Swindon railway station

Swindon
Location
Place	Swindon
Local authority	Swindon (borough)
Coordinates	51.5656°N 1.7854°W / 51.5656; -1.7854
Grid reference	SU149851
Operations
Station code	SWI
Managed by	First Great Western
Number of platforms	4
Live arrivals/departures and station information from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage
2002/03 *	2.117 million
2004/05 *	2.257 million
2005/06 *	2.340 million
2006/07 *	2.515 million
2007/08 *	2.759 million
2008/09 *	2.905 million
2009/10 *	2.835 million
History
Original company	Great Western Railway
Pre-grouping	GWR
Post-grouping	GWR
1842	"Swindon Junction" opened
1961	Renamed "Swindon"
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 Swindon from Office of Rail Regulation statistics. Please note: methodology may vary year on year.

Swindon railway station is in the town of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It 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.

It is approximately 200 metres (220 yd) from the central bus station and the town centre. It is served by First Great Western services from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads, Cardiff Central and the rest of South Wales.

History

See also: History of Swindon, Swindon Works, and Great Western Railway

The former British Rail logo above the station can be seen from a distance and helps travellers locate it

With the railway passing through the 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 built 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.

FGW service to Westbury at Platform 1

Platform 4 opened in 2003.

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.

Services

A 1906 Railway Clearing House map of railways in the vicinity of Swindon

Swindon Area Railway Map
Legend GWML to London Highworth branch line Stratton Stratton Park Halt Stratton St Margaret Works M&SWJR to Cheltenham M&SWJR to Southampton Hayes Knoll Chiseldon Camp Halt Blunsdon Chiseldon Moredon Platform Swindon Town Moredon Power Station Swindon Rushey Platt Purton Golden Valley Line Wootton Bassett SWML to Swansea GWML to Bristol

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Kemble		First Great Western London - Cheltenham Spa		Didcot Parkway or Reading
Bristol Parkway		First Great Western London - Cardiff/Swansea
Chippenham		First Great Western London - Bristol
Kemble		First Great Western Cheltenham Spa - Swindon		Terminus
Chippenham		First Great Western Wessex Main Line (Limited service)

Future plans

It was announced in December 2005 that stations in the Thames Valley region were to be upgraded.

Network Rail has plans to redouble the track between Swindon and Kemble in order to improve rail services between Cheltenham/Gloucester and London. When originally laid in 1842 the line was double-track throughout, however some 12+¹⁄₄ miles (20 km) of the second track were removed in 1968/69. As of July 2008, the Office of Rail Regulation was receiving submissions to restore this project (previously omitted) to Network Rail's plans for 2009-2014. The project cost was estimated at £50.2m and received backing from the South West Development Agency and others but stalled when it was left out of the new Coalition Government's Spending Review in October 2010. The project still has strong support from local MPs who are continuing to lobby DfT Ministers.

On 1 March 2011, Philip Hammond MP, the UK Coalition Government's Secretary of State for Transport announced that he had resumed plans for electrifying the Great Western main line west from Didcot through Swindon to Bristol and Cardiff at a planned cost of £704m. The DfT's statement confirms that new electric trains would be procured from Hitachi, manufactured in a new factory in the North East, in the related £4.5bn InterCity Express Programme (IEP). The electrification project had first been announced by the previous Labour Government's Transport Secretary, Lord Andrew Adonis, on 23 July 2009.

In February 2011, Wiltshire County Council and Wessex Chamber of Commerce jointly commissioned Network Rail to evaluate construction of a new station at Wootton Bassett, west of Swindon, to serve the Interface Business Park. The station would be built on the site of the previous station which closed in 1965.