Chesterton railway station was located on the line between and . It opened in 1850 and closed the same year.

History

In 1846, the

Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on the first nine miles at the Lond ...

(ECR) obtained authorisation to construct the Wisbech, St Ives and Cambridge Junction Railway. The section from St Ives to Chesterton Junction on the King's Lynn to Cambridge line opened on 17 August 1847. The line was originally double-track but was singled by 1854 before being redoubled in the 1870s. The ECR opened a "

flag station In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, s ...

" at Chesterton Junction on 19 January 1850. It remained open until October 1850. It was situated on the north side of Fen Road just before the main line crossed the River Cam. A

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

controlling the junction and

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

over Fen Road stood at the northern end of the bridge until November 1984. A triangle of land between the St Ives branch and the main line was used at least from 1911 by the permanent way department to store materials and comprised a number of sidings. A modern permanent way depot was built on the site after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

which incorporated a long-welded rails plant and a gauge system operated by

Ruston and Hornsby Ruston & Hornsby was an industrial equipment manufacturer in Lincoln, England founded in 1918. The company is best known as a manufacturer of narrow and standard gauge diesel locomotives and also of steam shovels. Other products included cars ...

diesel mechanical locomotives. By 2005, the depot had been abandoned and the site was heavily overgrown.

Present day

By 2008, the sidings at Chesterton Junction were in use by

Lafarge La Farge, LaFarge or Lafarge can refer to: People * Antoinette LaFarge (1966–), American artist and writer * Christopher Grant LaFarge (1862–1938), American architect and partner in the firm Heins & LaFarge * Christopher Grant La Farge ( ...

which operated an aggregates storage facility, a concrete batching and coated roadstone plants. In 2015, planning permission was granted for the redevelopment of part of Chesterton Sidings for the construction of

Cambridge North railway station Cambridge North railway station is a railway station located in the Cambridge suburb of Chesterton, close to Cambridge Science Park. The station is on the Fen Line, which runs from Cambridge to King's Lynn. It connects to the Cambridgeshire ...

, which opened on 21 May 2017. The remainder of the site will become part of a mixed-use development with office, residential and retail space, and involving the relocation of the existing freight facility.

References

Disused railway stations in Cambridgeshire Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1850 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1850 Rail transport in Cambridge 1850 establishments in England {{EastEngland-railstation-stub