Leicester Railway Station - Today

Today

Rail routes run north-south through Leicester along the route known as the Midland Main Line, going south to Kettering, Bedford, Luton and London; and north to Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, Sheffield and Leeds.

Junctions north and south of the station link the east-west cross country route, going east to Peterborough and Cambridge; and west to Nuneaton and Birmingham.

• Ivanhoe Line
• Birmingham to Peterborough Line
• Midland Main Line
• Leicester and Swannington Railway

Train operators using the station include CrossCountry and East Midlands Trains. Due to a 15 mph maximum speed to the south of the station, all passenger trains stop at the station. Up until the winter 2008 timetable, the morning southbound The Master Cutler express from Leeds to London St Pancras was an exception although this now also calls.

Leicester is a bottleneck station as it has only four platforms, all platforms are well utilised especially platforms two and three which receive freight as well as passenger trains. A freight loop goes to the east of the station alongside the carriage sidings which run adjacent to platform four.

• Platform one -
  • Hourly local CrossCountry service to Birmingham New Street via Hinckley
  • Hourly semi-fast East Midlands Trains service to Sheffield via Loughborough, Long Eaton and Derby

• Platform two -
  • Hourly fast East Midlands Trains service to Nottingham via East Midlands Parkway
  • Hourly fast East Midlands Trains service to Sheffield, with peak hour services to Leeds and weekend services to York and Scarborough
  • Hourly semi-fast East Midlands Trains service to Nottingham via Loughborough, with peak hour services to Lincoln
  • Hourly CrossCountry service to Stansted Airport via Cambridge

• Platform three -
  • Hourly fast East Midlands Trains service to London St Pancras
  • Hourly semi-fast East Midlands Trains service to London St. Pancras via Market Harborough, Kettering, Wellingborough, Bedford and Luton Airport Parkway
  • Second fast East Midlands Trains service to London St. Pancras via Market Harborough
  • Hourly fast CrossCountry service to Birmingham New Street

• Platform four -
  • Hourly fast East Midlands Trains service to London St. Pancras through from Sheffield
  • Hourly East Midlands Trains 'Ivanhoe' service to Lincoln via Syston and Newark with peak hour trains to Sleaford

The station is an interchange point between the Midland Main Line (MML) from London St Pancras to Leeds and services on the Cross Country Route from Birmingham through Cambridge to Stansted Airport and Norwich. Until the mid twentieth century, the station was host to through trains from Manchester and Glasgow to London, Norwich to Liverpool and Grimsby to Shrewsbury and Llandudno.

Leicester is now owned by Network Rail and is operated under a franchise by East Midlands Trains who provide all of the trains to London, along with local services and inter-urban routes to destinations such as Lincoln, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds. Other services are provided by CrossCountry to destinations such as Birmingham, Cambridge and Stansted Airport.

More than 5.5 million people entered and left the station in the twelve months to March 2009, an increase of over 1.2 million in five years. This makes it the 53rd most-used Network Rail station and the 25th-busiest outside the central London area. In addition, it was estimated that more than 420,000 people used the station to change trains.

Through-fares to continental Europe are now available from Leicester to Paris, Brussels and other destinations in France and Belgium. In July 2011 a new international travel desk was opened at Leicester.

As of late 2009 Leicester is a Penalty fare station, a valid ticket or Permit to travel must be shown when requested.

The station has the Plusbus scheme which allows bus and train tickets to be bought together at a saving.