Station code CUM DfT category F1 | Grid reference SU529953 2011/12 48,748 Number of platforms 2 | |
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Address Abingdon OX14 3BT, United Kingdom Similar | ||
Culham railway station is a railway station serving the village of Culham in Oxfordshire, England. It is served by local train services provided by Great Western Railway.
Contents
The station is just off the A415 road, between the villages of Culham and Clifton Hampden.
The station is close to the site of RNAS Culham (HMS Hornbill), a World War II airfield. The former airfield is now the Culham Science Centre, an 80 hectares (200 acres) scientific research site and home to two nuclear fusion experiments JET and MAST. The START Nuclear Fusion Experiment was also conducted on the site until MAST succeeded it in 1999.
History
The Great Western Railway opened the station on the Didcot – Oxford line as Abingdon Road on 12 June 1844. Its name was changed by the GWR to Culham, on 2 June 1856, on the opening of the branch from Abingdon Junction to Abingdon.
The original station building (no longer in railway use) is in the Tudor Revival architecture of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and is a Grade II* listed building.
The name Abingdon Road was later re-used for an entirely different station about 5.5 miles (9 km) to the north, Abingdon Road Halt, opened in 1908.
In some recent years passenger numbers using Culham have changed rapidly. The total increased 67% in the three years 2006–09, but then decreased slightly in 2010.
Services
The service from here is irregular outside of weekday peak periods, with sizeable gaps between calls in both directions. The peak service is more frequent (roughly half-hourly southbound in the morning & northbound in the evening). No trains call on Sundays.