Lincoln Central railway station

Lincoln Central
Location
Place	Lincoln
Local authority	Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Coordinates	53°13′34″N 0°32′20″W / 53.226, -0.539Coordinates: 53°13′34″N 0°32′20″W / 53.226, -0.539
Operations
Station code	LCN
Managed by	East Midlands Trains
Platforms in use	5
Live departures and station information from National Rail
Annual Passenger Usage
2002/03 *	1.215 million
2004/05 *	1.278 million
2005/06 *	1.340 million
History
Key dates	Opened August 4th 1846
National Rail - UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Annual passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Lincoln Central from Office of Rail Regulation statistics.
UK Railways Portal

Lincoln Central railway station serves the city of Lincoln in Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom. The station is operated by East Midlands Trains, who provide services along with Northern Rail. Lincoln Central is now the only station in Lincoln, after the closure of Lincoln St. Marks in 1985. The station building was designed in 1848 for the Great Northern Railway by J H Taylor. The station has the PlusBus scheme where train and bus tickets can be bought together at a saving.

Platform layout

There are five platforms at the station, numbered 3 to 7:

• Platforms 1 and 2 no longer exist; these were filled in a number of years ago to allow the station's car park to be expanded.
• Platforms 3 and 4 are bay platforms used for stabling units and for services to the east, usually to Peterborough, and occasionally to Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
• Platform 5, nearest the station entrance, serves all terminating arrivals and through services from the west and is also occasionally used for eastbound services originating from Lincoln.
• Platforms 6 and 7 serve terminating arrivals from the east and all westbound departures (to Leicester via Nottingham and Newark North Gate via the "Midland" line and to Sheffield and Doncaster leaving via the "Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Line").
• Although many passengers believe that platform 6 is always used by trains towards Newark and Nottingham, and platform 7 is always used by trains towards Gainsborough, Sheffield and Doncaster, this is not actually true. Under normal circumstances the practice is to use platform 6 for all westbound departures with platform 7 only being used as necessary.
• Platform 6 is also used when carriages need to be attached to or detached from westbound trains as it is straight; the curvature of platform 7 can cause problems with modern autocouplers.
• Platform 7 is mostly used for westbound trains which wait at Lincoln for some time, hence its regular use by many Northern Rail services but also sees use for through trains when platform 6 is being used for attaching or detaching carriages.
• Platform 8 is still present but the track has been lifted and the platform itself is no longer used for any railway purpose.

Resignalling

View of the station in August showing then recently relaid track

Network Rail plan a major resignalling scheme for Lincoln Central during the years 2007-2009 which will see:

• the replacement of the semaphore signals with colour light signals,
• the concentration of all signalling control into one signal box rather than the current four,
• track relaying, and
• new points and crossovers which will allow all three through platforms at Lincoln to be used in both directions and will allow trains from the east to enter the two bay platforms (3 and 4) directly^[1].

As a direct result, terminating trains will no longer need to shunt from one side of the station to the other to take up their return workings, which will reduce turnaround times for terminating trains and improve train service punctuality and reliability. As part of the overall scheme, Lincoln Central's platforms will be renumbered from 3-7 to 1-5: the current platform 3 will be renumbered as platform 1, and similarly across the station until platform 7 is reached, which will be renumbered as platform 5. All four signal boxes - High Street, East Holmes, West Holmes and Pelham Street Junction - will eventually be closed. It is likely all will eventually be demolished, except High Street which is a listed building. All four signal boxes will be replaced by a new state of the art signalling centre near the current West Holmes box.

Future services

This article or section contains information about planned or expected public transportation in the United Kingdom. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as more information becomes available.

For many years, Lincoln has not been served with a direct rail service to London. However, the awarding of two new rail franchises will see this remedied. New franchise operator East Midlands Trains has proposed the introduction of a daily service between Lincoln Central and London St Pancras via Nottingham.^[2] On 14th August 2007, it was announced that National Express East Coast would take over the InterCity East Coast Franchise in December 2007. As part of the commitment, NXEC plan to introduce a two-hourly service between Lincoln Central and London Kings Cross, starting in 2010. This service will alternate with a two-hourly service to York.^[3][4]

In addition, Humber & City, an open-access operator owned by Renaissance Trains, has proposed running services between Cleethorpes and Stratford via Lincoln.

References

1. ^ Massive investment for Lincoln's railway this summer. Network Rail (13 June 2007).
2. ^ Stagecoach Group welcomes East Midlands rail franchise win. Stagecoach Group (22nd June 2007).
3. ^ From Lincoln to London in just two hours with new rail link. Lincolnshire Echo (15th August 2007).
4. ^ National Express awarded contract for growth on InterCity East Coast. Department for Transport (14th August 2007).

External links