Windsor & Eton Riverside station is a station in

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Ber ...

, England. The station, close to the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

and

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history. The original c ...

, is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

. It is down the line from and is the terminus of the Staines to Windsor Line, served by South Western Railway. The station is also in close proximity to Windsor's other station, , which is served 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 ...

trains from on the Windsor branch of 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 ...

Description

The station building 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 ...

as a royal station with a stone-faced frontage with a mullioned and transomed main window, gables and a multi-arch entrance. The main booking hall was decorative but is now a

wine bar A wine bar is a tavern-like business focusing on selling wine, rather than liquor or beer. A typical feature of many wine bars is a wide selection of wines available by the glass. Some wine bars are profiled on wines of a certain type of origin, ...

. There is a spacious concourse under the

train shed A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...

at the head of the platforms. The two platforms extend a considerable distance beyond the train shed. The wall on the southeast (Datchet Road) side of the station forms a long curve, parallel with the platform, containing a series of arches with depressed heads. This wall links the station proper with the former Royal Waiting Room built for

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

. This is a small building of main room and ante rooms crowned by a

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * M ...

with

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

let, and has Tudor arched windows. The interior of the main room has a ribbed ceiling with a

pendant A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ' ...

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, towe ...

History

The route from was authorised in 1847 and was opened by the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway as far as , on the opposite side of

Home Park Home Park is a football stadium in Plymouth, England. The ground has been the home of Football League One club Plymouth Argyle since 1901.Eton College Eton College () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England, Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. i ...

delayed the completion of the line (there was similar opposition to the

line to Windsor Central), but eventually the Riverside station was opened on 1 December 1849. In 1848 before Riverside station opened, the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway had been incorporated into 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), which ran the services until 1923 when, under the railway grouping of the

Railways Act 1921 The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

, the LSWR became part of the Southern Railway. In 1930 the line was

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic history ...

on the

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway ...

system at a nominal 660

volt The volt (symbol: V) is the unit of electric potential, electric potential difference (voltage), and electromotive force in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827). Defin ...

s DC. In the 1948

nationalisation 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 p ...

the line became part of 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 south ...

. In 1974 the

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

in the throat of the station giving access to

Romney Lock Romney Lock is a lock on the River Thames in England near Windsor and Eton, about half a mile downstream of Windsor Bridge. It is on the Windsor side of the river next to a boatyard and adjoins Romney Island, a long strip-shaped ait in th ...

was closed and replaced by a footbridge. Vehicular access to the lock was maintained by a road constructed on the north side of the station through the former goods yard which became the station car park. As part of the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the indust ...

, the

Stagecoach Group Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses, express coaches and a tram service in the United Kingdom. History Stagecoach was born out of deregulation of the British express coach market in the early ...

company

South West Trains Stagecoach South Western Trains Limited, trading as South West Trains (SWT), was an English train operating company owned by Stagecoach, which operated the South Western franchise between February 1996 and August 2017. SWT operated the majorit ...

took over operation of the service and the station in 1996. Ownership of the line and station passed to

Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...

and subsequently to

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's len ...

Windsor Link Railway

The

Windsor Link Railway The Windsor Link Railway was a proposed new railway in Windsor, Berkshire, connecting the Great Western and South Western franchise areas and linking both to London Heathrow Airport. George Bathurst originally proposed the plan in 2009 as ...

was a 2009 proposal for a new railway connecting the Great Western and

franchise areas and potentially linking both to

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

. Windsor & Eton Central and Windsor & Eton Riverside railway stations would be replaced with one through-route station in the Windsor Goswells. The proposal was rejected by the government in December 2018.

Incidents

On 22 May 2009, the end carriage of the 06:15 departure derailed as the train pulled out of the station causing disruption to services for much of the day. No trains ran the full route, with an hourly service terminating at and all other trains terminating at . On 11 October 2009 the bogie of a DEMU (vehicle 60118), on "The Eton Rifles" tour, derailed on arrival at platform 1. The tour could not continue and passengers were sent out on the next timetabled train. On 30 January 2015, a Class 458/5 operated by South West Trains was damaged by fire following severe

electrical arcing An electric arc, or arc discharge, is an electrical breakdown of a gas that produces a prolonged electrical discharge. The current through a normally nonconductive medium such as air produces a plasma; the plasma may produce visible light. An ...

which occurred shortly after departing Windsor & Eton Riverside. The train's guard was taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5626418540f0b60365000005/R182015_151021_Windsor.pdf

Services

There is usually a half-hourly service to London Waterloo seven days a week, taking just under an hour to reach Waterloo. The service is currently provided by South Western Railway.

References

Bibliography

External links

Windsor History – includes photographs of station
{{DEFAULTSORT:Windsor and Eton Riverside railway station Buildings and structures in Windsor, Berkshire Grade II listed buildings in Berkshire Railway stations in Berkshire Former London and South Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1849 Railway stations served by South Western Railway William Tite railway stations 1849 establishments in England Grade II listed railway stations