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London Marylebone
Location
Place	Marylebone
Local authority	Westminster
Operations
Managed by	Chiltern Railways
Platforms in use	6
National Rail
Station code	MYB
Annual entry/exit	6.819 million ***
Transport for London
Zone	1
History
1899 1966 1996 2006	Opened GCML beyond Aylesbury closed Birmingham services begin Two new platforms built
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground | National Rail
*** based on sales of tickets in 2005/06 financial year which end or originate at this station from Office of Rail Regulation station usage statistics
UK Railways Portal

Marylebone station or London Marylebone station is a National Rail and London Underground station in central London. The station is located midway between the mainline stations at Euston and Paddington, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from each. It is in Travelcard Zone 1.

The mainline station has six platforms; four originally built in 1899 and two built in September 2006. Following two new platforms being opened, it is no longer the smallest of the railway terminals in London, although apart from the now defunct Waterloo International (replaced by the terminus at St Pancras Station opened in November 2007)) it remains the newest. Marylebone is operated by Chiltern Railways.

Train services into the station are run by Chiltern Railways which serves the Chiltern Main Line and London to Aylesbury Line routes to High Wycombe, Aylesbury, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington Spa, Stratford-upon-Avon, Birmingham (Snow Hill), and Kidderminster.

Around six million passengers use London Marylebone every year. However, the number of passengers would be considerably greater (as much as two million more) if its sister station London Baker Street, did not serve Metropolitan Line trains from Buckinghamshire.

Its domestic scale fits H.W. Braddock's English Renaissance Marylebone Station (1899) unobtrusively into its urban context.

The station was opened in 1899 and was the terminus of the Great Central Railway's new London extension main line, which was the last major railway line to be built into London, until High Speed 1. The designer was Henry William Braddock,^[1] a civil engineer for the Great Central Railway.^[2] The design is in a modest, uninflated domestic version of the "Wrenaissance" revival style that owed some of its popularity to work by Norman Shaw; it harmonises with the residential surroundings with Dutch gables, employing warm brick and cream-colored stone.

Originally Marylebone station was planned as a ten-platform station, but the cost of building the GCR was far higher than expected and nearly bankrupted the company. This forced the original plans for the station to be dramatically scaled back to just four platforms and for the Great Central Hotel to be built not within the station complex and by a different company.

The Great Central Railway linked London to High Wycombe, Aylesbury, Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester. Also, a number of local services from northwest Middlesex, High Wycombe and Aylesbury terminated at Marylebone.

Passenger traffic on the GCR was never heavy, largely because it was the last main line to be built, which meant it had difficulty competing against its well-established rivals (especially the Midland Railway) for the lucrative intercity passenger business. Also the line went through vasts amounts of countryside, thus not attracting much passenger business. However, the line was heavily used for freight, especially coal and trains ran from the North to the former Marylebone freight depot which used to lie next door to the station.

The heyday of the line was between 1924 and 1958 in which the GCR was absorbed into the LNER (later became the BR Eastern after nationalisation). As a result many prestigous locomotives, such as Flying Scotsman, Sir Nigel Gresley, and Mallard which ran on the East Coast Main Line, were also frequent visitors to the line. Special trains also ran on the line to destinations such as Scotland.

Main Entrance to Marylebone station

Long-distance trains from Marylebone began to be scaled back from 1958 after the line's transfer to the BR Midland region. The line was thought to be a duplicate of the Midland Main Line by the region. By 1960 there were no daytime trains running to destinations north of Nottingham, although a few still ran at night. In 1966 a large part of the former Great Central Railway was closed north of Aylesbury as part of the Beeching axe. This meant that Marylebone was now the terminus for local services to Aylesbury and High Wycombe only. The GCR's closure was the single largest railway closure of the Beeching era.

After the 1960s, lack of investment meant that the local services and the station itself became increasingly run down. In the early 1980s there was a proposal to close Marylebone, divert its services into nearby Paddington station, and extend the Metropolitan Line to Aylesbury. Marylebone was to be converted into a coach station with the tracks converted to a road for coaches only. However these plans were deemed impractical and dropped.

Class 168 and Class 165 on platforms 2 and 3.

A major turnaround in the station's fortunes occurred in the late 1980s, when British Rail decided to divert many services from overcrowded Paddington station into Marylebone. The station was given a multi-million-pound facelift financed by selling off the redundant adjacent goods yard and some land previously used by two of the existing platforms. These two platforms were replaced by removing the existing taxi road and using that land for two replacement platforms. The ageing fleet of trains (Class 115) on the local services was replaced by a fleet of state-of-the-art trains.

The new platforms 5 and 6 at London Marylebone station as seen in December 2006.

