The lost railway Cambridgeshire station that could have reopened but plans were rejected
Whenever you travel by train, the likelihood is that you will pass by several sites where once your train would have been able to stop. Many smaller stations were closed in the 1960s as part of the Beeching Cuts, leaving villages without the stations they had previously used.
In Cambridgeshire, one of those lost stations was in Harston. The station was in use for more than 100 years from April 1852 to June 1963, according to the Harston History website.
The station was served by the Cambridge Line, which is now a commuter line connecting the East Coast Main Line to the West Anglia Main Line. It consisted of two platforms, a station house, a goods shed, sidings, a signal box, and a small waiting room for passengers.
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There was also a cattle ramp which allowed livestock to be led up onto the trains. This is reportedly still visible, according to Harston History Apparently local farmers weren't keen on the railway or the station, because they were concerned it would frighten their livestock.
Other villagers, however, enjoyed the spectacle so much that they would walk to the station to see trains pulling in, particularly on Sunday evenings. 'Sightseers' were not allowed in the station, according to Harston History, because they got in the way of the porters and made it difficult for them to be aware of which people were passengers and which were not.
A feasibility study looking at reopening the Harston station was carried out in 1996 but rejected by South Cambridgeshire District Council. Former South Cambridgeshire MP Anthony Browne called for the reopening of the station in 2021, saying: "Installing a small new station on an existing line should be straightforward and cause minimal disruption.
"From an economic, social and environmental standpoint, the case for these stations gets stronger by the day." However, these calls did not progress.