Melksham railway station

Melksham
Location
Place	Melksham
Local authority	County of Wiltshire
Coordinates	51°22′47″N 2°08′41″W / 51.3798°N 2.1446°W / 51.3798; -2.1446Coordinates: 51°22′47″N 2°08′41″W / 51.3798°N 2.1446°W / 51.3798; -2.1446
Grid reference	ST900645
Operations
Station code	MKM
Managed by	Great Western Railway
Number of platforms	1
DfT category	F2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2012/13	12,080
2013/14	23,930
2014/15	51,858
2015/16	60,676
2016/17	74,666
History
Original company	Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway
5 September 1848	Opened
1966	Closed
1985	Reopened
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Melksham from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Melksham railway station serves the town of Melksham in Wiltshire, England. It is 100 miles 13 chains (161.2 km) measured from London Paddington, on the TransWilts Line between Chippenham and Trowbridge that was originally part of the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway, absorbed in 1850 by the Great Western Railway.

History

The station opened with the original section of the line between Thingley Junction and Westbury, on 5 September 1848.^[1] British Railways closed the station from 18 April 1966 and soon afterwards the line through the station was singled, the station buildings demolished, and the up platform removed.^[2] The station reopened to passengers from 13 May 1985,^[3] although the short platform meant that trains longer than one carriage could not open all doors.^[4] In July 2018, the platform was improved and lengthened to cater for trains of up to three carriages.^[5][6]

The station had a siding which gave access to the former Wiltshire United Dairies/United Dairies creamery, last owned by Co-operative Wholesale Society Dairies, allowing access for milk trains. After its closure the dairy was converted into an industrial estate. From the 1960s to the mid 1980s there was a rail-served Shell oil depot at Melksham run first by Jack Dean (oils) and later by Hartwells Oils. This received heating oil from a refinery at Llandarcy in west Wales but closed around 1983. During the 1970s, Foster Yeoman operated a roadstone terminal in the former goods yard which was rail-served from Merehead Quarry. The Wiltshire Farmers Ltd also had a private siding south of the station which was used until c.1989 for occasional deliveries of bagged fertiliser, but was removed in 1990.

Services

The Melksham train

Between December 2006 and December 2013, Melksham station was served by two trains each way per day (one train on Sundays) between Swindon and Westbury, operated by First Great Western (now Great Western Railway), a reduction from five each way per day before the December 2006 timetable change.^[7]

Since December 2013, Melksham has a significantly improved service.^[8] Trains now run approximately every two hours each way Mon-Sat (with peak period extras – nine departures in total) and six trains each way on Sundays. Two weekday southbound services run through to Southampton Central.

The Melksham single line serves as a diversionary route when either the Paddington-Westbury-Taunton or Taunton-Bristol Temple Meads-Bath routes are closed for engineering work or otherwise disrupted; occasional use is also made of the line by Freightliner trains running between Southampton and the Midlands when their normal route via Basingstoke and Reading is unavailable. GWR's hourly Portsmouth Harbour-Cardiff Central services are sometimes diverted via Melksham to terminate and start at Swindon rather than Cardiff when engineering work is taking place between Bath, Bristol and the Severn Tunnel in connection with the electrification of the Great Western main line. The downside of these diversions is that the local Westbury-Swindon 'Trans Wilts' service often has to be covered by a Rail Replacement bus service as there are insufficient paths available over the eight-mile single line section due to a lack of intermediate signal sections.

A number of Mendip Rail aggregate trains from the quarries at Merehead and Whatley also use the line, serving destinations such as Appleford, Oxford Banbury Road, Wootton Bassett and Acton (London). A train of empty ballast hoppers operated by GB Railfreight runs most weekdays from Westbury via Melksham to Cliffe Hill Stud Farm in Leicestershire.

From summer 2015 a ticket vending machine has been in use on the platform, enabling passengers to either purchase their tickets or collect pre-paid tickets for their journey. An additional 20 free car parking spaces were provided at the same time, together with covered cycle accommodation, CCTV and a new passenger shelter.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Chippenham		Great Western Railway Wessex Main Line		Trowbridge

Save The Train

The 'Save The Train' group was launched in 2005, to raise public awareness that services along the TransWilts Line were being reduced.^[9] Prior to the introduction of extra services in late 2013, 'Save the Train' members transferred to the community element of the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership.^[10]

References

External links

• Media related to Melksham railway station at Wikimedia Commons
• "TransWilts". transwilts.org. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
• "The story of the railway land at Melksham Station". TransWilts. Melksham: Well House Consultants. 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2016.