History
Wellingborough (Midland Road) was built by the Midland Railway in 1857 on its extension from Leicester to Bedford and Hitchin. At the time the station was known as Wellingborough Midland Road to distinguish from one built by the LNWR in 1866 at Wellingborough London Road for the Northampton and Peterborough Railway which closed in 1966. A curve linked the two stations from west to north.
The buildings, designed by C. A. Driver, still exist, though in altered form. Much of this occurred when the branch to Higham Ferrers was built in 1894, when the up main platform was substantially altered, removing the original canopies.
Wellingborough also had a large locomotive depot with two roundhouses, the first built 1868, the second in 1872. One of the buildings still exist next to the main station building. On 2 September 1898, the station was the scene of a serious rail accident when a trolley ran off the platform in front of a Manchester express train. The crew and six passengers were killed and sixty-five injured.
British Rail removed the fourth track between Kettering and Sharnbrook Junction in the 1980s for cost cutting reasons making platform 4 unused. The platform still does exist, overgrown and no link to the rest of the station. A building is left derelict on it and there are proposals for the platform to be reopened.
There were originally five platforms at Wellingborough station - Platforms 1 & 2 still exist as they were, platform 3 was the bay platform for Northampton trains, which ceased on 4th. May 1964. The bay is still there, but fenced off from platform 2. In 1964 Platform 4 (the then down slow platform) was re-numbered platform 3. Platform 5 was taken out of use when the Rushden and Higham Ferrers services ceased in 1959.
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