£3.40 off peak day return Soham to Ely from December
Lucy Frazer MP met with County Councillor Joshua Schumann in 2014 to discuss the potential for a new railway station in Soham. - Credit: Lucy Frazer
First trains are to stop at the newly completed £22m Soham station from Monday December 13.
Network Rail has published its timetables for the month which means that, for the first time since 1965 people in the town will be able to let the train take the strain.
Trains will offer options to get to Ely, March and Peterborough or to Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket and Ipswich.
Officially the station opens on Sunday December 12 but because of engineering works that weekend the first train out of Soham will not be until Monday.
That will be the 0649 service to Ely, with the first train heading in the other direction departing at 0838.
Trains in each direction are every two-hours. There are eight trains in each direction Monday to Saturday and six on a Sunday.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority paid for the station but contracted Network Rail to build it and a new footbridge, car and cycle park, plus access road with bus turning circle.
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Reader Michael Martin said: “Interestingly I think my uncle Don Palmer who lived at The Shade in Soham and drove a parcel van for National Carriers plus his wife Thelma were two of the last persons to use Soham station!
“He persuaded the train driver (i.e. work colleague) to make an unscheduled stop at Soham to let them out one Saturday evening a few years after official closure!”
Mr Martin has researched the timetables for the Eastern Region and from 1960 he discovered back then only scheduled trains a day stopped at Soham.
“It is easy to understand why Soham station was closed,” he added.
Opening a station in his home town fulfils a pledge of local resident, former councillor and former Combined Authority James Palmer.
He said people had been “crying out for this” and had campaigned long and hard to get their station back.
And he promised opening of the new station “will transform life in Soham”.
Network Rail has also produced the fares to be charged:
To Ely
£2.80 Anytime Single.
£3.40 Off-peak Day Return.
£4.30 Anytime Day Return. (Required for the 0649 M-F only).
To Cambridge.
£6.00 Anytime Single
£6.60 Off-peak Day Return.
£9.40 Anytime Day Return. (Required for the 0649 M-F only).
