality and reliability.

As part of the overall scheme, Lincoln Central's platforms have been renumbered from 3–7 to 1–5: (the current platform 1 was previously platform 3, 2 was 4 etc.)

Barriers at Lincoln Central station.
The ornate main entrance at Lincoln station.

All four existing signal boxes - High Street, East Holmes, West Holmes and Pelham Street Junction - were closed and replaced by a new state of the art signalling centre near the West Holmes box. Pelham Street and West Holmes boxes were demolished, but the High Street and East Holmes boxes are listed buildings and are preserved.

Future services

For many years, Lincoln had not been served with a direct rail service to London. However, the awarding of two new rail franchises saw this remedied.

On 14 August 2007, it was announced that National Express East Coast would take over the InterCity East Coast Franchise in December 2007. As part of the commitment, NXEC planned to introduce a two-hourly service between Lincoln Central and London Kings Cross, starting in 2009. This service would have alternated with a two-hourly service to York.[4][5] The InterCity East Coast Franchise was passed to East Coast in November 2009. In late 2009 East Coast along with NetworkRail published details of the ECML proposed new timetable, including the Lincoln-London services. In spring 2010 it was announced that this new service would be cut back. East Coast, citing financial restraints during the credit crunch, announced instead just one direct train in each direction per day, with extra services running only as far as Newark NorthGate station, meaning Lincoln passengers will still have to change trains there.[6] On 22 May 2011 East Coast started direct Lincoln-London Kings Cross services, albeit in a much reduced number than they had originally planned. There is one train a day to London leaving Lincoln at 07:20 Monday-Friday and 09.30 on Saturday, there is no East Coast Service to London on a Sunday. The return service leaves London at 19:06 Monday-Friday, 18.08 on Saturday, and 19.08 on Sunday. As of March 2015 the Kings Cross service is now operated by Virgin Trains East Coast.

In addition to the Virgin Trains East Coast services, East Midlands Trains operate one train per day Monday-Saturday from Lincoln to London St Pancras, and a return journey is made in the evening. Monday-Saturday, the East Midlands Trains service to London St Pancas leaves Lincoln at 07.04, and the return journey leaves London St Pancras at 18.30 Monday-Friday, and on a Saturday the service leaves at 17.29.

In 2006, Humber & City, an open-access operator owned by Renaissance Trains, proposed running services between Cleethorpes and Stratford via Lincoln. Nothing concrete seems to have come of the proposal.

Nottingham County Council, the Department for Transport and Network Rail are in discussion about various improvements to the line towards Nottingham including a doubling of service.[7]

Accidents and incidents

References

Further reading

External links

Media related to Lincoln Central railway station at Wikimedia Commons

Lincoln Lines

Legend
to Doncaster
Pyewipe Junction
Boultham Junction

West Holmes Junction

to Nottingham

Holmes Yard
Lincoln St. Marks
Brayford Wharf Crossing
High Street Crossing
Lincoln Central
GN and GE
Avoiding Line
to Cleethorpes
GN Terrace Crossing
Sincil Junction
to Grantham

Washingboro' Junction
to Peterborough
to Spalding/Boston
Preceding station   National Rail   Following station
East Midlands TrainsTerminus
East Midlands Trains
East Midlands Trains
TerminusEast Midlands Trains
East Midlands Trains
Newark-Grimsby Line
Northern RailTerminus
Virgin Trains East Coast
East Coast Main Line
Terminus
Historical railways
Skellingthorpe
Line and station closed
Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway
Line open, station closed
Line and station closed
Great Northern Railway
Lincoln-Grantham Line
Terminus
TerminusGreat Northern Railway
Line and station closed
Line and station closed
Great Central RailwayTerminus
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, April 19, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.