Abingdon railway station

Abingdon
Abingdon 1970 - brewery maltings to right
Location
Place	Abingdon
Area	Vale of White Horse
Coordinates	51°40′20″N 1°16′48″W / 51.67223°N 1.28009°WCoordinates: 51°40′20″N 1°16′48″W / 51.67223°N 1.28009°W
Grid reference	SU499973
Operations
Original company	Abingdon Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	GWR
Platforms	1
History
2 June 1856	Station opens
November 1872	Converted to standard gauge
9 September 1963	Station closes to passengers
June 1984	Station closed to freight
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
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Abingdon railway station was a station which until 1963 served the town of Abingdon, then in Berkshire, now in Oxfordshire, in England.

History

DMU at the station platform in the 1960s.

The station was built by the Abingdon Railway, although this was operated by the Great Western Railway (GWR) from opening on 2 June 1856. The station and yard were built to the broad gauge on land acquired from the Mayor and Aldermen of the Borough of Abingdon on 19 March 1856 at a cost of £472. Seven properties were demolished to make way for the station and yard, including the Plough Inn which was subsequently rebuilt at a different location. The approach to the station from Stert Street had gates and no public right of way was allowed.^[1] Station facilities consisted of a single platform covered by a timber train shed.^[1] A locomotive shed was built on land which was never formally conveyed to the railway, but later acquired by adverse possession.^[1]

The Abingdon Railway was absorbed by the GWR on 15 August 1904.^[2] The line passed on to the Western Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948, and was then closed to passengers by the British Railways Board in 1963. However the branch was used by freight, notably MG Cars, and the occasional passenger excursion, the last of which took place in June 1984.

The branch track was lifted in the late 1980s. A fraction of the former railway line is now used for a cyclepath, while the station and the adjoining part of the line near the town centre have been overbuilt by a supermarket, parking and other development.

Routes

Preceding station	Disused railways			Following station
Abingdon Junction Station closed; Line open before 1872		Abingdon Railway Great Western Railway		Terminus
Radley Station open; Line open after 1872		Abingdon Railway Great Western Railway

Notes

1. Trippett & de Courtais 1985, p. 5.
2. "Railway Companies acquired by the GWR". Retrieved 15 April 2009.

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687.
• Trippett, Nigel; de Courtais, Nicholas (1985). The Abingdon Branch. Upper Bucklebury, Berks.: Wild Swan Publications Ltd. ISBN 0-906867-29-0.

External links

• Station on navigable O.S. map
• Sub Brit site
• GWR Abingdon Branch
• Track diagram
• Disused stations - with maps and photos