Feniton railway station serves the village of

Feniton Feniton is a village and civil parish in East Devon in the English county of Devon. The village lies about west of Honiton, north of Ottery St Mary, and east of Talaton. The parish of Feniton incorporates the hamlets of Colesworthy, Higher ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, England. It was opened by the

London and South Western Railway The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...

(LSWR) in 1860 but is now operated by South Western Railway which provides services on the

West of England Main Line The West of England line (also known as the West of England Main Line) is a British railway line from , Hampshire, to in Devon, England. Passenger services run between London Waterloo station and Exeter; the line intersects with the Wessex M ...

. It is down the line from .

History

The station was designed by

William Tite Sir William Tite (7 February 179820 April 1873) was an English architect who twice served as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was particularly associated with various London buildings, with railway stations and cemetery ...

and was opened by the LSWR on 19 July 1860, along with its Exeter Extension from to Exeter Queen Street. It was named Feniton after the nearest village, but less than a year later it was renamed (on 1 July 1861) as Ottery and Sidmouth Road. In February 1868 this was changed again to Feniton for Ottery St Mary. On 6 July 1874 a branch line to was opened and the station changed its name once more to become Sidmouth Junction, a name that it managed to retain for more than 90 years. On 1 May 1897 a new line to was opened and this was extended on 1 June 1903 to . Although the junction for this line was at , Sidmouth Junction was the ''de facto'' junction as it was situated on the London main line. A third

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

was provided to accommodate branch line trains; this was a terminal bay at the Yeovil end of the westbound platform. It was on this platform that the main two-storey building was situated. A goods yard and

goods shed A goods shed is a railway building designed for storing goods before or after carriage in a train. A typical goods shed will have a track running through it to allow goods wagons to be unloaded under cover, although sometimes they were built ...

was provided adjacent to the bay platform. This was closed on 6 September 1965. The following year saw the withdrawal of local stopping trains on the main line, but Sidmouth Junction remained open until 6 March 1967 when passenger services were withdrawn from the branch lines, after which it closed. The station was however reopened by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

on 5 May 1971 as a result of local campaigning by the residents of the expanding village, assuming the original Feniton name. A ticket office was erected in 1974 as the original building had been demolished while the station was closed. The platform was rebuilt and lengthened in 1992 but is still shorter than many of the trains that call.

Platform layout

The platform is on the south side of the line, east of the level crossing of Ottery Road. The disused eastbound platform still stands but the goods yard site is now occupied by houses.

Services

Off-peak, all services at Feniton are operated by South Western Railway using and

DMUs A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is one train every two hours between and via , increasing to hourly at peak times. The station is also served by a single weekday peak hour service from to which is operated by

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 ...

. Due to the short platform at this station, passengers wishing to alight need to be in the front 3 coaches of the train as the platform can only take 3-car trains.

Signalling

The station was built next to the

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

of the Ottery Road which was operated by the station staff. A

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

was provided in 1875 at the east end of the station on the north side of the line, opposite goods yard. Because it was too far from the level crossing a small signal box was provided at that end of the station to control the level crossing. The main signal box was closed on 21 May 1967 but the level crossing box was retained. The line through the station reduced to just a single track on 11 June 1967. In 1974 the level crossing gates were replaced by lifting barriers; the level crossing box was abolished at the same time and the barriers were operated from a panel within the station building until March 2012 when signalling and level crossing control was transferred to Basingstoke Area Signalling Centre.

References

External links