Drayton Park railway station
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Drayton Park is a
National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the p ...
station in
Highbury Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor house was situ ...
, in the
London Borough of Islington The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough in Inner London. Whilst the majority of the district is located in north London, the borough also includes a significant area to the south which forms part of central London. Islington has ...
. It is on the
Northern City Line The Northern City Line is a commuter railway line in England, which runs from Moorgate station to Finsbury Park in London with services running beyond. It is part of the Great Northern Route services, and operates as the south-eastern branc ...
between Highbury & Islington and
Finsbury Park Finsbury Park is a public park in the London neighbourhood of Harringay. It is in the area formerly covered by the historic parish of Hornsey, succeeded by the Municipal Borough of Hornsey. It was one of the first of the great London parks ...
stations, down the line from ; it is in Travelcard Zone 2. The station is operated by
Great Northern Great Northern may refer to: Transport * One of a number of railways; see Great Northern Railway (disambiguation). * Great Northern Railway (U.S.), a defunct American transcontinental railroad and major predecessor of the BNSF Railway. * Great ...
. It is just off the Holloway Road near its southern end, close to the Liverpool Road junction. It stands in the shadow of Arsenal football club's
Emirates Stadium The Emirates Stadium (known as Arsenal Stadium for UEFA competitions) is a football stadium in Holloway, London, England. It has been the home stadium of Arsenal Football Club since its completion in 2006. It has a current seated capacity ...
, but is shut prior to weekend matches and after all matches due to safety concerns of hosting fans on the station's narrow
island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...
.


History

Drayton Park was opened by the
Great Northern & City Railway The Northern City Line is a commuter railway line in England, which runs from Moorgate station to Finsbury Park in London with services running beyond. It is part of the Great Northern Route services, and operates as the south-eastern branc ...
(GN&CR) on 14 February 1904. The GN&CR was constructed to provide a route for Great Northern Railway (GNR) trains between the GNR station at Finsbury Park and the
Metropolitan Railway The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex su ...
(MR) and
City & South London Railway The City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first successful deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction. The railway was originally intended for cable-hauled trains, but owing ...
(C&SLR) station at Moorgate in the
City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
. With the exception of Drayton Park station and the former depot which are in a deep cutting, the railway was constructed in deep tube tunnel. The tunnels were constructed with a larger
diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid for ...
than the other deep-tube railways to accommodate GNR main-line trains, but a dispute between the two companies prevented the GN&CR connecting its tunnels to the GNR platforms at Finsbury Park. The GN&CR tunnels instead terminated beneath the main-line station without a running connection to the surface, rolling stock accessing the line via a yard connection at Finsbury Park. In 1913 the GN&CR was taken over by the
Metropolitan Railway The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex su ...
(MR). The MR ran the line under its own name until it became part of the
London Passenger Transport Board The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport in London and its environs from 1933 to 1948. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and brand was Lond ...
(LPTB) in 1933. In preparation for the LPTB's "Northern Heights" plan the line was transferred to the control of the Morden-Edgware Line (now the
Northern line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from North London to South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. The Northern line is unique on the Underground network in having two different routes through central London, two ...
).


Northern heights plan

The Northern Heights plan involved the construction of the GN&CR's unbuilt connection from Drayton Park to the surface platforms at Finsbury Park and the transfer of the
London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...
(LNER) branches from there to
Edgware Edgware () is a suburban town in northern Greater London, mostly in the London Borough of Barnet but with small parts falling in the London Borough of Harrow and in the London Borough of Brent. Edgware is centred north-northwest of Charing Cros ...
,
High Barnet Chipping Barnet or High Barnet is a suburban market town in north London, forming part of the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is a suburban development built around a 12th-century settlement, and is located north-northwest of Charing Cr ...
and
Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...
. By 1939 much of the work for the connection of the lines had been done, including the ramps needed to take the tracks from Drayton Park up to Finsbury Park, and the opening of the connection was scheduled for autumn 1940, but
World War II 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 ...
put a halt to further construction. After the war the plan to incorporate the Alexandra Palace branch into the Underground was cancelled and the branch closed to passengers in the 1950s. No further effort was made to connect the City Line to the main-line platforms (owned after the 1948
nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
by
British Railways 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 ...
) and Northern line tube trains continued to run in tunnel to Finsbury Park.


Truncation of the line and transfer to British Rail

Although the
Victoria line The Victoria line is a London Underground line that runs between in south London and in the north-east, via the West End. It is printed in light blue on the Tube map and is one of the only two lines on the network to run completely undergr ...
does not serve Drayton Park, its construction during the 1960s had a significant impact on the station. The City Line tunnels north of Drayton Park were closed on 3 October 1964 and were reused by the Victoria line, which was connected to them south of Finsbury Park. Drayton Park became the northern terminus of the City line, which later became known as the Northern line Highbury Branch. On 4 October 1975 the line was closed and ceased to be part of the London Underground. The line was transferred to
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 ...
(BR) and the unused ramps from the cancelled Northern Heights plan finally received the tracks to connect the line to the surface platforms at Finsbury Park. On 8 August 1976 Drayton Park reopened as part of the BR network, with main-line-sized trains running to
Old Street Old Street is a street in inner north-east Central London that runs west to east from Goswell Road in Clerkenwell, in the London Borough of Islington, via St Luke's and Old Street Roundabout, to the crossroads where it meets Shoreditch High ...
. On 8 November 1976, the line was opened for main-line trains from Moorgate to Finsbury Park and beyond, 72 years after the GN&CR opened, as had been originally intended. Following the transfer of the line from London Transport to British Rail, the tube train car sheds at Drayton Park became redundant. The track in the sheds and outside in the yard had only been used by slow-moving empty tube trains, so was in very good condition. It was purchased by the
Ffestiniog Railway The Ffestiniog Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Ffestiniog) is a heritage railway based on narrow-gauge, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park. The railway is roughly long an ...
in North Wales. The job of lifting and loading it onto a bogie flat wagon fell to volunteers of the London Area Group of the Ffestiniog Railway Society. This was accomplished over about three weekends in June 1977. Trains on the line have dual power pick-up equipment. In the tunnel section trains use a
third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway t ...
, and above ground they use overhead line equipment via
pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...
s. Trains change between the two methods at Drayton Park and the transition may be noticeable as sparks or momentary power blackouts.


Services

All services at Drayton Park are operated by
Great Northern Great Northern may refer to: Transport * One of a number of railways; see Great Northern Railway (disambiguation). * Great Northern Railway (U.S.), a defunct American transcontinental railroad and major predecessor of the BNSF Railway. * Great ...
using
EMUs Emus may refer to: * Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the g ...
. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 4 tph to * 2 tph to via * 2 tph to During the peak hours, the station is served by an additional half-hourly service between Moorgate and Hertford North and the service between Moorgate and Welwyn Garden City is increased to 4 tph. Great Northern introduced a weekend and late evening service from 13 December 2015, as part of their franchise requirements.


References


External links


London Transport Museum Photographic Archive
** ** ** ** ** * for Drayton Park railway station from
National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the p ...
{{UK railway stations Railway stations in the London Borough of Islington DfT Category E stations Former Great Northern and City Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1904 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1975 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1976 Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway Unopened Northern Heights extension stations