Chippenham railway station

Chippenham
The station buildings, seen from the south west. Front of the station.
Location
Place	Chippenham
Local authority	Wiltshire
Coordinates	51.4625°N 2.1154°W / 51.4625; -2.1154
Grid reference	ST920737
Operations
Station code	CPM
Managed by	First Great Western
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures and station information from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage
2002/03 *	1.151 million
2004/05 *	1.257 million
2005/06 *	1.316 million
2006/07 *	1.415 million
2007/08 *	1.473 million
2008/09 *	1.560 million
2009/10 *	1.517 million
History
Original company	Great Western Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway
31 May 1841	Opened
National Rail - UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Chippenham from Office of Rail Regulation statistics. Please note: methodology may vary year on year.

Chippenham railway station serves the market town of Chippenham in Wiltshire, England. The station is on the Great Western Main Line, (and connects to the Wessex Main Line via Melksham) in between Swindon and Bath Spa, and is served by First Great Western main line services between Bristol Temple Meads and London Paddington, and a smaller First Great Western local service that runs between Swindon and Trowbridge, via Chippenham and Melksham over the northern end of the former Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway. It was also the junction for a GWR branch line to Calne from 1863 until its closure as part of the 'Beeching Axe in 1965. Only two of the three platforms at the station are now in use, with the old platform by the main entrance disused but has an outside seating area. The station is managed and operated by First Great Western.

History

The main line of the Great Western Railway (GWR) was authorised in 1835, and opened in stages. The section between Hay Lane and Chippenham opened on 31 May 1841. The final section of the GWR main line, between Chippenham and Bath, opened on 30 June 1841.

Chippenham was soon served by other lines. The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was authorised in 1845 and the first section opened on 5 September 1848; this ran from Thingley Junction, west of Chippenham, to Westbury, and the WS&WR was absorbed by the GWR in 1851. The Calne Railway was authorised in 1860 and opened on 3 November 1863; this company remained independent for some years, until absorbed by the GWR in 1892.

A goods shed was constructed during 1858. A railway connection was laid to Chippenham Gas Works in 1906. This connection closed in 1932. Chippenham engine shed closed in March 1964 and services on the Calne branch stopped in 1965. Chippenham East and West signal boxes closed on 21 August 1966. As from 1 February 1976 the original down platform was taken out of use and services heading west used the south side of the island platform. Closed to goods on 31 December 1980.^{[citation needed]}

Description

The original station building at Chippenham was to Isambard Kingdom Brunel's design and was opened in 1841. With the subsequent opening of new lines to Salisbury and Weymouth, the station was not adequate to meet the increased demand and was redesigned by J H Bertram in 1856-58; it is Grade II listed. It is constructed in Bath stone ashlar with a bay window at one end and a wing at the other making a long, low composition.

In the station yard, there is another Grade II listed building partly in random stone but mainly weather-boarded on a timber frame with a pitched slate roof. It is an early weighbridge house and coal merchant's office. It is known that coal merchants opened a depot in 1840 and the building dates from that time. The building is painted dark green and currently leased by North Wiltshire Artspace (charity), and rented out to various groups.^{[citation needed]}

Immediately west of the station lies Chippenham Viaduct designed by Brunel in 1841. It is Grade II listed. The first arch, over New Road, appears to have been modelled on the Roman triumphal arch. It has a 26-foot (7.9 m) span and is flanked by two smaller pedestrian arches of 10 feet (3.0 m). All is surmounted by a heavy cornice and parapet. The north side is constructed from Bath Stone Ashlar with some brick patching while the south side is in blue brick following widening in the early 1900s.

Platforms

Platform 1 is used for Great Western Main Line HST services to Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Taunton, Exeter, Plymouth, Paignton & Penzance from London. It is also used for Wessex Main Line services to Melksham, Trowbridge, Westbury, Warminster, Salisbury & Southampton from Swindon, Cheltenham or Great Malvern, and HST services towards London from Bristol and beyond.

Platform 2 is used for Great Western Main Line HST services towards Swindon, Reading, Didcot, Slough and London Paddington from Bristol, Weston-super-Mare, Taunton and beyond. It is also used for services to Kemble, Stroud, Stonehouse, Gloucester & Cheltenham Spa from Westbury, and HST services towards Bristol from London.

On the disused platform there is cycle storage and a seating area.

Services

A High Speed Train to Bristol

The station has frequent services to Swindon, Reading and London and to Bath and Bristol Temple Meads, with some Bristol trains continuing to Weston-super-Mare and beyond. There are some train services to Swansea and Cardiff station however, are less frequent with one early in the morning to Swansea via Bristol, Newport and Cardiff and one late evening service to Cardiff Central via Bristol and Newport. Bristol and London (with one train per hour additionally calling at Didcot) services operate approximately every half hour in each direction Monday to Saturday, with some through services to/from Weston-super-Mare and beyond (these run mainly during the weekday business peaks, although certain summer Saturday trains also operate).

The service to Trowbridge and Westbury is much less frequent, with just one morning and one evening train each way per day since 2006 (compared to five each way prior to that). Monday to Friday services run to Southampton Central, although those in the opposite direction start from Westbury, services to Southampton usually come from Great Malvern or from Cheltenham Spa. There is a service to Cheltenham Spa via Swindon and Gloucester in the morning and late afternoon. There are also two Saturday services each way (but at different times to the weekday ones) and a single train each way on Sundays.

Chippenham station connects to the Wessex Main Line via Melksham.

There was a proposal in 2010 from GOCO to run a service from Birmingham Moor Street, via Oxford and Swindon, to Yeovil, which would call at Chippenham. This would avoid passengers having to change at Didcot or Reading. The company planned to start running services by December 2011, but no firm announcements have been made since.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Bath Spa		First Great Western London - Bristol and beyond		Swindon
Melksham		First Great Western Wessex Main Line
	Disused railways
Terminus		BR (Western Region) Chippenham and Calne Line		Stanley Bridge Halt

Future

There are plans to electrify the Great Western Main Line, which conveniently Chippenham lies on. This would introduce new trains on the line meaning a more modern experience and more capacity space on the train, with 10 carriages. It would also make the trains faster, meaning journeys would take a shorter amount of time and become more reliable and would be better for the environment. Also, Chippenham will be one of the stations who will take part in the Access for All scheme. This will then help disabled and less abled passengers to catch services more easily with the instillation of lifts, new accessible foot bridges and tactile paving. The AfA scheme is a ten year programme.

Engineering works

Immediately to the north of the station itself is an engineering works, originally founded to support the Great Western Railway, and now supplying equipment to the worldwide rail industry. It was founded in 1842 by Rowland Brotherhood and, as of 2008, is occupied by Invensys Rail Systems and its UK manufacturing subsidiary, Westinghouse Rail Systems. For most of its life, it manufactured railway air braking systems and railway signalling.