Roade was a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

serving the

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

village of the same name on the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

. Roade Station opened in 1838 as the principal station for

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

(which the main line had bypassed), but its importance diminished upon the opening of the

Northampton and Peterborough Railway The Northampton and Peterborough Railway was an early railway promoted by the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) to run from a junction at Blisworth on the L&BR main line to Northampton and Peterborough, in England. The construction of the lin ...

in 1845. The construction of the Northampton Loop Line in 1875 made Roade a junction station, and it survived until 1964.

History

The station for Northampton

The

London and Birmingham Railway The London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR). The railway line which the company opened in 1838, betw ...

(L&B) opened Roade station in 1838 as part of its line from London to Birmingham. Hostility to the railway in

and steep

gradients In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the grad ...

in the suggested route prevented the line from running through the town and so Roade was announced as its nearest stationeven though the

county town In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...

is some away. It lost this status in 1845 when the L&B opened a

branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk (botany), trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' ...

linking Northampton and Peterborough allowing services to run directly into Northampton from

Blisworth Blisworth is a village and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire, England. The West Coast Main Line, from London Euston to Manchester and Scotland, runs alongside the village partly hidden and partly on an embankment. The Grand Union Canal ...

. This had an immediate effect on Roade: the refreshment room was removed by 1865, while the daily stopping services fell to seven.

Northampton Loop Line

In 1875, the

London and North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...

(LNWR) (which had acquired the L&B in 1846) increased the main line to four tracks as far as Roade and then onwards from . The direct route to Rugby was increased to two tracks and a two-track direct main line link to Rugby via Northampton (known as the Northampton Loop Line) was added. This deviates from the L&B line at Roade, running through Northampton to rejoin the main line at

Rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

, where four track running resumed. Roade, by then a junction for fast trains north as well as services through Northampton, saw its facilities considerably enlarged to include three platforms.'Roade',

Victoria History of the Counties of England The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of En ...

, A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 5: The Hundred of Cleley (2002), pp. 345-374. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22790 Date accessed: 15 June 2009. In 1881, the station was resited 200m to the south of a bridge carrying the Northampton to London road over the line.

East and West Junction Railway

In 1890-91 a new east–west single-track line – the

East and West Junction Railway East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

(E&WJR) – was built across Roade and, although there was initially no connection between the two lines, the LNWR agreed to the construction of a single line connecting spur ( long) which made a junction with its main line on the down side just to the south of Roade station. The

spur A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to back ...

saw its first use on 13 April 1891 with a goods working. The spur soon became an important means of exchanging

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

and

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

with the LNWR which was charging as much as £50 per half year for its use. Although the LNWR had refused a request to allow passenger services on the spur, the line did run into a

bay platform In the United Kingdom and in Australia, a bay platform is a dead-end railway platform at a railway station that has through lines. It is normal for bay platforms to be shorter than their associated through platforms. Overview Bay and islan ...

at Roade. Sidings were installed at Roade in 1909 to handle the E&WJR's

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

traffic. The spur became less important with the formation of the

Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-wes ...

and the strengthening of the connection with the main line at Blisworth. The spur was eventually closed in May 1917, the southern part being retained as a siding.

Closure

Roade station was reprieved from closure in 1959 due to the efforts of local MP Sir Frank Markham, remaining open until 1964.Castlethorpe Station Closure - 6 September 1964.
/ref> The

and Northampton Loop Line were rebuilt as a 25 kV. overhead electrified route. The footbridge and platforms were demolished but the ticket office building survived in various uses for several years until it was also demolished in 2013.

Routes

Present day

The West Coast Main Line runs through the site of the station, no traces remain.

External links

Roade station on 1954 one-inch (1:63,360) OS map
No chord connecting the lines is shown but... *
Buckinghamshire IV.NW (includes: Ashton; Grafton Regis; Hartwell; Roade; Stoke Bruerne
(1900, six-inch or 1:10,560) shows the chord clearly.

References

{{Closed_stations Northamptonshire Disused railway stations in Northamptonshire Former London and Birmingham Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1838 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1964 Beeching closures in England West Northamptonshire District