Peterborough railway station

Peterborough railway station serves the city of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. It is down the East Coast Main Line from . The station is a major interchange serving both the north–south ECML, as well as long-distance and local east–west services. The station is managed by London North Eastern Railway. Ticket gates came into use at the station in 2012. There have been a number of railway stations in Peterborough: Peterborough East (1845–1966), the current station which opened in 1850 (previously known by various names including Peterborough North); and briefly Peterborough Crescent (1858–1866). Peterborough was the site of the first mast to be installed as part of the ECML electrification project, which is located behind platform 1. Peterborough East opened on 2 June 1845 along with the Ely to Peterborough Line built by Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) and the Northampton and Peterborough Railway built by the London and Birmingham Railway, both of which provided routes to London. The Syston and Peterborough Railway by Midland Railway was opened in 1846. On 7 August 1862, the ECR became part of the Great Eastern Railway (GER). The Great Northern Railway (GNR) arrived in Peterborough with the opening of the major portion of its "loop line" between Peterborough, Spalding, Boston and Lincoln, which opened on 17 October 1848; at first GNR trains used the ECR station at Peterborough East. During the construction of the GNR line south to London, it was decided that the GNR would need their own station at Peterborough; this was decided upon in December 1849, and opened on 7 August 1850 together with the new line, which originally terminated at Maiden Lane, the permanent London terminus at King's Cross not being ready until 14 October 1852. The GNR's Peterborough station is the current station, but it has had several names: originally simply Peterborough, it later became Peterborough Priestgate, then Peterborough Cowgate in 1902, reverting to Peterborough in 1911.