The Syston and Peterborough Railway was an early railway in England opened between 1846 and 1848 to form a connection from the Midland Counties Railway near Leicester to Peterborough, giving access to East Anglia over the Eastern Counties Railway. The project was part of the ambition of George Hudson to establish and maintain a monopoly of railway service over a large area of England. The surveying of the line achieved notoriety when Robert Sherard, 6th Earl of Harborough, who was hostile to railways, arranged a battle to obstruct surveys of the proposed line, and later of its construction.
The line later formed part of a new direct route from Nottingham to Kettering and London, and later still was the base of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, giving access to Norfolk and parts of Suffolk.
The core of the line between Syston and Peterborough remains in use today, carrying a useful service of cross-country traffic.