Place Oxenholme Station code OXN DfT category D | Grid reference SD531901 Managed by Virgin Trains 2011/12 0.436 million Number of platforms 3 | |
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Address Oxenholme, Kendal, United Kingdom Original company Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Similar Windermere railway station, Kendal railway station, Lancaster railway station, Preston railway station, Penrith railway station | ||
Oxenholme Lake District railway station (often shortened to Oxenholme) is a railway station in Oxenholme, near Kendal, in Cumbria, England. The station is situated on the West Coast Main Line and is also the start of the Windermere Branch Line to Windermere. All platforms are electrified, however platform 3 on the Windermere branch has limited capacity for longer trains. The station serves as a main line connection point for Kendal, and is managed by Virgin Trains.
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Services
Most Virgin Trains services from London to Glasgow or Edinburgh call here to provide connections with the Windermere branch. There is normally a train at least every two hours to London (either direct or via Birmingham New Street) and every hour to Edinburgh or Glasgow. TransPennine Express services between Manchester Airport and Glasgow/Edinburgh also serve the station once per hour each way, as well as Northern services to and from Windermere. Most Windermere services start and terminate here, but some occasionally run through to Lancaster, Preston and Manchester Airport.
Notable incidents
On 10 February 1965 fugitive John Middleton shot two policemen while hiding in the waiting room. Carlisle policemen George Russell and Alex Archibald were shot with Russell dying in hospital a few hours later.
On 27 May 2006 the station was the scene of a murder when a 19-year-old man was stabbed aboard a Glasgow-Paignton train as it was coming into the station. A 22-year-old man was subsequently jailed for 21 years for the murder in November 2006.
The Grayrigg rail crash happened on 23 February 2007 when a Virgin Pendolino train derailed after it had just left Oxenholme Lake District railway station. The crash left 1 person dead, and 22 others injured.
In fiction
Oxenholme station appears in the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books by Arthur Ransome as Strickland Junction. In Pigeon Post Roger releases a homing pigeon there.