Huntly railway station

Huntly railway station is a railway station serving the town of Huntly in Scotland. The station is managed by Abellio ScotRail and is on the Aberdeen to Inverness Line.

Huntly Scottish Gaelic: Hunndaidh[1]
Huntly station c.1971. The station has since been redeveloped.
Location	Huntly, Aberdeenshire Scotland
Coordinates	57.4445°N 2.7758°W
Grid reference	NJ535396
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	HNT
History
Original company	Great North of Scotland Railway
Pre-grouping	Great North of Scotland Railway
Post-grouping	LNER
Key dates
20 September 1854	Opened[2]
Passengers
2015/16	0.106 million
2016/17	98,904
2017/18	92,956
2018/19	77,782
2019/20	72,090
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

The original station building, which had an overall roof[3] and was described in 1898 as, "a decent structure of the old fashioned 'roofed-over' type",[4] was demolished and replaced in 1999 with a smaller ticket office (staffed part-time) and waiting room.

A small goods yard is located adjacent to the station and operated by EWS/DB Schenker. Traffic to the yard appears infrequent. A goods shed remains standing within the yard.

History

The station was opened by the Great North of Scotland Railway on 20 September 1854,[2] with the commissioning of the line from the original Waterloo terminus in Aberdeen. A goods service had started a week earlier. The initial passenger service took 2 hours, with 3 trains a day, calling at all stations. Only mail trains ran on Sundays. The route onwards to Keith followed on 11 October 1856,[3] with the through link to the new joint station at Aberdeen completed in November 1867 to connect the GNSR to the Aberdeen Railway.[5] The track was doubled in 1896, when a non-stop train from Aberdeen was speeded up to a 45-minute schedule for the 40 ³⁄₄ mi (65.6 km), though it ceased when the overnight London express was slowed later that year.[3]

The station passed into the hands of the LNER at the 1923 Grouping and the Scottish Region of British Railways in January 1948. It has retained its signal box, which has been refurbished and controls the passing loop and level crossing here.

Facilities

As noted, the station's ticket office is manned six days per week from early morning until early afternoon (06:50 – 13:50, Mon-Sat). A self-service ticket machine is provided for use outside of these times and for collecting advance purchase tickets. A pay phone and post box are available, along with shelters on each platform and toilets in the booking hall (the latter open only when the station is staffed). Train running information is offered via customer help points, CIS displays, automatic announcements and timetable posters. Step-free access is available to both platforms via ramps, though the footbridge linking them has steps.[6]

Services

There is a basic two-hourly frequency in each directions (with peak extras), to Inverness via Elgin northbound and Aberdeen southbound (11 trains each way in total). The first departure to Aberdeen each weekday and Saturday continues south to Edinburgh Waverley and there is a return working in the evening. On Sundays there are five trains each way, with a southbound through working to Glasgow Queen Street.[7]

References

Notes

1. Brailsford 2017, Gaelic/English Station Index.
2. Butt (1995), p. 125
3. Vallance, H. A. (January 1954). "The Great North of Scotland Railway". Railway Magazine pp. 43–51. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
4. Scott, W. J. (January 1898). "Little and Good". Railway Magazine p. 22. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
5. Railscot: Chronology – Great North of Scotland Railway
6. Huntly station facilities National Rail Enquiries
7. GB eNRT May 2017 Edition, Table 240 (Network Rail)

Sources

• Brailsford, Martyn, ed. (December 2017) [1987]. Railway Track Diagrams 1: Scotland & Isle of Man (6th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. ISBN 978-0-9549866-9-8.
• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.

External links

• Video footage and narration
• RAILSCOT on the Great North of Scotland Railway