In the 1990s, upon rail privatisation, the station was given an even bigger boost when Chiltern Railways took over the rail services. Chiltern trains made the station the terminus for a new intercity service to Birmingham's Snow Hill station. To cope with Chiltern Railways' success over the last ten years and to cope with increased passenger numbers, a new platform (platform 6) opened in May 2006. This was part of Chiltern's £70-million project Evergreen 2. Platform 5 and the shortened platform 4 opened in September 2006. Additionally, a new depot has recently opened near Wembley Stadium railway station to compensate for the closure of Marylebone's station sidings and to make way for the new platforms. To highlight Chiltern's success, some services from Marylebone have also now been extended beyond Birmingham to Kidderminster.

Main exit out of Marylebone station

• In late January 2006, a new company called the Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway (WSMR), was formed. In September 2007, the Office of Rail Regulation granted the company, trading as Wrexham & Shropshire permission to operate services from Wrexham (in North Wales) via Shrewsbury, Telford and the West Midlands to Marylebone from early 2008. This will restore direct services to London from Wrexham and Shropshire.

• Chiltern Railways have suggested that they want to reopen the Great Central Main Line north of Aylesbury to Rugby [1] and if successful Leicester.

• Chiltern Railways have also looked into the possibility of reopening the line between Princes Risborough and Oxford. This would give Oxford an additional link, which could be faster than the current one, to London. However, this was not a franchising commitment.

• In 1964 several scenes in the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night were filmed at Marylebone station.
• The station appeared in an episode of Magnum PI while the series was filmed around London.
• The station appeared in The IPCRESS File.
• The station appeared in the BBC's spy drama Spooks, season 4, episode 1. The script pretended that it was Paddington.
• The station appeared in a BBC Comedy "Gavin & Stacy" recently branded as London Paddington.
• The station appeared in the Dempsey and Makepeace episode 'Judgement'.
• The station appeared in the final episode of series 2 of Green Wing.
• The station also has a degree of fame because of its presence in the British version of Monopoly.
• The station was used as a location for an episode of Peep Show Series 4
• The station appeared in the Doctor Who episode, Doctor Who and the Silurians.

- The station is used for filming as it is the cheapest major station in London to use for filming. Network Rail only charge £500 per hour for a TV production compared to £800 per hour to film at Paddington and £1000 per hour at Kings Cross.

• 2tph to/from Aylesbury (via Amersham)
• 2tph to/from Birmingham Snow Hill (fast)
• 1tph to/from High Wycombe (slow)
• 1tph to/from Princes Risborough (semi-fast)
• 1tph to/from Bicester North or Stratford-upon-Avon (semi-fast)

Marylebone
Location
Place	Marylebone
Local authority	Westminster
Operations
Managed by	London Underground
Platforms in use	2
Transport for London
Zone	1
Annual entry/exit	9.614 million †
History
Key dates	Opened 1907
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground | National Rail
† Data from Transport for London [2]
London Transport Portal

The underground station is on just one line, the Bakerloo Line, between Baker Street and Edgware Road stations. Access to the underground station is via a set of escalators from the mainline station concourse, which also houses the underground station's ticket office.

Compared to other London termini, Underground links are poor, making commuting to the City of London a time-consuming prospect. To reach the city, it is best to use the Circle, Hammersmith & City or Metropolitan lines to Moorgate. However, this requires the commuter to change at Baker Street. Another way is to take the Bakerloo to Oxford Circus and change for the Central Line to Bank. As Marylebone and Baker Street stations are close enough, it is often easier to walk the short distance to make connections.

The reason for such poor connections to underground lines is that the mainline station was built after the northern section of the inner circle was already completed. There was no need for a station at the present site before the mainline station was constructed as Baker Street station is only a few hundred yards away.

The underground station opened on the 27 March 1907 under the name Great Central, and was renamed Marylebone on the 15 April 1917. However the original name still appears in the platform tiling.

The present entrance opened in 1943 following the introduction of the escalators and wartime damage to the original station building that stood to the west, at the junction of Harewood Avenue and Harewood Row. This building, designed by the UERL's architect, Leslie Green, and which had used lifts to access the platforms was eventually demolished in 1971 and is now home to a Travel Lodge Hotel.

Preceding station		London Underground		Following station
Edgware Road towards Harrow & Wealdstone		Bakerloo line		Baker Street towards Elephant & Castle

• Train times and station information for Marylebone railway station from National Rail (Station code: MYB)

• The Landmark London - the present name of the former Great Central Hotel

• Marylebone station is at coordinates 51°31′21″N 0°09′49″W / 51.52236, -0.163464Coordinates: 51°31′21″N 0°09′49″W / 51.52236, -0.163464