Hatfield railway station


Hatfield railway station serves the town of Hatfield in Hertfordshire, England. The station is managed by Great Northern. It is measured from on the East Coast Main Line.

History

Hatfield was formerly the junction of two branch lines, both of which have now closed. The Hatfield and St Albans Railway closed to passenger traffic in 1951 as part of postwar economies brought in by the British Transport Commission. The route of the line is now a public footpath, the Alban Way. Another railway ran to Dunstable North, and closed in 1965 under the Beeching Axe. The closure of the Dunstable North line has left Dunstable as one of the largest towns in England without a direct rail connection.

Station masters

Hatfield has waiting rooms on all platforms, with extra shelters provided at various points along the platforms, as well as a canopy on Platform 1. There is a small café-shop style business, "Chuggs" on Platform 1, and three new retail units which opened in the new station building. There are three platform faces in total - platform 1 is a side platform facing the Up Slow line & used by London-bound trains, whilst platforms 2 & 3 face the Down Fast and Down Slow lines respectively; the latter is used by the majority of northbound trains.
The station has a "Fast-Ticket" machine, as well as a standard touchscreen machine on either side of the building. Hatfield also has many vending machines throughout the station and a photo booth inside the booking hall, which also contains male/female toilets and a separate disabled toilet. Ticket barriers are in operation.

Services

During the daytime there is generally a half-hourly fast service to London King's Cross southbound and also every 15 minutes a stopping service to Moorgate Monday to Fridays and half-hourly on weekends.
Northbound there is a half-hourly service to Cambridge, with alternate trains extended to Cambridge North. There is also a stopping service to Welwyn Garden City on the same pattern as that to Moorgate.
The station is also served by various buses operated by Arriva Shires & Essex, Centrebus and Uno.

Redevelopment

Hatfield Station was recently redeveloped to include a new bus interchange and taxi rank, multi-storey car park, refurbished ticket office, three new retail units and step-free access to all platforms.
Work on the project, which is to cost £9 million, began in 2013 and was completed by the end of 2015.
The new multi-storey car park opened on 17 November 2014

Routes

Accidents

Three fatal rail crashes have occurred near Hatfield: