__NOTOC__ March railway station is on the Ely–Peterborough line in the

east of England The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. This region was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics purposes from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire ...

and serves the town of

March March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of Marc ...

, Cambridgeshire. It is measured from

London Liverpool Street Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It is the t ...

via and is situated between and stations. The station, which was opened in 1847, was once a major junction with a number of lines radiating from the town. The station has been the scene of a number of accidents including a double train crash in 1896. The station has since reduced in importance, with several lines being dismantled or mothballed. The regional route between and still runs through the station and an increasing number of freight trains pass through. The station originally had seven platforms. However, two of these are now filled-in bay platforms and the track has been removed from a further west-facing bay on the southern side of the station. There are now just two operational platforms, although track has been re-laid on two disused platforms on the northern side of the station and it is anticipated that these may be used should proposals to re-open the line to Wisbech come to fruition. The nearby

Whitemoor marshalling yard March is a Fenland market town and civil parish in the Isle of Ely area of Cambridgeshire, England. It was the county town of the Isle of Ely which was a separate administrative county from 1889 to 1965. The administrative centre of Fenland ...

returned to use in 2004 having been disused since the early 1990s. In 2021, a Victorian ledger dating back to April 1885 was found after it fell from the loft of the station when contractors were removing rotten wood work. The ledger is planned to go on display at the station. In March 2022, the station car park was resurfaced and repainted.

Spalding, St Ives and Wisbech branches

March was once a junction for lines to (opened in 1867 by the Great Northern Railway and subsequently vested jointly with the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

in 1879), St Ives (opened in 1848) and via

Wisbech Wisbech ( ) is a market town, inland Port of Wisbech, port and civil parish in the Fenland District, Fenland district in Cambridgeshire, England. In 2011 it had a population of 31,573. The town lies in the far north-east of Cambridgeshire, bord ...

. The Spalding line was closed by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

in November 1982 and was completely lifted a few years later. The St Ives branch was closed completely in March 1967 as a result of the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised British Rail, railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Develop ...

, whilst the Wisbech line (known as the

Bramley Line The Wisbech and March line is a railway line between March and Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, England. A number of proposals are currently being investigated relating to the possible restoration of passenger services along the route. History Th ...

) closed to all traffic in 2000 having lost its regular passenger services (through to ) in September 1968. The trackwork however remains intact and there are proposals to reopen the line as a heritage line run and maintained by enthusiasts.

Services

CrossCountry CrossCountry (legal name XC Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the Cross Country franchise. The CrossCountry franchise was restructured by the Department for Transport (DfT) ...

operates an hourly service eastbound to

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and

Stansted Airport London Stansted Airport is a tertiary international airport serving London, England, United Kingdom. It is located near Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England, northeast of Central London. London Stansted serves over 160 destinations acros ...

as well as westbound services towards

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

, and

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

. On weekdays, Greater Anglia operates one train every two hours in each direction between and . An hourly

East Midlands Railway Abellio East Midlands Limited, trading as East Midlands Railway (EMR), is a train operating company in England, owned by Abellio, and is the current operator of the East Midlands franchise. History In March 2017, the Department for Transport a ...

service between and normally runs through without stopping, though a few morning and evening peak trains do call.GB National Rail Timetable 2015-16, Tables 47 & 49

References

External links

Friends Of March Railway Station
{{Railway stations served by East Midlands Railway Railway stations in Cambridgeshire DfT Category E stations Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1847 Railway stations served by East Midlands Railway Railway stations served by CrossCountry Greater Anglia franchise railway stations 1847 establishments in England March, Cambridgeshire