Kentish Town station is a London Underground and National Rail station in Kentish Town in the London Borough of Camden. It is at the junction of Kentish Town Road (A400) and Leighton Road. It is in Travelcard Zone 2.
The station is served by the High Barnet branch of the London Underground Northern line, and by First Capital Connect Thameslink trains on the National Rail Midland Main Line. It is between Camden Town and Tufnell Park on the Northern line and between West Hampstead and St. Pancras International stations on the main line.
It is the only station on the High Barnet branch with a direct interchange with a National Rail line, additionally an Out of Station Interchange (OSI) with Kentish Town West is permitted.
There are four National Rail surface platforms and two London Underground underground platforms. National Rail trains are operated by First Capital Connect and Southeastern, with northbound trains running to Luton and southbound to Sutton, Orpington and Sevenoaks, via London St. Pancras and Blackfriars. East Midlands Trains express services from Nottingham, Sheffield and Leicester pass through but do not stop.
Ticket barriers control access to both London Underground and National Rail platforms.
The first station was opened by the Midland Railway in 1868 on the extension to its new London terminal at St Pancras. Prior to that, Midland Railway trains used the London and North Western Railway lines to Euston or the Great Northern Railway lines to King's Cross. Until the St. Pancras extension was complete, and for some time afterwards, some trains exchanged the locomotive at Kentish Town for one fitted with condensing apparatus and continued to Moorgate station, then named Moorgate Street station. For some years trains ran from Kentish Town to Victoria station on the South Eastern and Chatham Railway.
The second largest motive power depot and repair facility on the Midland Rail was north of the station. In 1861 a collision occurred at a siding near the station in which sixteen people were killed and 317 were injured.
From May 1878 to September 1880 the MR Super Outer Circle service ran through the station, from St. Pancras to Earl's Court Underground station via Cricklewood and South Acton. The main line station was rebuilt in 1983, nothing of the original station building remains. The separate London Underground station was opened on 22 June 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR), a precursor of the Northern line. The station was designed by Leslie Green with the ox-blood red glazed terracotta facade and the semi-circular windows at first floor level common to most of the original stations on the CCE&HR and its two associated railways, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway and Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway which opened the previous year. When Kentish Town station opened the next CCE&HR station south was South Kentish Town but that station closed in 1924 due to low usage. Gospel Oak station on the North London Line opened in 1860 as "Kentish Town" but was given its present name in 1867 when the North London Railway opened Kentish Town West. It was the junction of services to Barking until 1981 when services were diverted to terminate and start from Gospel Oak. The spur line to Junction Road Junction was then closed, the track was removed and the trackbed has been sold for industrial use.
Trains from south of the River Thames on the extended Thameslink network may call at the station from 2018.
After the bay platforms at Blackfriars station closed in March 2009, Southeastern services which previously terminated at Blackfriars were extended to Kentish Town (off-peak), or St Albans, Luton or Bedford (peak hours).
A major upgrading of the whole Thameslink line infrastructure is underway, for expected completion by 2018. However, the four platforms at Kentish Town station are not being extended from 8 to 12 carriages because of road bridges at each end which cannot be relocated, so only services that continue to be served by 8-car trains will be able to call there. The only other Thameslink stations north of the River Thames remaining with 8-car platform lengths will be Hendon and Cricklewood, which are sited either side of a possible new Thameslink station at Brent Cross.
London Buses Routes 134, 214, 393, C2 and Night Route N20 serve the station.