Abingdon railway station was a station which served the town of Abingdon in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

, England until 1963.

History

The station was built by the Abingdon Railway, a short branch line at which Abingdon was the terminus and only stop, although this was operated by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

(GWR) from opening on 2 June 1856. The station and yard were built to the

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...

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 A right-of-way (ROW) is a right to make a way over a piece of land, usually to and from another piece of land. A right of way is a type of easement granted or reserved over the land for transportation purposes, such as a highway, public footp ...

was allowed. Station facilities consisted of a single platform covered by a timber

train shed A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...

. A

locomotive shed The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine shed ...

was built on land which was never formally conveyed to the railway, but later acquired by

adverse possession Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle in the Common law, Anglo-American common law under which a person who does not have title (property), legal title to a piece of property—usuall ...

. The Abingdon Railway was absorbed by the GWR on 15 August 1904. The line passed on to the

Western Region of British Railways The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex- Great ...

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948, and was then closed to passengers by the

British Railways Board British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

in 1963. The branch continued to be used by freight trains (notably for

MG Cars MG is a British automotive marque founded by Cecil Kimber in the 1920s, and M.G. Car Company Limited was the British sports car manufacturer that made the marque famous. Best known for its open two-seater sports cars, MG also produced saloon ...

) and sporadic passenger excursions, the last of which took place in June 1984. It was also sometimes pressed into service as an overnight stabling point for the

Royal Train A royal train is a set of railway carriages dedicated for the use of the monarch or other members of a royal family. Most monarchies with a railway system employ a set of royal carriages. Australia The various government railway operators of A ...

during royal visits to Oxfordshire, in connection with which the train is known to have stopped at station on at least one occasion. 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 are now occupied by a

Waitrose Waitrose & Partners (formally Waitrose Limited) is a brand of British supermarkets, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. It was acquired in 1937 by employee-owned retailer John Lewis Partnership, which still se ...

supermarket, parking and other development. The station featured briefly in a 1963 documentary film made for cinematic release, "High, Wide and Faster" (from the '' Look at Life'' series), which examined contemporary developments in road, rail, and sea transport.

Routes

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Station on navigable O.S. map

Sub Brit site

GWR Abingdon Branch

Track diagram

Disused stations - with maps and photos
{{Closed stations Oxfordshire Disused railway stations in Oxfordshire Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1856 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1963

Railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

History of Berkshire