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Closed Shrivenham Station - four lines to two

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steevp

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Hi - Long time avid reader, infrequent poster. I am putting together a one-place study based on Shrivenham station (Great Western mainline, just east of Swindon) and the people who worked there and I have a note about the line being quadrupled through the station in 1933. Currently there are only two tracks and I wondered if anyone can't point me to a source of the date when the extra two tracks were taken out of use. It might have been when the new road bridge was erected in 2016.

Any other information related to the station and it's people much appreciated as well (the website is very much in its infancy but it is here https://www.dands.uk/ssops/historical-timeline/).
Thanks Steve
 
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Cowley

Cowley

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steevp said:
Hi - Long time avid reader, infrequent poster. I am putting together a one-place study based on Shrivenham station (Great Western mainline, just east of Swindon) and the people who worked there and I have a note about the line being quadrupled through the station in 1933. Currently there are only two tracks and I wondered if anyone can't point me to a source of the date when the extra two tracks were taken out of use. It might have been when the new road bridge was erected in 2016.

Any other information related to the station and it's people much appreciated as well (the website is very much in its infancy but it is here https://www.dands.uk/ssops/historical-timeline/).
Thanks Steve
Click to expand...

This subject popped up on Rmweb a few years ago. From this post by The Starionmaster:
The various additional lines between Knighton Crossing and Ashbury Crossing/Shrivenham went or were initially reduced to dead end sidings in 1966. I did partially develop a scheme for recreating an addtional Up running line from Shrivenham to Knighton in the early 1990s but its construction depended entirely on new imported coal traffic Avonmouth via Didcot to the Midlands and that never happened so it was never needed. If it had happened it was planned - like Wantage Road - Challow to be capable of working as a dynamic overtaking facility with no need for a 60mph freight to be brought to stand if it was being overtaken by a 125mph passenger train. But all of that is a long way away from the idea of station loops.
Click to expand...


Also worth mentioning are Adrian Vaughn's trilogy of books from when he was working the boxes in the area as it would have still been quadrupled in those days. The books are Signalman's Morning, Signalman’s Twilight and Signalman’s Nightmare.
 
G

Gloster

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I think that it may have been a lot earlier. The long loops only ran to Ashbury Crossing with the Up continuing to Knighton Crossing.and I think they were put out of use in 1966 as part of the stage works for resignalling: Shrivenham box closed on 5 June 1966.
 
Ashley Hill

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The Signalling Record Society record the down loop was taken out of use 27/5/62. The Up loop at Ashbury was removed on 05/6/66.
Another book by Adrian Vaughan called Railways Through The Vale Of The White Horse covers the line and signalling between Steventon and Swindon well.
 
alxndr

alxndr

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The loops were long gone before 2016, other than the addition of the overheads and new signals/location cases there's been no fundamental change to the track there since at least 2013 (when I started there).
 
4

4069

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The standard source for this kind of informations is R A Cooke's Track Layout Diagrams of the GWR and BR WR. Section 23 of this mammoth work says that at Shrivenham the up loop was converted to a siding on 20.5.66, and the down loop was taken out of use and the signal box closed on 5.6.66, and I would regard that as authoritative.
 
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4069

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Since the station remained open to passengers until 7.12.64, and trains calling at it had to use the loop, that would have been difficult. Cooke records that the down goods loop from Ashbury Crossing to Shrivenham station was converted to a siding (accessed from the Shrivenham end) on 27.5.62, which may account for the confusion.
 
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Gloster

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Further study suggests that it may have been the Down Loop between Ashbury and Shrivenham that was taken out of use in 1962. The platform line at Shrivenham was still accessible through the Main to Platform Line connection.
 
T

Taunton

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It's surprising that the goods loops were taken out of service so early, when goods services were still principally hauled by steam. Much of the slower freight traffic on this section came round the west curve at Didcot, and originated on the former GCR via Banbury. There had been a GWR study in earlier times to quadruple the whole section between Didcot and Wootton Bassett.
 
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