Tiverton Parkway railway station is on the

Bristol to Exeter line Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

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. Devo ...

, England. The "Parkway" name signifies that the station is a distance from Tiverton town itself: it is actually located in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

Burlescombe Burlescombe (, ) is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Holcombe Rogus, Culmstock, Uffculme, Halberton and Sampford Peverell. According ...

, near

Sampford Peverell Sampford Peverell is a village and civil parish in Mid-Devon, England. An old Saxon settlement, it was called Sanforda in the 1086 Doomsday Book. Its current name reflects its inclusion in the Honour of Peverel, the lands of William Peverel ...

, to the east of Tiverton, and close to the junction of the

M5 motorway The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...

with the A361 North Devon link road. It is from the zero point at via . The station 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 ...

and is also served by

CrossCountry CrossCountry (legal name XC Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the Cross Country franchise. The CrossCountry franchise was restructured by the Department for Transport (DfT ...

trains.

History

The

Bristol and Exeter Railway The Bristol & Exeter Railway (B&ER) was an English railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter. It was built on the broad gauge and its engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in stages between 1841 and 1844. It was allied with t ...

opened on 1 May 1844 but it ran south of Tiverton, so a station known as "Tiverton Road" was opened to serve the town. This station was renamed " Tiverton Junction" on 12 June 1848 when the Tiverton branch line was opened to a station in the town itself. By the 1980s the branch to Tiverton had closed and Tiverton Junction station only saw a couple of trains in each direction each day so a decision was taken to relocate the station a short distance to the east, close to the motorway junction where traffic from

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

and

Ilfracombe Ilfracombe ( ) is a seaside resort and civil parish on the North Devon coast, England, with a small harbour surrounded by cliffs. The parish stretches along the coast from the 'Coastguard Cottages' in Hele Bay toward the east and along t ...

from the A361 joined. Tiverton Junction closed on 11 May 1986 and the new station was opened the following day by David Mitchell MP, the

Minister of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government a ...

at the time. It was built 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 ra ...

on the site of the former

Sampford Peverell railway station There are 22 disused railway stations in the between and , 12 of which have structures that can still be seen from passing trains. Most were closed in the 1960s but four of them, especially around , were replaced by stations on new sites. 13 s ...

that had closed on 5 October 1964. An additional car park for the station was opened in late 2007 as the original car park was too small when FGW increased the services to the station. The additional car park is situated alongside (but not accessed by) the A361 road and requires a short walk to the station, while the original is alongside the platform.

Facilities

The main entrance and a large car park are on the west side of the station, where a single-storey brick building at

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 ...

level incorporates a ticket office and a shop selling newspapers, drinks and snacks. This is the platform for trains towards

London Paddington Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great We ...

, Bristol Temple Meads and the north. Access to the platform for trains towards Exeter,

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, 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 ...

and

Penzance Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situ ...

is over a ramped footbridge. The buildings on this platform are two large metal and glass waiting shelters. The cycleway crosses the line on this footbridge and allows access on foot or cycle from the east side.

Services

The main line services through Tiverton are provided by two operators: *

operates high-speed intercity services from

via two routes, either the direct

Reading to Taunton Line Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spellin ...

or on the

Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the o ...

through . It also operates regional services which start in the Bristol area. *

operates services from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and the north of England via and Bristol Temple Meads. The trains of both operators continue beyond Tiverton Parkway to serve stations onwards into Devon and Cornwall, including , , and . Tiverton Parkway - GWR 802019 Paddington service

Tiverton Parkway - GWR 802019 Paddington service

The station is linked to both Tiverton and to

Cullompton Cullompton () is a town and civil parish in the district of Mid Devon and the county of Devon, England. It is north-east of Exeter and lies on the River Culm. In 2011 the parish as a whole had a population of 8,499 while the built-up area of ...

by hourly bus service 373. On Sundays and Bank Holidays the station is served by service 1 between

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

and Tiverton. In addition to being situated close to the junction of the

and the A361 North Devon link road, the

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the cha ...

Route 3 (

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Glouces ...

Land's End Land's End ( kw, Penn an Wlas or ''Pedn an Wlas'') is a headland and tourist and holiday complex in western Cornwall, England, on the Penwith peninsula about west-south-west of Penzance at the western end of the A30 road. To the east of it is ...

) passes through the station and provides a safe and quiet route to local towns. The proximity of the station to the motorway - and the relative inaccessibility of Exeter St Davids station in the city of Exeter - means that it is often used as the 'coach exchange' when the line between Exeter and Plymouth is closed and rail passengers are detrained onto coaches for the remainder of the journey. This was particularly evident in early 2014 when a storm breached the sea wall at

Dawlish Dawlish is an English seaside resort town and civil parish in Teignbridge on the south coast of Devon, from the county town of Exeter and from the larger resort of Torquay. Its 2011 population of 11,312 was estimated at 13,355 in 2019. It is ...

causing disruption to train services west of Exeter; a coach park was built to accommodate the coaches used for this.

References

{{Devon railway stations Railway stations in Devon Railway stations opened by British Rail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1986 Railway stations served by Great Western Railway Railway stations served by CrossCountry Tiverton, Devon DfT Category D stations

History

Facilities

Services

See also

References