About Northampton Station
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in central England on the River Nene, and the county town of Northamptonshire, in the East Midlands region. It is the UK's third largest town without official city status, after Reading and Dudley. In the 18th century Northampton became a major centre of footwear and leather manufacture. Shoemaking has virtually ceased, though the back streets of the town still show the pattern of small shoe factories surrounded by terraced houses for the outworkers.
Northampton Castle station (as it is still sometimes known to this day) was the second station to be opened in Northampton, near the site of the historic castle, and the only one that survives. It was originally only a minor station on the branch line to Market Harborough, now closed. (Almost the entire length of this line has now been converted to a linear park, footpath and cycleway – the Brampton Valley Way. A small section has been re-opened as a heritage railway by the Northampton and Lamport Railway).
With the construction of the Northampton Loop off the West Coast Main Line in the late 1870s, Castle station was dramatically expanded in 1881 and soon became Northampton's main station, serving the main line to London and Birmingham.
The current station was the result of a rebuilding in the 1960s, as part of the modernisation of the West Coast Main Line that saw its electrification.
Plans have been announced for a modernisation of the station by mid 2014 </<see here
About the Cache
The cache is a plastic 35mm film canister with a camo’d lid, containing a log. Please bring your own pen. It is a few minutes’ walk from the station – there is no need to cross any roads. The co-ordinates for car parking at the station are shown. Only twenty minutes free though.