Royston railway station

The station was opened by the Royston and Hitchin Railway in October 1850 as its initial eastern terminus. The line was subsequently extended as far as the following year and through to Cambridge by the Eastern Counties Railway in 1852. The latter company took out a lease on the Royston company from then until 1866 and ran trains between Cambridge and the Great Northern Railway's main line junction at Hitchin until its lease expired. Thereafter, the GNR took over and began running through trains from Cambridge to Kings Cross from 1 April 1866. Electrification The railway from London King's Cross to Royston was electrified in 1978. Class 312 electric multiple units from King's Cross terminated at Royston; passengers wishing to travel to Cambridge had to change to a connecting diesel multiple unit. From 1988 the whole line from London to Cambridge was electrified, ending the need to change trains at Royston. Full services commenced on 2 May 1988. Network SouthEast commissioned the electrification from Royston to Cambridge as a fill-in scheme to link the wired routes either side; the ex-ECR main line electrification north of had been inaugurated the previous year. ==Infrastructure==

Both up and down lines through Royston station are signalled bi-directionally, meaning that Royston is the only place on the Cambridge Line where a train can overtake one ahead of it. The signalling is controlled by Kings Cross power signal box. in the up direction to 50 mph, and a differential speed of 50/65 mph in the down direction. == Services ==

Services at Royston are operated by Thameslink and Great Northern using and electric multiple units. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: • 1 tph to (stopping) • 2 tph to via and (semi-fast) • 3 tph to (two of these run non-stop and one calls at all stations) During peak hours, the service to London King's Cross and the all stations service to Cambridge are increased to 2 tph; the station is served by an additional half-hourly service between London King's Cross and , via , which runs non-stop between London King's Cross and . On Sundays, the service between Brighton and Cambridge is reduced to hourly. == References ==