Tisbury railway station serves the village of Tisbury in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. It is currently managed by South Western Railway and is 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 ...

, down the line from .

History

Tisbury Down Atlantic Coast Express geograph-2641827-by-Ben-Brooksbank

The

Salisbury and Yeovil Railway The Salisbury and Yeovil Railway linked Salisbury (Wiltshire), Gillingham (Dorset) and Yeovil (Somerset) in England. Opened in stages in 1859 and 1860, it formed a bridge route between the main London and South Western Railway (LSWR) network a ...

(S&YR) opened Tisbury

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 ...

with the first section of its line, from to Gillingham, on 2 May 1859. At first only passengers were catered for, but goods traffic started on 1 September 1860. The main goods yard and warehouse was on the north side of the line at the west end of the station, but some sidings were also added on the opposite side of the line. Initially the railway had just a single track but a

passing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or ...

and two platforms were provided at Tisbury. The whole line was double track by 1870 and 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 opened here in 1875. The S&YR never operated any trains, instead they were provided 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 ...

, which bought out the S&YR in 1878. In 1923 this became part of the Southern Railway, which in turn was

nationalised 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 to become the

Southern Region of British Railways The Southern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948 until 1992 when railways were re-privatised. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s. The region covered south London, southern England and the sout ...

. During all this time there were only incremental changes at Tisbury, but this was to change from 1963. In that year the line was transferred to the Western Region, and the ''

Reshaping of British Railways The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

'' report was published. The smaller stations were soon closed, and most trains only ran as far as , instead of continuing to places such as ,

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

and

Padstow Padstow (; kw, Lannwedhenek) is a town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England. The town is situated on the west bank of the River Camel estuary approximately northwest of Wadebridge, ...

. Goods traffic was stopped from 18 April 1966 and on 5 February 1967 the signal box was closed, despite having only been opened to replace the original on 12 October 1958. The line was reduced to just a single track on 1 April 1967 and the southern platform sold off to the agricultural suppliers next door. The old station offices still stand, as does the disused signal box which is at the west end of the platform. The single-track section from Wilton to Gillingham proved to be too long, and so a loop was reinstated mid-way at Tisbury on 24 March 1986. As the second platform had been sold off, the new £435,000 loop was installed to the east of the station. This means that trains have to wait outside the station when passing; the loop is controlled from Basingstoke ASC and is signalled so that trains can run in either direction on each line.

Services

South Western Railway operate hourly throughout most of the week between , Tisbury, and

London Waterloo station Waterloo station (), also known as London Waterloo, is a London station group, central London terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo, London, Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connecte ...

, although extra trains run in peak hours. Trains are timetabled to pass in the loop to the east of the station. Due to the short platform, passengers wishing to alight need to be in the front 3 coaches of the train as the platform can only take 3-car trains.

References

* Body, G. (1984), ''PSL Field Guides - Railways of the Southern Region'', Patrick Stephens Ltd, Cambridge, {{SWT Stations, Salisbury=y, Suburban None=y, IL None=y Railway stations in Wiltshire DfT Category E stations Former London and South Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1859 Railway stations served by South Western Railway

History

Services

See also

References