March railway station

March railway station serves the town of March in Cambridgeshire, England. The station is 14mi east of Peterborough on the Ely to Peterborough Line.The station, which was opened in 1847, was once a major railway junction with a number of lines radiating from the town. The station has been reduced in importance in recent years with several lines being dismantled or mothballed. The cross-country regional route between Ely and still runs through the station and an increasing number of freight trains pass through.The station originally had seven platforms. However, two of these are now filled-in bay platforms and the track has been removed from a further west-facing bay on the southern side of the station. There are now just two operational platforms, although track has been re-laid on two disused platforms on the northern side of the station and it is anticipated that these may be used should proposals to reopen the line to Wisbech come to fruition. The nearby Whitemoor marshalling yard returned to use in 2004 having been disused since the early 1990s.Spalding, St Ives and Wisbech branchesMarch was once a junction for lines to, St Ives and via Wisbech. The Spalding line was closed by British Rail in November 1982 and was completely lifted a few years later. The St Ives branch was closed completely in March 1967 as a result of the Beeching Axe, whilst the Wisbech line closed to all traffic in 2000 having lost its regular passenger services in September 1968. The trackwork however remains intact and there are plans to reopen the line as a heritage line run and maintained by enthusiasts.