Swindon railway station

Swindon railway station is in the town of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The station entrance is on Station Road, to the south of the line. It is approximately from the central bus station and the town centre. It is served by First Great Western services from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads, and the rest of South Wales. Swindon is a major junction, where the former Great Western Railway line to Gloucester and Cheltenham, the Great Western Main Line to Bristol Temple Meads and the Great Western Railway route to Bristol Parkway and South Wales diverge.

History

With the railway passing through town in early 1841, the Goddard Arms public house in Old Swindon was used as a railway booking office in lieu of a station. Tickets purchased included the fare for a horse-drawn carriage to the line at the bottom of the hill. Swindon railway station opened in 1842 with construction of the Great Western Railway's engineering works continuing. Until 1895 every train stopped here for at least 10 minutes to change locomotives. Swindon station hosted the first recorded railway refreshment rooms, divided according to class. Swindonians for a time were eminently proud that even the current King and Queen of the time had partaken of refreshments there. The station in 1842 was of three storeys, with the refreshment rooms on the ground floor, the upper floors comprising the station hotel and lounge. Until 1961, when Swindon Town station closed, the station was known as Swindon Junction. The building was demolished in 1972, with today's modern station and office block erected on the site.

Awards

• 2004 - Station Excellence of the Year Award won. The year-old Platform 4 had saved hundreds of minutes of passenger time as it removed a bottleneck at the station.
• 2005 - Staff at the station received an internal award First for Service for their outstanding customer treatment.

Description

The station consists of an island platform containing a buffet, small shop and waiting room. Adjacent to the main entrance is a booking office. Access to the platforms is through a subway and stairs or lifts. Platform 4 opened in 2003 on the location of the former parcels siding to improve operational flexibility. It contains a coffee shop and waiting room. Ticket barriers are in the main entrance subway and at the foot of the access stairs, adjacent to the Research Council buildings on the north side of the line. The barriers are in place to prevent access to the platforms without a valid ticket. Unfortunately the barriers mean that the station is no longer a through route across the line.

Services

The station has a half hourly service to both Bristol and Cardiff westbound on the main lines, with hourly extensions (and peak extras) to on the latter. These combine to give four trains each hour to Reading and London throughout the day, with a fifth service every second hour from Gloucester. Some westbound Bristol trains continue onwards to or to Taunton, Exeter & Plymouth, whilst there is a single through train each day to via Swansea. There is a basic hourly service on the Golden Valley Line to Gloucester & , with alternate trains running to/from London. There are also two trains per day from here to via (which continue to on Mondays to Fridays only). On Sundays, the service is hourly on both main line routes, either hourly or two-hourly to Cheltenham depending on the time of day and a single train to and from Westbury.

Future plans

It was announced in December 2005 that stations in the Thames Valley region were to be upgraded. Plans for stations improvements bbc.co.uk 13 December 2005 Proposed improvements to Swindon station were: new waiting facilities, toilets, and refreshment facilities; and more car parking spaces, ticket machines, and help desks. Network Rail has plans to redouble the track between Swindon and Kemble, in order to improve rail service between Cheltenham/Gloucester and London. When originally laid in 1842 it was double-track throughout, however 12 miles of the second track were removed in 1968. As of July 2008, the Office of Rail Regulation was receiving submissions to restore this project (previously omitted) to Network Rails plans for 2009-2014. More information is available at the Gloucestershire Transport website (http://www.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/boards/). A recent Parliamentary debate on the Swindon-Kemble line

References