Cholsey railway station, previously known as Cholsey and Moulsford railway station, is a railway station located in the village of Cholsey

Cholsey

Cholsey is a village and civil parish south of Wallingford, in South Oxfordshire. In 1974 it was transferred from Berkshire to the county of Oxfordshire, and from Wallingford Rural District to the district of South Oxfordshire....

 in Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The station is principally served by services operated by First Great Western

First Great Western

First Great Western is the operating name of First Greater Western Ltd, a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that serves Greater London, the South East, South West and West Midlands regions of England, and South Wales....

 (FGW), and also is junction terminus for heritage railway

Heritage railway

thumb|right|the Historical [[Khyber train safari|Khyber Railway]] goes through the [[Khyber Pass]], [[Pakistan]]A heritage railway , preserved railway , tourist railway , or tourist railroad is a railway that is run as a tourist attraction, in some cases by volunteers, and...

 services on the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway

Cholsey and Wallingford Railway

The Cholsey and Wallingford Railway is a long standard gauge heritage railway in the English county of Oxfordshire. It operates along most of the length of the former Wallingford branch of the Great Western Railway , from Cholsey station, north of Reading on the Great Western Main Line, to a...

.

The station features in the 2008 "Skills Train" advert, using Platform 2 which is usually closed to the public.

Services

Cholsey station is served by stopping services run by FGW between and . Most of these services start or continue as semi-fast services between Reading and and run twice hourly for most of the day, and hourly on Sundays. Typical journey times are approximately 20 minutes to Reading and Oxford, and just over 1 hour to Paddington.

Services on the volunteer run Cholsey and Wallingford railway run intermittently, usually on weekends and bank holiday

Bank Holiday

A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or a colloquialism for public holiday in Ireland. There is no automatic right to time off on these days, although the majority of the population is granted time off work or extra pay for working on these days, depending on their contract...

s.

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.

Platforms

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 FGW services during engineering and maintenance work.
• Platform 2 – is only used when the relief lines are out of service. It is for up FGW services during engineering and maintenance work.
• Platform 3 – for down FGW local services to Oxford, and .
• Platform 4 – for up FGW local services to Reading and .
• Platform 5 – is a west-facing bay platform
  Bay platform
  Bay platform is a railway-related term commonly used in the UK and Australia to describe a dead-end platform at a railway station that has through lines...
  
   currently used for Cholsey and Wallingford Railway
  Cholsey and Wallingford Railway
  The Cholsey and Wallingford Railway is a long standard gauge heritage railway in the English county of Oxfordshire. It operates along most of the length of the former Wallingford branch of the Great Western Railway , from Cholsey station, north of Reading on the Great Western Main Line, to a...
  
   heritage services to .

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 (55.9 m/s).

History

The station is on the original line of the Great Western Railway

Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

, which opened on 1 June 1840.
The original station, opened with the line and known as Wallingford Road

Moulsford railway station

Moulsford railway station was on the original route of the Great Western Railway, being one of three intermediate stations provided when the line was extended from to in 1840.-History:The Great Western Railway was built and opened in stages...

, was several hundred yards further up the main line towards , just east of the point where the A329 road

A329 road

The A329 is an east-west road in Southern England that runs from Wentworth in Surrey to Thame in Oxfordshire. The A329 starts at the A30 in Surrey and passes through the towns of Ascot, Bracknell, Wokingham, Earley, Reading, the village of Pangbourne, and Wallingford in Oxfordshire...

 crosses the line . 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 was opened; whilst the junction for this was at Moulsford station, the branch line track ran parallel to the main line for nearly 1 miles (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.

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.

Routes

External links

• Train times for main line services, from National Rail
  National Rail
  National Rail is a title used by the Association of Train Operating Companies as a generic term to define the passenger rail services operated in Great Britain...
  
  
• Train times for heritage services, from Cholsey and Wallingford Railway
  Cholsey and Wallingford Railway
  The Cholsey and Wallingford Railway is a long standard gauge heritage railway in the English county of Oxfordshire. It operates along most of the length of the former Wallingford branch of the Great Western Railway , from Cholsey station, north of Reading on the Great Western Main Line, to a...
  
  
• Station information, from National Rail