Radley railway station explained

Radley
Symbol Location:gb
Symbol:rail
Borough:Radley, Vale of White Horse
Country:England
Grid Name:Grid reference
Manager:Great Western Railway
Platforms:2
Code:RAD
Classification:DfT category F1
Original:Great Western Railway
Pregroup:GWR
Postgroup:GWR
Opened:8 September 1873 [1]
Footnotes:Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Radley railway station serves the villages of Radley and Lower Radley and the town of Abingdon, in Oxfordshire, England.

It is on the Cherwell Valley Line between and, 58chain35chain measured from .

History

The station was formerly a junction station for a branch to the adjacent town of Abingdon. Opened in 1873[2] by the Great Western Railway, it replaced the original interchange,, opened in 1856. The branch line was extended north to terminate in a bay platform at the new station.

The branch line to Abingdon was closed to passengers by the British Railways Board in 1963. The branch continued to be used by freight trains (notably for MG Cars) and sporadic passenger excursions, the last of which took place in June 1984. It was also sometimes pressed into service as an overnight stabling point for the Royal Train during royal visits to Oxfordshire, in connection with which the train is known to have stopped at station on at least one occasion.[3] The branch track was lifted in the late 1980s.

The station was renovated during 2008, with a new footbridge, shelters, a new car park and increased cycle storage.[4]

In recent years passenger traffic at Radley has grown rapidly. In the five years 2005–10 the number of passengers using the station increased by 38%.[5]

Services

All services at Radley are operated by Great Western Railway.

The typical off-peak service is one train per hour in each direction between and, with alternate trains continuing beyond Oxford to and from every two hours. Additional services call at the station during the peak hours.

On Sundays, the station is served by hourly intercity services between and with some services continuing to and from, and .

External links

51.686°N -1.24°W

Notes and References

  1. News: . 17 September 1873. Oxford. limited . Oxfordshire Weekly News . 5.
  2. Book: Paddington to the Mersey. R. Preston. Hendry. R. Powell. Hendry. 15. Oxford Publishing Company. 1992. 9780860934424. 877729237.
  3. Web site: . 11 August 2014 . Trains, Plain-clothes Men and Royal Visitors . . 7 January 2021.
  4. Walker . Chris . 16 September 2009 . Station gains extra services . . 7 . Newsquest (Oxfordshire) Ltd . Oxford . 0962-8568 . 27 October 2009 .
  5. [Office of the Rail Regulator]