The Midland Main Line
The Midland Main Line links 36 stations, with a top line speed of 125 mph.
See the Midland Main Line on the live map
The map draws the line on its own, names every station along it, and shows the trains running on it right now.
The line in numbers
| Track | about 549 miles, counting every running line |
|---|---|
| Stations | 36 |
| Top line speed | 125 mph |
| Passengers a year | 68.7 million entries and exits across its stations |
| Engineer's Line Reference | SPC1, SPC3, SPC5, SPC2, SPC8, CHR, TJC1, SPC6, SPC9, SPC4, TJC2, TJC3, GSM1, SPC7, BEW |
No end-to-end length is given for this line because OpenStreetMap applies its name to several separate stretches of track, so any figure measured from the map data would be a fragment of the real route rather than the whole of it.
Stations on this line
- Finchley Road & Frognal1.9 million a year
- West Hampstead Thameslink3.1 million a year
- Cricklewood859,464 a year
- Brent Cross West675,392 a year
- Hendon1.0 million a year
- Mill Hill Broadway1.9 million a year
- Elstree & Borehamwood2.8 million a year
- Radlett1.3 million a year
- St Albans City6.7 million a year
- Harpenden2.8 million a year
- Luton Airport Parkway4.7 million a year
- Luton3.7 million a year
- Leagrave1.5 million a year
- Harlington307,596 a year
- Flitwick1.3 million a year
- Bedford3.8 million a year
- Wellingborough980,522 a year
- Kettering1.1 million a year
- Market Harborough943,468 a year
- Leicester5.5 million a year
- Syston213,180 a year
- Sileby153,360 a year
- Barrow-upon-Soar101,842 a year
- Loughborough1.4 million a year
- East Midlands Parkway355,098 a year
- Long Eaton651,792 a year
- Spondon47,006 a year
- Derby4.1 million a year
- Duffield66,536 a year
- Belper219,184 a year
- Ambergate39,004 a year
- Chesterfield1.8 million a year
- Dronfield229,562 a year
- Dore and Totley240,254 a year
- Sheffield10.3 million a year
- Meadowhall Interchange1.9 million a year
The busiest station on the line is Sheffield, 10.3 million entries and exits a year and 49th busiest in Britain.
Freight on this line, hour by hour
Freight is booked over the Midland Main Line on 2,491 paths in the week beginning 12 October 2026: 465 paths on the Wednesday, 225 paths on the Saturday and 33 paths on the Sunday. 261 of them run whatever the traffic; the rest are held in the timetable and used only when there is something to move. The busiest hour is 01:00 to 02:00 on the Wednesday, with 66 paths booked.
The grid counts the goods trains booked to pass in each hour of the week beginning 12 October 2026: the darker the hour, the more paths, and a dot marks an hour with at least one path that runs regardless. Engineering trains, empty stock and light engines are not counted. Across Britain only about a fifth of booked freight paths run on a given day, so a booked path is a possibility rather than a promise; the freight statistics page explains how that is measured.
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Paths booked in the hournone12 to 34 to 78 to 1516 or moreone runs regardless
Lines it meets
Derby to Birmingham (Proof House Junction) Line, Derwent Valley Line, Hallam Line, Hope Valley Line, North London Line, St Pancras to Chesterfield Line.
Passenger figures are the Office of Rail and Road's estimates of station usage for 2024-25, added up across the stations on this line. They count entries and exits at those stations rather than journeys along the line, and a station served by more than one line is counted for each of them.
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