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Alexandra Palace railway station

 
Wikipedia: Alexandra Palace railway station
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace station 
Location Wood Green
Local authority London Borough of Haringey
Managed by First Capital Connect
Station code AAP
Platforms in use 3
Fare zone 3
NR 2004/5 usage 0.610 million[1]
NR 2005/6 usage 0.693 million[1]
NR 2006/7 usage 1.043 million[1]
NR 2007/8 usage 1.267 million[1]

1 May 1859 Station opens as Wood Green 
1 August 1864 Station renamed Wood Green (Alexandra Park)
18 March 1971 Station renamed Wood Green
17 May 1982 Station renamed Alexandra Palace

List of stations Underground · National Rail
External links DeparturesFacilities

Alexandra Palace railway station (Originally named Wood Green and later Wood Green (Alexandra Palace)) is in the London Borough of Haringey in north London, and is in Travelcard Zone 3. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by First Capital Connect. Oyster card readers have recently been fitted at the station, however they have yet to be switched on to allow customers to use Oyster Pay As You Go.

It is the only surviving station of three that have served Alexandra Palace. Alexandra Palace, sited actually at the palace, was on the Highgate - Alexandra Palace line, and Palace Gates (Wood Green) was on the Palace Gates Line.

In Autumn 2008, a new SHERE self-service ticket machine, accepting both cash and credit cards, was installed here (and similarly at other local FCC stations).

Just outside the station to the north is Bounds Green Depot, used for storage and maintenance of the high speed trains used on the East Coast Main Line. A line adjacent to the station platforms is used by shunters moving carriages and engines around in the depot.

Contents

History

Opened by the Great Northern Railway (GNR), it became part of the London and North Eastern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The line then passed on to the Eastern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.

Under plans approved in 1897, the station was to be the northern terminus for the Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR), a tube railway supported by the GNR which would have run underground beneath the GNR's tracks to Finsbury Park and then into central London. The next GN&SR station to the south would have been Hornsey. The GN&SR route and stations north of Finsbury Park were cancelled in 1902 when the GN&SR was taken over by Charles Yerkes' consortium which planned to merge it with the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway to form the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith (now part of the London Underground's Piccadilly line).[2]

When sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by Network South East until the Privatisation of British Rail.

Station layout

The station has old buildings on Buckingham Road, with a modern footbridge connection to the platforms and across the tracks to Bedford Road. On the platforms there are only rudimentary modern buildings but during 2004 a station refreshment kiosk opened at Alexandra Palace.

Platform 1 is on the up slow line to London (served from either the Welwyn or Hertford directions), platform 2 is the up fast line, with few scheduled departures. The down fast is a through road, without a platform face. Platform 3 is used by northbound trains on the ECML slow line and trains on the Hertford Loop Line use platform 4. Note that trains to/from Hertford must use the outer platform lines.

Local Connections

This station is served by the W3 and 184 buses. The former runs between Northumberland Park railway station and Finsbury Park station, the latter being between Barnet Chesterfield Road and Turnpike Lane. This station is a short walk away from Wood Green.

Services

Services from the station run to Moorgate on weekdays until about 10.00pm, and into London Kings Cross after 10.00pm Mondays to Fridays and all day on Saturdays and Sundays. Normally the service uses class 313 EMUs, as these are the only units cleared to Moorgate, although on weekends sometimes class 317 EMUs are used instead. Early mornings and late nights see a couple of four car (class 317 or class 365) trains scheduled to call (to/from Cambridge or Peterborough).

North of the station, the line divides, with half the trains running to Welwyn Garden City and the other half running to Hertford North or Letchworth Garden City. The typical Monday to Friday off-peak service frequency is:

On Saturdays and Sundays (when there is no engineering work) this drops to:

Preceding station   National Rail   Following station
First Capital Connect
Great Northern stopping
First Capital Connect
Hertford Loop Line

Future developments

  • Oyster pay and go will arrive at this station on the confirmed date of 2nd January 2010, this will finally allow customers to make use of the oyster machines at the station but are not currently in use.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Annual passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Alexandra Palace railway station from Office of Rail Regulation statistics
  2. ^ Badsey-Ellis, Antony. London's Lost Tube Schemes. Capital Transport. pp. 77 and 138. ISBN 185414-293-3. 
  3. ^ Oyster Card and National Rail, National Rail Enquiries Website

External links

Coordinates: 51°35′54″N 0°07′11″W / 51.5983°N 0.1197°W / 51.5983; -0.1197


 


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