The Oakham–Kettering line is a

railway line Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

in the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire (except for North Lincolnshire and North East ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. Currently it has one passenger station in operation, at

Corby Corby is a town and civil parish in the North Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England, northeast of Northampton. In 2021 it had a population of 68,164. From 1974 to 2021, it was the administrative headquarters of the Borough of ...

Current service

Corby railway station Corby railway station, owned by Network Rail and managed by East Midlands Railway, is in Corby, Northamptonshire, England. The current station, opened on 23 February 2009, replaces an earlier one dating from 1879, first closed on 18 April 1966 ...

is served by two trains per hour to and from London via , , and . The minimum journey time between Corby and London is 1 hour and 14 minutes. Two trains per day continue north of Corby to via

Oakham Oakham is a market town and civil parish in Rutland (of which it is the county town) in the East Midlands of England. The town is located east of Leicester, southeast of Nottingham and northwest of Peterborough. It had a population of 12,14 ...

, one of which starts at

Kettering Kettering is a market town, market and industrial town, industrial town in the North Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England, west of Cambridge, England, Cambridge, southwest of Peterborough, southeast of Leicester and north- ...

History

The line was built in the 19th century as part of the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 in rail transport, 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had ...

. Its most notable engineering features are the

Welland Viaduct Welland Viaduct, Harringworth Viaduct or Seaton Viaduct, crosses the valley of the River Welland between Harringworth in Northamptonshire and Seaton in Rutland, England. The viaduct is long and has 82 arches, each with a span. It is the l ...

(also called Harringworth Viaduct) and Corby Tunnel. The line was a major part of the

Midland Main Line The Midland Main Line (MML), sometimes also spelt Midland Mainline, is a major Rail transport in Great Britain, railway line from London to Sheffield in Yorkshire via the East Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras railway ...

between London St Pancras, , and carrying named expresses such as '' The Waverley''. The line was opened for goods traffic on 1 December 1879 and for passenger traffic on 1 March 1880.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

ways withdrew passenger services in 1967.''Passengers No More'' by G. Daniels and L. Dench second edition page 65 Thereafter BR used the line mainly for freight traffic, and as an important diversionary route for

passenger trains during disruption or engineering work. In 1977 the Parliamentary Select Committee on Nationalised Industries recommended considering electrification of more of Britain's rail network. By 1979 BR presented a range of options to do so by 2000, some of which included the Oakham to Kettering and

Birmingham–Peterborough line The Birmingham–Peterborough line is a cross-country railway line in England, linking Birmingham, and , via , and Since the Beeching Axe railway closures in the 1960s, it is the only direct railway link between the West Midlands and the ...

s. Under the 1979–90 Conservative governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government, the proposal was not implemented.

was reopened in 1987 with a shuttle service between there and Kettering, but the service had a poor timetable and unreliable trains which led to the service being withdrawn in 1990. A Corby-Kettering bus shuttle connecting with trains was introduced in August 1996. A new Corby station opened on 23 February 2009, initially served by one return train per day to London St Pancras, operated by

East Midlands Trains East Midlands Trains (EMT) was a British train operating company owned by the transport group Stagecoach, which operated the East Midlands franchise between November 2007 and August 2019. Following the Department for Transport (DfT) award of ...

. A fuller service, with 13 daily return trains to London, started on 27 April 2009. Two trains per day in each direction extend north of Corby to and , one of which starts at

. These services do not run on weekends.

Electrification

In 2019, work started on the section of line between

and

, as well as the line to

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

, for electrification. Work has since been completed and Class 360 trains now run services terminating at Corby from St. Pancras International.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Oakham-Kettering line Transport in Rutland Rail transport in Northamptonshire Railway lines in the East Midlands Standard gauge railways in England Oakham