Aldermaston railway station

Aldermaston National Rail

The station from the footbridge, with a Network Turbo train of First Great Western passing through.
Location
Place Aldermaston Wharf
Local authority West Berkshire
Grid reference SU601673
Operations
Station code AMT
Managed by Great Western Railway
Number of platforms 2
DfT category F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11 Decrease 61,292
2011/12 Increase 63,784
2012/13 Increase 68,218
2013/14 Increase 77,452
2014/15 Decrease 74,846
History
Original company Great Western Railway
Pre-grouping GWR
Post-grouping GWR
21 December 1847 opened
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Aldermaston from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal
The station looking to the west, showing the footbridge and headshunt siding

Aldermaston railway station is a railway station built to serve the village of Aldermaston in Berkshire, England. The station is at nearby Aldermaston Wharf and about 2 miles (3 km) north from Aldermaston village. It was opened on 21 December 1847.[1]

Description

Aldermaston station is between the A4 road and the settlement of Aldermaston Wharf. It has a flanking platform on each side of the double track line. Each platform has its own independent road access and car park, together with a small shelter. The two platforms are also linked by a footbridge. The Newbury-bound platform is flanked on its offside by a siding, formerly used as a headshunt for access to a nearby freight facility. This siding is now defunct as the new A340 road bridge over the railway line has been built on the track in 2012.

History

The station was built by the Berks and Hants Railway, part of the Great Western Railway and stayed with that company after the Grouping of 1923. The line then passed on to the Western Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.

When Sectorisation was introduced, the station was served by Network SouthEast although trains of the Intercity Sector passed on the Reading to Taunton Line which uses the Berks and Hants to Westbury for some long distance services. This continued until the Privatisation of British Railways.

A 10.5-mile (16.9 km) branch line connecting Aldermaston to the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway (DNS) at Burghclere was proposed.[2][3] The line was authorised but never built.[4] This is because the railway finances were loaned by the London and South Western Railway, who stipulated that the DNS must relinquish the sole rights to running Southampton-bound services and abandon plans for the GWR link at Aldermaston.[5][6] The proposed route roughly followed the Enborne valley, passing south of Brimpton, before following the Gaily Brook and West Clere Scarp near Kingsclere on to Old Burghclere.[6]

Services

The station is served by local services operated by Great Western Railway between Reading and Newbury or Bedwyn. Trains run hourly in both directions on Mondays to Saturdays, and on Sundays service is about every 2 hours. Typical journey times are about 15 minutes to Reading and 16 minutes to Newbury. Passengers for London Paddington must normally change trains at Reading, though there are a small number of weekday peak through trains and a regular service on Sundays.[7]

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Theale   Great Western Railway
Reading - Newbury		   Midgham

References

  1. ↑ "Basingstoke Railway History in Maps". Christopher Tolley. Archived from the original on 6 December 2008. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  2. ↑ Carter, Ernest Frank (1959). An Historical Geography of the Railways of the British Isles. Cassell. p. 414.
  3. ↑ Popplewell, Lawrence (1973). Bournemouth railway history: an exposure of Victorian engineering fraud. Dorset Publishing Co. p. 210.
  4. ↑ Karau, Paul; Parsons, Mike; Robertson, Kevin (1984). An illustrated history of the Didcot, Newbury, and Southampton railway. Upper Bucklebury, Berks.: Wild Swan. pp. viii. ISBN 0906867045.
  5. ↑ Pannell, John Percival Masterman (1969). Old Southampton Shores. David & Charles. p. 139.
  6. 1 2 "RAILWAY MANIA". Kingsclere: Its History and Its People. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  7. ↑ Table 116 National Rail timetable, May 2016

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aldermaston railway station.

Coordinates: 51°24′8″N 1°8′12″W / 51.40222°N 1.13667°W / 51.40222; -1.13667

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/6/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.