Penryn railway station

Penryn
Looking towards Truro railway station
Location
Place	Penryn
Local authority	Cornwall
Coordinates	50°10′15″N 5°06′42″W / 50.1708°N 5.11155°WCoordinates: 50°10′15″N 5°06′42″W / 50.1708°N 5.11155°W
Grid reference	SW779346
Operations
Station code	PYN
Managed by	Great Western Railway
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2002/03	51,934
2004/05	53,069
2005/06	58,759
2006/07	67,472
2007/08	77,056
2008/09	93,488
2009/10	0.145 million
2010/11	0.180 million
2011/12	0.211 million
2012/13	0.230 million
2013/14	0.249 million
2014/15	0.267 million
History
Original company	Cornwall Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway
opened	1863
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Penryn from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Penryn station is on the Maritime Line from Truro to Falmouth Docks, and serves the town of Penryn, Cornwall, England as well as Penryn Campus (formerly known as Tremough Campus). The services are operated by Great Western Railway.

History

The station was opened by the Cornwall Railway in 1863. It originally had a passing loop but was rationalised to just a single platform when the line was being run by British Rail.

A new 400 metres (440 yd) passing loop was installed in 2008,^[1] being brought into use in 2009 before the new timetable commenced on 17 May as this called for two trains to be in operation on the branch for most of the day.^[2] To pay for this work £4.67million was provided from European Union funds, £2.5million from Cornwall Council, and £600,000 from Network Rail.^[3] The new works were formally opened by Kevin Lavery, the Chief Executive of Cornwall Council, on 18 May 2009.^[4]

Description

Direction signs erected in 2009

There is a single platform that offers level access from the car park. Trains towards Truro run from left to right; trains towards Falmouth Docks run from right to left.

When constructing the loop a novel approach was adopted which avoided the building of a footbridge and works to the disused platform. The formerly disused northern end of the platform has been reinstated, and is now called Platform 2, and an extension has been built onto the southern end which is now called Platform 1, the middle section of the platform is now used to pass between the two. The extension and reistatement creates a platform of 238 metres (781 ft) in length; the southern end of the loop joins the main branch at the northern end of Platform 1. New modern shelters have been built on each platform, and the brick shelter from 1998 still exists.

The disused platform on the far side of the loop line was formerly used by trains towards Truro.

On Monday 8 April 2013 Pay and display was introduced for the station car park.^[5]

Signalling

A diagram showing the right-hand running through the loop line (top of diagram is south west).

Truro-bound trains use the northern end of the station (Platform 2), arriving before the Falmouth-bound train, which will pass through the new loop and to the southern end of the platform (Platform 1), allowing the Truro-bound train to continue its journey north. This gives a rare situation in the United Kingdom where trains run on the right, instead of on the left as is usual in this country. Trains are scheduled to depart simultaneously for Truro and Falmouth.

Signals are controlled from the signal box at Truro. Axle counters allow one train to be in the section between Penwithers Junction and Penryn, and another between Penryn and Falmouth Docks. The Up and Down Branch line (the platform line) is signalled for trains in either direction; the Down Loop is only signalled for trains towards Falmouth.^[6]

• 

  First, a train arrives in platform 2 from Falmouth...

• 

  then the train from Truro (left) runs through the loop...

• 

  and enters platform 1...

• 

  then both can leave once their passengers are on board.

References

1. "Penryn loop installed". Modern Railways. Ian Allan. 65 (722): 12. 2008. ISSN 0026-8356.
2. "National Rail Timetable 143 (Summer 2009)" (PDF). Network Rail. Retrieved 2009-05-11.
3. "Green light for Penryn loop". Modern Railways. Ian Allan Publishing. 65 (718): 9. 2008. ISSN 0026-8356.
4. Heaps, Chris (2009). "New loop revitalises Falmouth branch". Modern Railways. Ian Allan Publishing. 66 (730): 16. ISSN 0026-8356.
5. Fountain, Greg (26 April 2013). "End of free parking at Penryn rail station". Falmouth Packet. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
6. Jacobs, G.A. (2009). "Trackwatch". Modern Railways. Ian Allan. 66 (731): 17. ISSN 0026-8356.

Further reading

• Bennett, Alan (1988). The Great Western Railway in Mid Cornwall. Southampton: Kingfisher Railway Publications. ISBN 0-946184-53-4.