Harringay railway station

Harringay railway station is in Harringay in the London Borough of Haringey, north London. It is on the Great Northern route that forms part of the East Coast Main Line, 3 miles 32 chains (5.5 km) down the line from London King's Cross, and is situated between Finsbury Park to the south and Hornsey to the north.[4] It opened on 1 May 1885.[3]

Harringay National Rail
Harringay is located in Greater London
Harringay
Harringay
Location of Harringay in Greater London
LocationHarringay
Local authorityLondon Borough of Haringey
Managed byGreat Northern
OwnerNetwork Rail
Station codeHGY
DfT categoryD
Number of platforms2
Fare zone3
OSIHarringay Green Lanes London Overground[1]
National Rail annual entry and exit
2018–19Decrease 1.207 million[2]
2019–20Decrease 1.121 million[2]
2020–21Decrease 0.287 million[2]
2021–22Increase 0.677 million[2]
2022–23Increase 0.921 million[2]
Key dates
1 May 1885[3]Opened
Other information
External links
Coordinates51°34′37″N 0°06′19″W / 51.577°N 0.1052°W / 51.577; -0.1052
 London transport portal
Down local train in 1958

Harringay is managed and served by Great Northern.[5] It is a short distance from Harringay Green Lanes railway station on the London Overground network.

History edit

A formal agreement to build a station at Harringay was made between the British Land Company and the Great Northern Railway in April 1884.[6] The Land Company needed the station to serve housing it was building to the east of the railway line on the site of Harringay House, so it contributed £3,500 to the cost and agreed to bear the working costs of the station for an initial period. Contracts to build the station (including the footbridge) and a road bridge over the Tottenham & Hampstead line went to S.W. Pattinson of Ruskington for £8,000 and £3,999 respectively in August the same year.[5]

 
Down 'Blue Spot' fish empties passing in 1958

The station was constructed with an up platform as an island serving the up main and up slow, and a single-sided down platform serving the down slow only. A 300-foot-long footbridge (91 m) was constructed to give access to the station. It stretched from a station approach road off Wightman Road to the west side of the cutting, where Quernmore Road would eventually be built some fifteen years later. A booking office was built on the footbridge above the platforms.[6]

The station opened to passenger traffic on 1 May 1885[7] with a staff complement of a station master, two assistant clerks, two ticket collectors, and three porters. Although it had been agreed that the station would be named Harringay Park, the GNR public timetable from May 1885 shows that station was in fact named Harringay from the outset.[7] A goods yard was built to the east of the line, but the exact date it opened for public traffic is not recorded.[6]

In 1900 a second down slow passenger line was added and the down platform was made an island and widened along its entire length.[6]

The 1885 booking office building suffered fire damage in the 1960s and had been almost entirely removed by 1969.[5] It was replaced by a small timber shack, which still serves as a ticket office today.

The station was renamed Harringay West on 18 June 1951, but reverted to Harringay on 27 May 1971.[6][7]

In 1975 the platform layout was altered with the west sides of both acting as single sided platforms.[5] A replacement waiting room/canopy block was provided on each.[5]

Since 1976 under British Rail only the central part of the footbridge, and the girders built to carry the old booking office building, remain from the 1885 station structure.

Under plans approved in 1897, the station was to be served by 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 from Alexandra Palace to Finsbury Park and then into central London. The GN&SR stations on each side would have been the same as the main line stations. 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 & 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).[8]

Services edit

Great Northern route
 
King's Lynn
 
Watlington
 
Downham Market
 
Littleport
 
Ely
 
Waterbeach
 
Cambridge North
 
Cambridge
 
 
Foxton
 
Shepreth
Peterborough
 
 
Meldreth
Huntingdon
 
 
Royston
St Neots
 
 
Ashwell & Morden
St Neots South/Tempsford
 
 
Sandy
 
 
Baldock
Biggleswade
 
 
Arlesey
 
 
Letchworth Garden City
 
 
Hitchin
 
Stevenage
 
 
 
Knebworth
 
 
Watton-at-Stone
Welwyn North
 
 
Hertford North
Welwyn Garden City
 
 
Bayford
Hatfield
 
 
Cuffley
Welham Green
 
 
Brookmans Park
 
 
Crews Hill
Potters Bar
 
 
 
Gordon Hill
 
 
 
Enfield Chase
Hadley Wood
 
 
 
Grange Park
New Barnet
 
 
Winchmore Hill
Oakleigh Park
 
 
Palmers Green
New Southgate
 
 
Bowes Park
 
 
Alexandra Palace
 
Hornsey
 
Harringay
 
  Finsbury Park
 
 
 
 
 
  London King's Cross
 
 
 
 
Drayton Park
  London St Pancras International
 
 
Highbury & Islington    
 
 
Essex Road
 
Old Street  
 
Moorgate  

All services at Harringay are operated by Great Northern using Class 717 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:[9]

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. The station is also served by a small number of peak hour services between Moorgate and Gordon Hill.

Preceding station   National Rail Following station
Great Northern
Stopping Services
Abandoned plans
Preceding station   London Underground Following station
Finsbury Park
towards Strand
  Great Northern & Strand   Hornsey
towards Wood Green

Connections edit

London Buses route W5 serves the station.[10]

Infrastructure edit

Trains calling at Harringay use the low-speed rail tracks in front of the platforms; there are five more tracks passing through and around the vicinity of the station. Two of these are used for high-speed London North Eastern Railway, Hull Trains, Grand Central and other Great Northern services, and the other three are used for freight services. Occasionally, when these lines are busy, the low-speed tracks are used for the faster services.[11]

A rail link between the East Coast Main Line and the Gospel Oak to Barking line branches off from the former at the southern end of the station.

During the week, trains use dual-voltage Class 717 EMUs following the withdrawal of Class 313 EMUs.[12]

In popular culture edit

A supersized ticket stub, featuring the words 'Harringay West' (and Kings Cross), features prominently in the background of a promotional film of The Beatles' Ticket To Ride, filmed on 23 November 1965 at Twickenham Film Studios.

The station is used as a location in the 2009 film London River.

References edit

  1. ^ "Out of Station Interchanges" (XLSX). Transport for London. 16 June 2020. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Estimates of station usage". Rail statistics. Office of Rail Regulation. Please note: Some methodology may vary year on year.
  3. ^ a b John Young's "Great Northern Suburban"
  4. ^ Padgett, David (October 2016) [1988]. Brailsford, Martyn (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 2: Eastern (4th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. map 14B. ISBN 978-0-9549866-8-1.
  5. ^ a b c d e Harringay Train Station, First Capital Connect website Archived 29 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
  6. ^ a b c d e Peter Kay, The Great Northern Main Line in London – Harringay Station, The London Railway Record, Issue 56, July 2008, North London Railway Historical Society, Connor & Butler
  7. ^ a b c Butt 1995, p. 114
  8. ^ Badsey-Ellis, Antony (2005). London's Lost Tube Schemes. Capital Transport. pp. 77 and 138. ISBN 1-85414-293-3.
  9. ^ Table 24 National Rail timetable, May 2022
  10. ^ "Buses from Harringay" (PDF). TfL. 15 June 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 August 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  11. ^ Joe Brown (2006). London Railway Atlas. Ian Allan Publishing.
  12. ^ "Class 313 Withdrawal". 1 October 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  • Butt, R.V.J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
  • Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers.

External links edit