Slough railway station

Slough railway station, in Slough, Berkshire, England, is on the Great Western Main Line, halfway between London Paddington and Reading. It is down the line from the zero point at Paddington and is situated between to the east and to the west. The station is just to the north of the town centre, on the north side of the A4.

It is served by Great Western Railway, with services to , , , and ; and by the Elizabeth line on local services between Abbey Wood and Reading. It is the terminus for trains from Windsor on the Windsor branch.

History

The first section of the Great Western Railway (GWR), between the original station at Paddington and the original station at Maidenhead, opened on 4 June 1838, but although trains stopped at Slough, there was no actual station: tickets were sold at the Crown Inn. This was because the Act which authorised the construction of the GWR contained a clause which forbade the construction of a station within of Eton College without the permission of the Provost and Fellows of the school; but it did not explicitly prevent trains from stopping for passengers. Following the repeal of the relevant clauses in the GWR Act, the first proper station at Slough opened on 1 June 1840. The arrival of the railway led to Queen Victoria making her first railway journey, from Slough to Bishop's Bridge near Paddington, in 1842. Later, a branch to was built for the Queen's greater convenience. Nowadays, the journey time between Windsor and Slough is six minutes.

Originally, the headmaster of Eton College, Dr. John Keate, had resisted efforts to place a station closer to Eton College than Slough, because he feared that it would "interfere with the discipline of the school, the studies and amusements of the boys, affecting the healthiness of the place, from the increase of floods, and endangering even the lives of boys." This led to Slough station becoming, temporarily at least, the Royal Station. It is much bigger and grander than other stations in the area to accommodate its role at the time.

Windsor & Eton Central railway station (served from Slough) and Windsor & Eton Riverside railway station (served from Staines) both opened in 1849 despite the opposition from the College.

Its approach road, Mackenzie Street, which ran from the Great West Road to the station, was much wider than an approach road would otherwise have needed to have been. This was to accommodate the Queen's carriages and entourage. Slough High Street was originally part of the Great West Road, which has now been diverted via Wellington Street, allowing the High Street to be largely pedestrianised. Thus Mackenzie Street became a cul-de-sac in 1970 when Wellington Street was redeveloped, and is now part of the Queensmere Shopping Centre. The remainder of Mackenzie Street, north of the redeveloped Wellington Street, was (along with Station Approach) renamed Brunel Way.

Opposite the railway station once stood the equally grand Royal Hotel (now demolished).

On 1 January 1845, John Tawell, who had recently returned from Australia, murdered his lover, Sarah Hart, at Salt Hill in Slough by giving her a glass of stout poisoned with cyanide of potash. With various officials in chase, Tawell fled to Slough Station and boarded a train to Paddington. The electric telegraph had been installed between Paddington and Slough in 1843, and a message was sent ahead to Paddington with Tawell's details. Tawell was trailed and subsequently arrested, tried and executed for the murder at Aylesbury on 28 March 1845. This is believed to be the first time that the telegraph had been involved in the apprehension of a murderer.

From 1 March 1883, the station was served by District Railway services running between and . The service was discontinued as uneconomic after 30 September 1885.

On 8 September 1884 the original station was closed and replaced by the present station, situated to the west of the old.

1900 accident

On 16 June 1900, an express train from to ran through two sets of signals at danger, and collided with a local train from Paddington to Windsor which was standing in the station. The driver of the express only noticed the signal immediately before the platform; he made an emergency brake application and reversed the engine, but was unable to prevent the collision. Five passengers on the local train were killed. The official enquiry ruled that a primary cause of the accident was the poor physical condition of the driver, due to his age (60 years) and fatigue; the accident was at 1:41 in the afternoon, and he had started duty at 05:00 that morning. The guard and fireman of the express were also criticised for failing to notice that their train had passed the danger signals. This accident was instrumental in the introduction of Automatic Train Control on the Great Western Railway.

1941 accident

On 2 July 1941, an express train from Plymouth to Paddington hauled by No. 4091 Dudley Castle collided almost head-on with a freight train hauled by a LMS Stanier "8F" 2-8-0 at Dolphin Junction, 1 mile east of Slough. The express was in the process of crossing from the up main to up relief line via a diamond crossing. Five passengers were killed and 24 injured. The signalman was held to be at fault for allowing the express to cross in front of the heavy freight train (not fitted with continuous brakes) without ensuring that the latter could stop in time.

