Welford Park railway station was a railway station in

Welford, Berkshire Welford is a rural village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England occupying both sides of the valley of the River Lambourn north-west of Newbury and south of Wantage. It forms a strip parish which tapers in the south where it contains ...

, UK, on the

Lambourn Valley Railway The Lambourn Valley Railway (LVR) was a branch railway line running from the town of Newbury, Berkshire north-west to the village of Lambourn. It was opened in 1898. Fulfilling a local need, it was in financial difficulties throughout its ind ...

History

The station opened on 2 April 1898. It was rebuilt 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 ...

in 1908, providing a second platform, 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'' ...

, and 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 ...

. The station had few passenger facilities, and dealt primarily with small goods, including

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

watercress Watercress or yellowcress (''Nasturtium officinale'') is a species of aquatic flowering plant in the cabbage family Brassicaceae. Watercress is a rapidly growing perennial plant native to Europe and Asia. It is one of the oldest known leaf ve ...

, and

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

. Passenger services ceased from 4 January 1960 and the station closed to all traffic on 19 July 1965. The line was retained to serve a

spur line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industri ...

which ran from the station to

RAF Welford Royal Air Force Welford or more simply RAF Welford is an active Royal Air Force station in Berkshire, England. The station is located approximately northwest of Newbury; about west-southwest of London Opened in 1943, it was used during the Se ...

. until closure in 1972. The last trains were a special passenger service from Newbury which ran on 3 November 1973

References

Lambourn Valley Railway Disused railway stations in Berkshire Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1898 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1960 Welford, Berkshire {{SouthEastEngland-railstation-stub