The Oakham–Kettering line is a

railway line Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term ''railroad'' and the international term ''railway'' (used by the International Union of Railways and English-speaking countries outside the United Sta ...

in the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Li ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Currently it has one passenger station in operation, at

Corby Corby is a town in North Northamptonshire, England, located north-east of Northampton. From 1974 to 2021, the town served as the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Corby. At the 2011 Census, the built-up area had a population of 5 ...

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 the county town of Rutland in the East Midlands of England, east of Leicester, south-east of Nottingham and west of Peterborough. It had a population of 10,922 in the 2011 census, estimated at 11,191 in 2019. Oakham is to the west o ...

, one of which starts at

Kettering Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) of Ket ...

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. 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 headquarters. It am ...

. 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 is a major railway line in England from London to Nottingham and Sheffield in the Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras station via Leicester, Derby/Nottingham and Chesterfield in the East Midlands. ...

between London St Pancras, , and carrying named expresses such as ''

The Waverley The ''Waverley'', originally called the ''Thames–Forth Express'', is the name of an express passenger train which operated on the Midland Main Line from St Pancras railway station to and which ceased in 1968. The original name was given to ...

''. 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 of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

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 the United Kingdom, linking Birmingham, and , via , and Since the Beeching Axe railway closures in the 1960s, it is the only direct railway link between the West Midlan ...

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 ...

. 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

The section of line between Bedford, Kettering and Corby is being electrified during 2019.

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