Stansted Airport railway station

Stansted Airport railway station stands beneath the main terminal of London Stansted Airport in Essex. The station lies 59.3 kilometres from London Liverpool Street along a branch line that leaves the West Anglia Main Line. British Rail opened the station in March 1991 when the airport’s new terminal was completed. Queen Elizabeth II inaugurated the first Stansted Express service on the same day. More than nine million passengers used the station in 2023–24, making it the busiest in Essex and the sixteenth busiest outside London. The station was built as part of turning Stansted into London’s third airport. Parliament approved the airport’s expansion in June 1985, and British Rail proposed the rail link five months later. The branch line includes a bored tunnel under the runway, designed by Sir William Halcrow & Partners and built by John Murphy Ltd. Construction cost £44 million and took three years to finish. The station was designed with three platforms at ground level, two long ones for Stansted Express and Norwich trains, and a shorter one for Birmingham services. Platform 1 was extended in 2011 to take two sixteen-coach trains at once. Platform 2 was widened for four-coach CrossCountry trains. The station sits inside a concrete box directly under the terminal, with the western ends of the platforms left open. Future plans include contactless ticket barriers and possible conversion to a through station for an extension toward Braintree. Trains run every fifteen minutes to London Liverpool Street, hourly to Norwich and Birmingham New Street.