*Christmas Special Countdown Day 4* - Trains at Potters Bar, ECML, 30/10/25

Potters Bar railway station serves the town of Potters Bar in Hertfordshire, England. It is located on the Great Northern Route 12 miles 57 chains (20.5 km) north of London King's Cross on the East Coast Main Line. Potters Bar station is the highest on the East Coast Main Line between London King's Cross and York.

The first section of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) - that from Louth to a junction with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway at Grimsby - opened on 1 March 1848, but the southern section of the main line, between Maiden Lane and Peterborough, was not opened until August 1850. Potter's Bar was one of the original stations, opening with the line on 7 August 1850.

On 1 May 1923, the station was renamed Potter's Bar and South Mimms; on 3 May 1971 it reverted to its original name of Potter's Bar.

The current station building, in a "post modern" style, is the third on this site. It replaced a 1955 structure designed by James Wyatt of the Eastern Region Architect's Department (Chief Architect H Powell). Pevsner described the 1955 station as "The first of the Eastern Region's good modern stations, the style much lighter in touch than in the stations of the 1960s (cf Broxbourne). Neat brick clerestory-lit booking hall".

The platform canopies were also constructed in 1955, using what was then an innovative technique of pre-stressed concrete. As the concrete set it unexpectedly curved up at either end of the long, thin canopies, unintentionally creating the "willow" look.

The station has a ticket office which is staffed for most of the day.

The station is on two levels. On the lower level are ticket machines in the booking hall and near the entrance to the car park, a photo booth, cash machine, two ticket counters and a cafe. Ramped access to the platforms is controlled by automatic ticket barriers.

On the upper level, canopies run most of the length of both platforms. Each island platform has a help-point. Platforms 1 & 2 have toilets refreshment kiosk, and customer information office. Platforms 3 & 4 are home to staff facilities, including a mess room and station manager's office.

Platforms 2 & 3 are used by express services, and platforms 1 & 4 on the slow lines are used by local services.

Duration of the video: 09:52 - 11:28

We’ll be seeing services by LNER, Great Northern, Hull Trains, Grand Central, Thameslink and Lumo as well.

I hope you enjoyed this video if you did smash that like button and don’t forget to subscribe for more upcoming videos and feel free to leave any comments or recommendations of stations that you would like for me to do in the comments below as I’ll try get back to them as soon as possible.

It’s been quite a long time since I last did any train spotting at Potters Bar but it was quite enjoyable filming session to have though considering I got there later than usual however it was a bonus that I saw a few LNER 225 sets making appearances during this video which is always nice to see.

My next station will be Watford Junction which is situated on the West Coast Mainline haven’t done any train spotting there for a very long time now but I’m sure it’ll be worth revisiting so until then thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.