1994 accident

On the evening of 2 November 1994 a Class 165 Turbo train crashed through the buffer stop of platform 6, after failing to slow down due to poor rail adhesion on the approach to the crossover. It is estimated that the train had only reduced its speed from to approximately at the time of collision, apparently skidding for some through three sets of points (which had approved speeds of on the relief lines, for the Platform 6 bay). Evidence gathered at the scene by investigators suggested that the train, had it not hit the buffers, could have continued for another . There had been light drizzle on the evening in question.

This was only one of a number of instances in which Class 165/166 Turbo trains had overshot platforms and run through red lights. These incidents led to driver retraining and the teaching of defensive driving techniques during the autumn leaf fall season. The main contributing factor was the change of braking system from brake shoes (which effectively cleaned the wheel each time the brakes were applied) on the previous DMU fleet to disc brakes, which allow the mulch from the rails to adhere to the wheel, leading to poor rail adhesion. This also led to regular sanding of the rails on all lines affected.

The station today

In the Office of Rail and Road's statistics for 2017/18, the railway station has 5.544 million users every year making it the 88th busiest railway station in Great Britain. This figure does not take into account the 1.59 million additional users of the branch line to Windsor & Eton Central.

The station is a short walk from the bus station and has a taxi rank directly outside. It has a CCTV security monitoring network that runs all night. There are ticket barriers to both entrances situated on Platforms 2 (the main entrance, on the south side of the station) and 5 (on the northside), accepting both paper and mobile ticketing as well as contactless payment.

Significant changes took place during the 2010s, including: extensions to platforms 2–5 to accommodate longer trains of up to twelve cars; a second overbridge, with stairs and lift, serving all platforms; and the addition of a baby changing facility and parcels office. The station underwent other structural changes to accommodate overhead electrification of the Great Western Main Line. Platform awnings were pared back and platform 6 closed after several years of being out of use (following the withdrawal of Slough–London Paddington local services some years earlier, it had been used as a temporary siding for track machinery).

Services

All services at Slough are operated by Great Western Railway and the Elizabeth line.

Frequency

As of December 2019, the Monday-Saturday off-peak service is:
* 4tph to (stopping)
* 2tph to (non-stop)
* 2tph to
* 2tph to
* 2tph to . A number of these services continue to , , and
* 3tph to

In July 2012, the Department of Transport announced plans for the Western Rail Approach to Heathrow, a proposed new rail link that would enable direct services to run from Reading and Slough to Heathrow Airport. As of 2016, a route has been planned, and public consultation is under way. Subject to approval, Network Rail is envisaging construction will take place between 2019 and 2024.

Service table

Architecture

The original Brunel-era station buildings at Slough were of timber construction and were on the south (i.e. town) side of the railway. Two platforms were provided, with matching buildings, each having an overall roof that covered both platform and track. These platforms served 'up' (London-bound) and 'down' (Bristol-bound) trains separately; a complicated arrangement of crossings between the platforms allowed the necessary train movements.

The present station

The station was rebuilt in 1882 in a " Second Empire" style and was designed by J E Danks. It is the fifth station to be built on the site. The buildings have survived largely intact, although some of the waiting room buildings on the island platform were demolished in the 1970s before the station was Grade II listed.

It is a near-unique design on the Great Western Railway, only one other, much smaller, station was built with the same features. The most notable architectural details are the unusual scalloped roof tiles and the decorative ironwork around the top of the buildings.

Evolution of station layout

Since the end of steam traction, the layout at Slough has been somewhat simplified. In its heyday, every corner of the station featured a siding or bay platform of some kind. Apparently inexplicable architectural clues remain around the station to show where these facilities were.

Parallel to and south of the current Platform 1, the 'Windsor Bay', were two additional sidings and a platform-level loading bank. These were latterly used for loading tanks, from the Royal Alexandra Barracks in Windsor, on to flat trucks (e.g., 'Rectank' and 'Warwell' wagons) for onward transport by rail. The sidings were removed in the 1980s and replaced by an access road, at track level, under the Stoke Road Bridge to the West Car Park – built on part of the engine shed site. One siding was the same length as the Windsor Bay line, and () its buffers are still in situ, even though the line itself has long since gone.

At the London end of Platform 2 ('Down Main' services) was a very short siding, at an odd angle to the track. This was probably used for loading carriages onto flat wagons. It was removed a long time ago.

Platform 6, for stopping services to London, was provided with a siding between the main and relief lines at the east end of the station. This was used for storing the local train between services. The siding was removed in the 1980s.