Westbury railway station
Westbury railway station serves the market 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; the Wessex Main Line with services to and from Cardiff and Portsmouth, also Swindon; the Heart of Wessex Line with local services from Bristol Temple Meads to Weymouth; and services to London Waterloo.
History
The station was opened by the Weymouth Railway on 5 September 1848 and was the initial terminus of their line from. This line was later extended to, which opened on 7 October 1850. The Salisbury branch opened on 30 June 1856, whilst the opening of the line to Patney & Chirton in 1900 completed the GWR's new main line from London Paddington to and beyond.In the 1880s, the station was one of the meeting places of the South and West Wilts Hunt.
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. It has since been rebuilt and remodelled several times, most recently when the area was resignalled in 1985, 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.
A freight yard next to the station is used by bulk limestone trains from the rail-served quarries at Merehead and Whatley in Somerset. In April 2009, the rail-served Lafarge cement works to the east was closed.
Accidents and incidents
On 28 October 1873, a mail train passed a signal at danger and collided with a luggage train.On 6 December 2011, a train was derailed at Westbury.
Facilities
The buffet at Westbury appeared in a list of highly commended station cafes published in The Guardian in 2009.Services
The station is served by all three main routes that pass through it:- Reading to Taunton Line: the station is served by westbound trains to one of,,, or ; eastbound services go to, which depart approximately once every two hours.
- Wessex Main Line: Services between, and, with a separate service between, Bristol and Westbury. Some of these trains continue through to Weymouth and in the opposite direction certain trains extend through to and. Others run to Frome, Warminster and Southampton.
- TransWilts Line: this line hosts services between Westbury and, via, and.