Cholsey railway station

Cholsey railway station (previously Cholsey & Moulsford) serves the village of Cholsey in south Oxfordshire, England. It is 48 miles 37 chains (78.0 km) down the line from London Paddington and is situated between Goring & Streatley to the east and Didcot Parkway to the west.

Cholsey
Station buildings from street level
Location
Place	Cholsey
Local authority	District of South Oxfordshire
Grid reference	SU584860
Operations
Station code	CHO
Managed by	Great Western Railway
Number of platforms	5
DfT category	E
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2014/15	0.272 million
2015/16	0.275 million
2016/17	0.281 million
2017/18	0.272 million
2018/19	0.290 million
History
Key dates	Opened 29 February 1892 (29 February 1892)
Original company	Great Western Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway
1 June 1840	GWR Reading to Steventon opened
29 February 1892	Station opens as Cholsey and Moulsford
ca. 1950	Renamed Cholsey
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Cholsey from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.

The station is managed by Great Western Railway, which operates local services to Didcot Parkway, Oxford, Reading and London Paddington. Cholsey is also the junction for the heritage railway services on the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway. The station has five platforms, but two of them are out of use so fast trains can pass through, so you need permission to enter these platforms. Platform 5 is only used in summer for steam services.

Layout

The station frontage building is on two levels, with station offices in the lower (street) level and the London bound waiting room on the upper (platform) level. There are two small car parks, one at street level in front of the station building, the other at platform level to the south of the station.

The station has platforms on each of the fast and relief (slow) lines, although the platforms on the fast lines see little use. It also has a terminal platform used by trains on the Wallingford line. The platforms are located on an embankment, with access to street level by stairs and a pedestrian underpass.

• Platform 1 – is only used when the relief lines are out of service. It is for down GWR services during engineering and maintenance work.
• Platform 2 – is only used when the relief lines are out of service. It is for up GWR services during engineering and maintenance work.
• Platform 3 – for down GWR local services towards Didcot Parkway and Oxford.
• Platform 4 – for up GWR local services towards Reading and London Paddington.
• Platform 5 – is a west-facing bay platform currently used for Cholsey and Wallingford Railway heritage services to Wallingford.

High-speed passenger and freight trains pass through platforms 1 – 4 with little or no warning. As with any station, it is advisable to keep a safe distance from the platform edge, particularly on platforms 1 and 2 as trains can pass through at speeds of up to 125 miles per hour (201 km/h).

History

Wallingford branch train in 1959

The station is on the original line of the Great Western Railway, which opened on 1 June 1840.[1] The original station, opened with the line and known as Wallingford Road, was several hundred yards further up the main line towards Goring & Streatley, just east of the point where the A329 road crosses the line (grid reference SU592851). Some of the original station buildings can still be seen at this point. On 2 July 1866 Wallingford Road station was renamed Moulsford and the branch to Wallingford was opened five days later;[2] whilst the junction for this was at Moulsford station, the branch line track ran parallel to the main line for nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) before curving away.

In 1892, during quadrupling of the main line, the junction for Wallingford was resited closer to the point of divergence and a new station was built there. On 29 February 1892 the new station opened and Moulsford station closed.[3]

The Wallingford branch closed to passenger trains in 1959 and to freight trains in 1981. Part of it is now preserved as the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway.

Services

A GWR service to Oxford

Cholsey station is mostly served by stopping services run by GWR between London Paddington and Didcot Parkway with some services running between Reading and Oxford in the morning and evening peak times. Services run every 30 minutes in each direction Monday to Saturday and hourly on Sundays. Typical journey times are approximately 7 minutes to Didcot Parkway, 20 minutes to Reading and Oxford, and just over 1 hour to Paddington.[4]

Services on the volunteer-run Cholsey and Wallingford railway run intermittently, usually on weekends and bank holidays.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Didcot Parkway		Great Western Railway Commuter services Great Western Main Line		Goring & Streatley
	Heritage railways
Wallingford		Cholsey and Wallingford Railway Occasional service		Terminus
	Historical railways
Didcot Line and station open		Great Western Railway Great Western Main Line		Moulsford Line open, station closed
Wallingford Line open, station closed		Great Western Railway Wallingford Branch Line		Terminus

References

1. MacDermot, E.T. (1927). "Chapter IV Construction". History of the Great Western Railway. Vol. I Part I (1st ed.). Paddington: Great Western Railway. p. 102.
2. MacDermot, E.T. (1931). "Chapter I A Critical Period (1863–1869)". History of the Great Western Railway. Vol. II (1st ed.). Paddington: Great Western Railway. pp. 42–43.
3. Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (March 2002). "Figures 57-59". Reading to Didcot. Western Main Lines. Midhurst: Middleton Press. ISBN 1-901706-79-6.
4. https://www.gwr.com/~/media/gwr/pdfs/timetables/2018/amended-june/t10,-d-,web-v2.pdf?la=en

External links

• Train times for main line services, from National Rail
• Train times for heritage services, from Cholsey and Wallingford Railway
• Station information, from National Rail