Melton Mowbray railway station


Melton Mowbray railway station serves the market town of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, England. It is owned by Network Rail and operated by East Midlands Railway even though CrossCountry provide most of the services at the station.
The railway station is on the Syston and Peterborough Railway, although the line is now part of the considerably longer Birmingham to Peterborough Line. CrossCountry operate the majority of services as part of their Birmingham to Stansted Airport route. The station lies between Leicester and Peterborough stations.
The station was formerly known as Melton Mowbray Town to distinguish it from the former Melton Mowbray North on the Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway, which closed to regular traffic in 1953.
The station has a ticket office which is staffed part-time, a car park and help points for times where there are no staff present. It was refurbished in 2011 with new glass in the platform canopies, resurfaced platforms, passenger information screens, improved disabled access to the barrow crossing, a full repaint and a new footbridge to replace the original which was superannuated. The refurbishment of the platforms retained their original size and means that previous plans to extend these by up to by no later than 2012 did not go ahead to the original timescale.

Services

From Melton Mowbray there is an hourly service off-peak in both directions operated by CrossCountry. Westbound, trains run to Birmingham via, and Coleshill. Eastbound, trains run to via, Ely and. Additional trains run at peak times, with some terminating at Cambridge.
Although the next station westbound is, there are no direct services between the two stations.
Despite managing the station, East Midlands Railway only operates a limited number of services to the station. A single daily return service to London St Pancras commenced on 27 April 2009 running via Corby and is notable for being the first regular passenger service to cross the spectacular and historic Welland Viaduct on the Oakham to Kettering line since 1966. The company introduced a further return service from via East Midlands Parkway from May 2010. Further services may be introduced in the future. There are two daily services to/from London with one calling at,,,,, and. Whilst the other train calls at,,,,, and.
In addition, a handful of local services operate at either end of the day. A morning service runs from to and an evening service operates from to Nottingham via Peterborough.

Former services

According to the Official Handbook of Stations the following classes of traffic were being handled at this station in 1956: G, P, F, L, H, C and there was a 7-ton crane.
Just outside Melton Mowbray station the main line is joined by the Old Dalby Test Track. This runs towards Nottingham via Old Dalby, but stops short of Nottingham railway station at the edge of the suburb of West Bridgford. This is electrified with overheads, has its own control centre and dates from when the British Rail Research Division developed it as a test track for the Advanced Passenger Train, having been taken out of use some years before. It has, more recently, been used for testing Virgin Trains' Pendolino units and later for the testing of new stock for London Underground built by Derby Litchurch Lane Works.

Trivia

Railway station lavatories have never been noted for the luxury of their appointments, but the toilet of the former first class waiting room had a hot-water pipe coursing through the seat.

Awards

Melton Mowbray station won "highly commended" award at the National Rail Awards 2014 for Small station of the year.