Glenrothes with Thornton railway station

Glenrothes with Thornton railway station serves the communities of Glenrothes and Thornton in Fife, Scotland. The station is managed by ScotRail and is on the Fife Circle Line, 31+1/4 mi north of Edinburgh Waverley.

History
The station is situated on the Dunfermline branch of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, just west of its divergence from the E&NR main line via a triangular junction. It is a completely new structure, having been built by British Rail with the support of Fife Regional Council to serve the two communities that it is named after. Glenrothes (as a post-war new town) had never previously had its own station (though Markinch station is nearby) whilst Thornton had lost its station (Thornton Junction) on the main line in October 1969 in the aftermath of the Beeching Axe (services on the line westwards to Cardenden and on the Leven branch had ended at the same time).

The successful inauguration of the Fife Circle Line service in 1989 had seen the Cardenden to Thornton Jn section reopened to passengers and this provided the catalyst for the construction of the station. It was completed in the spring of 1992 and it was opened to traffic on 11 May that year, at the summer timetable change.

Though it has the appearance of a standard two platform station on a double track line, it is actually sited east of Thornton West Junction, where the double line from Cardenden splits into two parallel single lines that diverge after passing through the station to join the main line. One of these runs southwards to Thornton South Junction and is used by all trains to and from Edinburgh via the coast, whilst the other curves to the north and is used by trains heading for Markinch and thence to Perth or Dundee. As a consequence of this, both platforms are bi-directional (a similar layout exists at Bare Lane in Lancashire) but the southern one (platform 1) is much busier than the northern one (2) due to the service pattern in use on the Fife Circle.

Services
On Mondays to Saturdays, there are three trains per hour to Edinburgh. The majority of services in either direction depart from Platform 1 as noted. Two of these services run via Kirkcaldy (one of which starts and terminates here) whilst the other runs via Dunfermline. In the evenings, trains to Edinburgh only run via Dunfermline. On Sundays, an hourly service runs to Edinburgh both via Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline.

There is a very limited service to/from Perth. On Monday to Saturdays, there is only 1 train per day to Perth, while there are two trains from Perth which call here going to Edinburgh. On Sundays, there is also 1 train per day northbound, but there are three trains from Perth to Edinburgh.