cambridge south station will open on Sunday 28 June, with services beginning to call at the delayed site beside Cambridge’s Biomedical Campus. It will be the first station to carry full Great British Railways branding, including permanent signage in GBR brand colours and the new Railway Clock.
The station is expected to draw 1.8 million passengers annually and give the campus direct trains to London, Brighton and Stansted airport. Peter Hendy, the rail minister, said Cambridge South would “open up access to jobs, homes and world-class facilities for people across the region, boosting the growth of the Biomedical Campus as one of the most important engines of growth in the country.”
Peter Hendy and Network Rail
Hendy also said: “As the first new Great British Railways branded station, the opening is an important milestone for our railways and a sign of the real change public ownership will deliver.” Network Rail chief executive Jeremy Westlake said the station would “significantly improve travel and connectivity for campus staff, visitors, and the wider community for many years to come.”
Westlake added: “Thousands of people have worked tirelessly on this fantastic project to build a modern, accessible and sustainable station that reflects the excellence of the work that is being undertaken in Europe’s largest biomedical facility.” The station sits beside Europe’s largest medical research centre and is intended to serve the Biomedical Campus directly.
Cambridge South delay and funding
Cambridge South was supposed to open in 2025 but was delayed partly after a contractor responsible for fitting out the electrics collapsed. The station was built with £250m of government investment and a small private sector contribution, and it is Cambridge’s third station.
The Department for Transport said the adjacent Biomedical Campus was forecast to contribute £18.2bn to the UK economy by 2050 and that employee numbers there are likely to double to 40,000. Cambridge South will provide up to nine trains an hour to the centre of Cambridge and will eventually serve the East West Rail line being built across to Oxford.
For passengers and campus workers, the opening means a delayed station finally begins carrying trains into a site that already anchors jobs, research and travel across the region.
