Royston  | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The two platforms | |||||
| General information | |||||
| Location | Royston, District of North Hertfordshire England | ||||
| Grid reference | TL353412 | ||||
| Managed by | Great Northern | ||||
| Platforms | 2 | ||||
| Other information | |||||
| Station code | RYS | ||||
| Classification | DfT category D | ||||
| History | |||||
| Opened | 1850 | ||||
| Passengers | |||||
| 2018/19 |  1.467 million | ||||
| Interchange | 21,255 | ||||
| 2019/20 | 1.436 million | ||||
| Interchange | 20,466 | ||||
| 2020/21 | 0.290 million | ||||
| Interchange | 2,650 | ||||
| 2021/22 |  0.835 million | ||||
| Interchange | 9,630 | ||||
| 2022/23 | 1.081 million | ||||
| Interchange | 14,420 | ||||
| |||||
Royston railway station serves the town of Royston in Hertfordshire, England. The station is 44 miles 72 chains (72.3 km) from London Kings Cross on the Cambridge Line.[1] Trains serving the station are operated by Thameslink and Great Northern.
The station is an important stop on the commuter line between King's Cross and Cambridge as the majority of semi-fast services between London and Cambridge stop at Royston - one exception being the 'Cambridge Cruiser' fast services from London. It is also the last station before Cambridge with platforms capable of handling 12-car trains. Therefore, it is used by many commuters, not only from Royston but also from smaller stations north of Royston who transfer from stopping services to faster trains at the station.
The station was opened by the Royston and Hitchin Railway in October 1850 as its initial eastern terminus. The line was subsequently extended as far as Shepreth the following year and through to Cambridge by the Eastern Counties Railway in 1852. The latter company took out a lease on the Royston company from then until 1866 and ran trains between Cambridge and the Great Northern Railway's main line junction at Hitchin until its lease expired. Thereafter the GNR took over and began running through trains from Cambridge to Kings Cross from 1 April 1866.
Royston station is still labeled as Royston (Herts) on tickets and information displays, even though the station serving the town with the same name in South Yorkshire closed in 1968.
- ^ Padgett, David (October 2016) [1988]. Brailsford, Martyn (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 2: Eastern (4th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. map 24C. ISBN 978-0-9549866-8-1.