New station number 8 (in 2026)

Thursday 2nd July 2026

Residents living in Trumpington on the southern fringe of Cambridge have long enjoyed good transport links.

Located alongside the southern end of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, with a large Park and Ride car park nearby as well as being close to Cambridge’s huge Biomedical Campus has resulted in extensive travel options. However, from Sunday, they just got a whole lot better still with the much anticipated opening of Cambridge South railway station.

As you can see from the above annotated map, Cambridge South has become the city’s third station (Cambridge North opened in May 2017) and its significant £250 million price tag has brought a very nicely designed station building with two entrances/exits, east and west of the railway line, four platforms (including two outer and one island) and 18 trains an hour to a whole range of destinations including Birmingham and Stansted Airport, Ely, King’s Lynn, Gatwick Airport and Brighton, and of course, London’s Liverpool Street, King’s Cross and St Pancras.

The station is managed by staff currently employed by Greater Anglia with trains also from sister DFTO company Thameslink/Great Northern as well as Cross Country calling.

Construction costs may seem excessive but they included the necessary changes to track alignment to accommodate the island platform as well as major changes to nearby junctions to allow higher speed limits to facilitate time for trains to stop at the station without adding to overall journey times. As we know, these things don’t come cheap in Britain.

It’s an impressive addition to Britain’s railway infrastructure. Here’s a quick photographic guide to the new facilities.

The eastern entrance/exit to the station is sited in the south western corner of the BioMedical Campus with its extensive facilities including Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge Children’s Hospital, The Rosie (Maternity) Hospital together with many research companies based on site including a substantial presence from Astra Zeneca. There’s an extensive sheltered bike storage facility and a cul-de-sac driveway for drop off and pick up as can be seen below.

I can imagine this entrance/exit will soon become very busy with staff working on the Campus, those attending the hospitals and residents living in the many houses on the other side of the Campus. There’s no doubt commuting rail passengers will switch from using Stagecoach and Whippet buses on the Guided Busway between the city centre and Campus as it will be far more convenient to alight at Cambridge South rather than the previous arrangement of alighting at Cambridge and catching the bus. However, it’s still a bit of a walk to some of the facilities on the Campus from the station but the good news is two electric powered minibuses are providing a shuttle facility on a continuous loop around the campus.

There’s a coffee stall immediately outside the entrance with the owner planning to move into the retail unit by the west entrance/exit although I would have thought its present location was possibly better for footfall except there were no facilities for the fridge to be plugged in.

An old style Greater Anglia listing of departures by destination is on display here which is nice to see but it’s a shame it only covers Greater Anglia served destinations so, for example, Birmingham, Brighton and Gatwick Airport don’t get a mention.

Also, annoyingly, two of the three posters have been displayed in the wrong order so it’s not an A to Z listing but an F to P followed by an A to E and then an R to Z.

Moving towards the entrance area you won’t find a ticket office but there are four ticket machines and staff looking after them and once through the ticket barriers there’s an ‘information’ counter…

… and a display of ‘information’ (which is basically a leaflet extolling the virtues of railcards)…

… and a small seating area…

… as well as toilets and a water point which is nice to see.

There’s actually one toilet cubicle for gentlemen, one for ladies, one accessible toilet room, one changing places room and one baby changing room.

So, one of everything.

This entrance area leads directly on to the southbound Platform 1…

… whereas the western entrance/exit, immediately opposite, is alongside the northbound Platform 4…

… and is a smaller matching version of the eastern entrance/exit with just two ticket machines, instead of four, located outside, just one accessible toilet room, another water fountain and a few more seats…

… and a matching curve type roof on the building.

… except rather than extensive medical buildings, it looks out on to a lovely meadow with footpath/cycle way leading to Trumpington.

What a lovely pleasant walk/cycle it will be to and from the station…. in summer.

There’s a substantial footbridge linking both entrances/exits to/from the centre platforms (2 and 3) with very bright staircases and lifts…

… and lots of glass to create an airy atmosphere, although the footbridge itself almost appears to be boarded up on one side, but I understand it’s been designed this way for ease of maintenance and cleaning.

Stairs and lifts connect the footbridge to and from the island platform (2 and 3)…

… and it’s interesting to see in all cases there are two lifts rather than just one.

It’s also nice to see a new station that isn’t just a collection of modular shelters, seats, bike racks etc etc and it’s clear a lot of work has gone into the design including ensuring the station has excellent environmental credentials with solar panels in abundance…

… as well as a sedum roof.

I’m not really sure what all these words on the side of the staircases are about and you only see them as you enter the station, being oblivious to the messaging as you leave.

The station displays Great British Railways colours in various places including the ticket barriers…

…and the now familiar two posters with their rather condescending slogans were liberally displayed all around the station.

As was this poster which puzzled me as to why destinations such as Finsbury Park, Welwyn Garden City and Three Bridges…

… were deemed more important to promote than Birmingham, Brighton and Gatwick Airport, for example.

Another small oddity is in the western entrance area a phone charging point with two shelves for passengers to rest their phone on but only one plug socket.

Outside on the platforms the covering only extends to roughly half the length of the platforms…

… albeit this still gives a significant area for passengers to wait…

… and at the far southern end there’s a basic footbridge connecting the island platforms 2/3 only with platform 4 which also acts as an emergency escape route which I understand is one reason why, oddly, it doesn’t extend to platform 1, thus presumably saving a bit of cost.

A couple of other minor things I noticed while wandering around on Tuesday was the notice in the lifts wrongly referring to South Cambridge station…

… and Great Northern/Thameslink’s ‘alternative routes during disruption’ poster…

… not showing up to date information, including route T1 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, which is much quicker than the two routes shown – Guided Busway route B and Whippet’s route X3.

There was also a glitch with the next train displays and auto-announcements during my visit on Tuesday morning with passengers being wrongly advised of trains to Ely, when they were going to Cambridge North, as well as Stansted Airport when the train was going to King’s Cross. After a while, luckily a member of staff was over-riding it and providing the correct information.

Those minor niggles aside, Cambridge South is an impressive addition to the rail network…

… and I’m sure will very soon show has a pent up demand from staff and visitors to the Biomedical Campus as well as local residents within a cycle or walking distance.

There again, for £250 million it should be.

Finally, for a £250 million new station it was uncharacteristically launched at the beginning of the week with a distinct lack of any ceremony and razzmatazz. You know the sort of thing: brass band, balloons, cup cakes, Secretary of State and others making congratulatory speeches, a newly liveried Greater Anglia train in GBR colours arriving, maybe even a steam train. Poignantly all this unnecessary frippery was cancelled last week as, quite rightly, it was considered completely inappropriate following the dreadful crash south of Bedford on 19th June, not least as critically injured passengers from that awful incident are still recovering in Addenbrooke’s Hospital. I send my loving and supportive thoughts to them and hope their recovery and healing continues with reducing pain and discomfort.

Roger French

I had the pleasure of visiting Cambridge South on Tuesday with my good friend Geoff Marshall who’ll be uploading a video about the new station on his YouTube channel imminently and which will be well worth watching, as always.

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