Westbury railway station

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

This article is about the station in Wiltshire, England. For the former station in Shropshire, England, see Westbury railway station (Shropshire). For the station in New York, USA, see Westbury (LIRR station).

Westbury
The entrance to the station is at ground level with the platforms behind and above
Location
Place	Westbury
Local authority	Wiltshire
Coordinates	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*
2014/15	0.529 million
2015/16	0.544 million
2016/17	0.578 million
2017/18	0.569 million
2018/19	0.549 million
– Interchange	0.235 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.

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

View of the station

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 Great Western Railway Class 800 from London Paddington and an South Western Railway Class 159 going to London Waterloo

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]

Railway routes around Westbury in 2009

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 (12 May 2009). "Ten of the best railway cafes". Guardian. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
2. Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 244. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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. GB National Rail Timetable May–December 2016, Table 123
14. National Rail Timetable 2016, Table 160 Archived 19 September 2016 at the Wayback MachineNetwork Rail;Retrieved 5 October 2016
15. Haigh, Philip (10–23 July 2013). "Government commits to long-term rail investment". RAIL. Vol. 726. p. 8.

External links

• Video footage of Westbury railway station