Westbury railway station

Westbury National Rail
View from the north
Location
Place Westbury
Local authority Wiltshire
Coordinates 51°15′59″N 2°11′58″W / 51.2665°N 2.1995°W / 51.2665; -2.1995Coordinates: 51°15′59″N 2°11′58″W / 51.2665°N 2.1995°W / 51.2665; -2.1995
Grid reference ST861519
Operations
Station code WSB
Managed by Great Western Railway
Number of platforms 3
DfT category D
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2012/13 Increase 0.467 million
2013/14 Increase 0.487 million
2014/15 Increase 0.529 million
2015/16 Increase 0.544 million
2016/17 Increase 0.578 million
History
Original company Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway
Pre-grouping Great Western Railway
Post-grouping Great Western Railway
5 September 1848 Station opened as terminus of line from Chippenham
7 October 1850 Line extended to Frome
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Westbury from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Westbury railway station is a railway station serving the town of Westbury in Wiltshire, England. The station is managed by Great Western Railway.

The station is a major junction, serving the Reading to Taunton line with services to and from Penzance and London Paddington, Wessex Main Line with services to and from Cardiff and Portsmouth, services to Swindon, Heart of Wessex Line providing local services from Bristol Temple Meads to Weymouth, and services to London Waterloo.

The buffet at Westbury appeared in a list of "highly commended" station cafes published in The Guardian in 2009.[1]

History

A map of the rail routes radiating from Westbury to (clockwise from top left)Bristol/Chippenham, London, Salisbury, Weymouth/Penzance. Not to scale.
Railway routes around Westbury in 2009

The station was opened by the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) on 5 September 1848,[2] and was the initial terminus of the WS&WR line from Chippenham. This line was later extended to Frome, which opened on 7 October 1850.[3] The Salisbury branch opened on 30 June 1856, whilst the opening of the line to Patney & Chirton in 1900 (along with that further west from Castle Cary to Cogload Junction six years later) completed the GWR's new main line from London Paddington to Taunton and beyond.

In the 1880s, the station was one of the meeting places of the South and West Wilts Hunt.[4]

In 1899, Westbury station was entirely rebuilt to cater for the 1900 line, creating two island platforms six hundred feet long and forty feet wide.[5][6] It has since been rebuilt and remodelled several times, most recently when the area was resignalled in 1985 (when the Down Salisbury platform line was lifted), but without changing the underlying form created in 1901. In 2013 the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Transport Body prioritised the reopening of this platform face at an estimated cost of £5.4m.[7] A freight yard next to the station is used by bulk limestone trains from the rail-served quarries at Merehead and Whatley in Somerset.[8] In April 2009 the rail-served Lafarge cement works to the east closed and was mothballed.[9]

Accidents and incidents

  • On 28 October 1873, a mail train passed a signal at danger and collided with a luggage train.[10]
  • On 6 December 2011, a train was derailed at Westbury.[11]

Services

A First Great Western train from Weymouth to Bristol

The station is served by all three main routes that pass through it. On the main Reading to Taunton Line, the station is served by westbound trains to one of Exeter St Davids, Plymouth, or Penzance; and eastbound services to London Paddington.[12]

There is a service on the Cardiff Central to Southampton Central and Portsmouth Harbour Wessex Main Line, and a separate service between Gloucester, Bristol and Westbury on this route. Some of these trains continue through to Weymouth and in the opposite direction certain trains extend through to Cheltenham Spa and Great Malvern. Others run to Frome, Warminster and Southampton, along with through trains to and from Brighton.[13]

South Western Railway runs a service between Bristol and London Waterloo via Salisbury that calls here.[14] There are also limited services to Yeovil Pen Mill.

There are also services between Westbury and Swindon via Chippenham, Trowbridge and Melksham, on the original Wilts, Somerset & Weymouth line. The frequency on this route was improved substantially (to eight trains each way weekdays, five on Sundays) at the December 2013 timetable change.[13]

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Pewsey or Newbury   Great Western Railway
Reading to Taunton line		   Castle Cary
Trowbridge or Terminus   Great Western Railway
Wessex Line (Limited Service)		   Frome
  Great Western Railway
Wessex Main Line		   Dilton Marsh
  Great Western Railway
Swindon-Westbury/Southampton (Limited Service)		   Terminus or Warminster
Trowbridge   Great Western Railway
Weymouth Wizard
(Summer Saturdays Only)		   Frome
Trowbridge   Great Western Railway
Cardiff Central - Portsmouth Harbour		   Warminster
Trowbridge   South Western Railway
London Waterloo - Bristol (Limited Service)		   Warminster
Frome   South Western Railway
Heart of Wessex Line (Limited Service)		   Terminus or Warminster

Future

At present, the line to Westbury is not due to be electrified as part of the 21st-century modernisation of the Great Western Main Line. Although local councillors support it, the extension of electrification beyond Newbury to Westbury was assessed as having a benefit–cost ratio of only 0.31.[15]

References

  1. ↑ Wills, Dixe (2009-05-12). "Ten of the best railway cafes". Guardian. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  2. ↑ Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 244. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
  3. ↑ Butt 1995, p. 100
  4. ↑ Hunting Appointments in The Times, 8 March 1884, pg. 7, col. E
  5. ↑ Oakley, Mike (2004). Wiltshire Railway Stations. Wimborne: The Dovecote Press. pp. 140–141. ISBN 1904349331.
  6. ↑ New Route to Weymouth in The Times, 2 July 1901, pg. 10, col. C
  7. ↑ "Transport Schemes - Prioritisation Process and Provisional Programme, Agenda Item 6, Table 5: Prioritised Schemes" (PDF). Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  8. ↑ Railscot - Photos of Westbury www.railbrit.co.uk; Retrieved 2013-09-17
  9. ↑ James Williams (1 May 2009). "Lafarge cements a place in county's history". Wiltshire Times. Trowbridge, UK. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
  10. ↑ "Collision on the North Western Railway". The Pall Mall Gazette (2716). London. 29 October 1875.
  11. ↑ "Train derails at Westbury causing rail delays". BBC News Online. 6 December 2011. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  12. ↑ GB National Rail Timetable May–December 2016, Table 135
  13. 1 2 GB National Rail Timetable May–December 2016, Table 123
  14. ↑ National Rail Timetable 2016, Table 160Network Rail;Retrieved 5 October 2016
  15. ↑ Haigh, Philip (10–23 July 2013). "Government commits to long-term rail investment". RAIL. Vol. 726. p. 8.
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