Leuchars railway station serves the towns of Leuchars

Leuchars

Leuchars is a small town near the north-east coast of Fife in Scotland.The town is nearly to the north of the village of Guardbridge, which lies on the north bank of the River Eden where it widens to the Edenmouth estuary before joining the North Sea at St Andrews Bay. Leuchars is north-east of...

 and St Andrews

St Andrews

St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....

 in Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The station is the penultimate stop before Dundee

Dundee railway station

Dundee railway station serves the city of Dundee on the east coast of Scotland. The station has two through platforms and two terminal platforms...

.

The station was built as Leuchars Junction station for the route over the Tay Bridge to Dundee, the previous Leuchars station being on the line to Tayport

Tayport

Tayport is located in Fife, Scotland.Te oportet alte ferri - "It is encumbent on you to carry yourself high." This actually a rather terrible pun on:"Tayport at auld Tay Ferry"....

.

There are buses and taxis available to transfer passengers to nearby St. Andrews, which does not have its own railway station; integrated tickets with the destination "St Andrews Bus" are sold.

The station is located near the active airbase RAF Leuchars

RAF Leuchars

RAF Leuchars is the most northerly air defence station in the United Kingdom. It is located in Leuchars, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland, near to the university town of St Andrews.-Operations:...

.

Station operator First ScotRail

First ScotRail

ScotRail Railways Ltd. is the FirstGroup-owned train operating company running domestic passenger trains within Scotland, northern England and the cross-border Caledonian Sleeper service to London using the brand ScotRail which is the property of the Scottish Government...

 announced plans during March 2008 to erect a wind turbine

Wind turbine

A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...

 to meet the electricity requirements of the station, and hope to generate a small surplus of electricity which they can sell back to the National Grid. Leuchars will be the first station to be powered this way, and if the project, which was funded by Transport Scotland

Transport Scotland

Transport Scotland was created on 1 January 2006 as the national transport agency of Scotland. It is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government's Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department and accountable to Scottish Ministers...

 proves successful, it may be rolled out across other stations.

History

The original station for Leuchars was some 45 chains (900m) north of the current station and was opened on 17 May 1848. It became the junction for St Andrews on 1 July 1852. It was closed to passengers when Leuchars Junction opened on 1 June 1878 but reopened as “Leuchars (old)” six months later. It finally closed to passengers on 3 October 1921 and to goods on 6 November 1967.

Leuchars Junction opened on the current site, just south of the junction for the Tay Bridge

Tay Rail Bridge

The Tay Bridge is a railway bridge approximately two and a quarter miles long that spans the Firth of Tay in Scotland, between the city of Dundee and the suburb of Wormit in Fife ....

, on 1 June 1878. It consisted of an island platform with a south facing bay for branch line trains for St Andrews, and a north facing bay for trains on the old main line to Tayport.

On 30 June 1913, the station buildings at Leuchars Junction burnt to the ground. This was widely believed to be arson by suffragette

Suffragette

"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

s.
The current buildings are those of the 1913 rebuilding. After the closure of the Tayport line in 1967 and the St Andrews branch on 6 January 1969 the station ceased to be a junction and the two bays were filled in. The station was subsequently renamed “Leuchars (for St Andrews)”.

Services

Weekday timetable

Intercity trains

East Coast

East Coast (train operating company)

East Coast is a British train operating company running high-speed passenger services on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland...

4 tpd to via , and . These trains are from - one terminates at Leeds.

4 tpd to via , , and . Three of these trains are from and the other, an early-morning service, is from .

CrossCountry

CrossCountry

CrossCountry is the brand name of XC Trains Ltd., a British train operating company owned by Arriva...

:

CrossCountry operate three daily services out of Dundee, two of which go to and one of which continues to .

They also operate two services to and one to .

First ScotRail

First ScotRail

ScotRail Railways Ltd. is the FirstGroup-owned train operating company running domestic passenger trains within Scotland, northern England and the cross-border Caledonian Sleeper service to London using the brand ScotRail which is the property of the Scottish Government...

:

1 tpd to via *, and . (Caledonian Sleeper)

1 tpd to via , and . (Caledonian Sleeper)

Passengers are not allowed to board or alight at . This is where the Sleepers to/from , and join/separate.

Local trains

First ScotRail

First ScotRail

ScotRail Railways Ltd. is the FirstGroup-owned train operating company running domestic passenger trains within Scotland, northern England and the cross-border Caledonian Sleeper service to London using the brand ScotRail which is the property of the Scottish Government...

:

2 tph to via , and .

1 tph to via , , , and . 1 tpd extended to .

1 tph to .

1 tpd to , via , , , , and .

External links