Place Melksham Station code MKM DfT category F2 Opened 1841 | Grid reference ST900645 Managed by Great Western Railway 2011/12 11,330 Number of platforms 1 | |
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Address Melksham SN12 8DB, United Kingdom Original company Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway Similar Freshford railway station, Avoncliff railway station, Bradford‑on‑Avon railway station, Keynsham railway station, Dilton Marsh railway st | ||
Melksham railway station is a railway station opened in 1848, serving the town of Melksham in Wiltshire, England. It is on the branch line from Chippenham to Trowbridge that was originally part of the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway, absorbed in 1850 by the Great Western Railway.
Contents
History
The station opened with the original section of the line between Thingley Junction and Westbury, on 5 September 1848. British Railways closed the station from 18 April 1966 but reopened it to passengers from May 13th 1985.
The station had a siding which gave access to the former Wiltshire United Dairies/United Dairies creamery, last owned by Co-operative Wholesale Society Dairies, allowing access for milk trains. After its closure the dairy was converted into an industrial estate. From the 1960s to the mid 1980s there was a rail-served Shell oil depot at Melksham run first by Jack Dean (oils) and later by Hartwells Oils. This received heating oil from a refinery at Llandarcy in west Wales but closed around 1983. During the 1970s, Foster Yeoman operated a roadstone terminal in the former goods yard which was rail-served from Merehead Quarry. The Wiltshire Farmers Ltd also had a private siding south of the station which was used until c.1989 for occasional deliveries of bagged fertiliser, but was removed in 1990.
Services
As of June 2009, Melksham station was served by two trains each way per day (one train on Sundays) between Swindon and Westbury, operated by Great Western Railway, compared with five each way per day before the December 2006 timetable change.
From the start of the December 2013 winter timetable, Melksham has a significantly improved service. Trains now run approximately every two hours each way Mon-Sat (with peak period extras – nine departures in total) and six trains each way on Sundays. Two weekday southbound services run through to Southampton Central.
Trains longer than one carriage cannot open all doors as the platform cannot accommodate them. A planning application to extend the platform was submitted in 2016.
The Melksham single line serves as a diversionary route when either the Paddington-Westbury-Taunton or Taunton-Bristol Temple Meads-Bath routes are closed for engineering work or otherwise disrupted; occasional use is also made of the line by Freightliner trains running between Southampton and the Midlands when their normal route via Basingstoke and Reading is unavailable. GWR's hourly Portsmouth Harbour-Cardiff Central services are sometimes diverted via Melksham to terminate and start at Swindon rather than Cardiff when engineering work is taking place between Bath, Bristol and the Severn Tunnel in connection with the electrification of the Great Western main line. The downside of these diversions is that the local Westbury-Swindon 'Trans Wilts' service often has to be covered by a Rail Replacement bus service as there are insufficient paths available over the 8 mile single line section due to a lack of intermediate signal sections.
A number of Mendip Rail aggregate trains from the quarries at Merehead and Whatley also use the line, serving destinations such as Appleford, Oxford Banbury Road, Wootton Bassett and Acton (London). A train of empty ballast hoppers operated by GB Railfreight runs most weekdays from Westbury via Melksham to Cliffe Hill Stud Farm in Leicestershire.
From summer 2015 a ticket vending machine has been in use on the platform, enabling passengers to either purchase their tickets or collect pre-paid tickets for their journey. An additional 20 free car parking spaces were provided at the same time, together with covered cycle accommodation, CCTV and a new passenger shelter.
Save The Train
The 'Save The Train' group was launched in 2005, to raise public awareness that services along the TransWilts Line were being reduced. Prior to the introduction of extra services in late 2013, 'Save the Train' members transferred to the community element of the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership.