Chippenham railway station

Chippenham railway station is the railway station serving Chippenham a market town in Wiltshire. The station is on the Great Western Main Line, in between Swindon and Bath Spa and is served by First Great Western Main Line services between Bristol Temple Meads and London Paddington, and a smaller First Great Western local service that runs between Swindon and Trowbridge, via Chippenham and Melksham over the northern end of the former Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway. It was also the junction for a GWR branch line to Calne from 1863 until its closure (a victim of the Beeching Axe) in 1965. Only two of the three platforms at the station are now in use (the two faces of the island platform to the right of the photo) - the former platform one (on the left) having lost its rails.

The station is managed by First Great Western.

There are no automatic ticket barriers, but manual ticket checks are made for some trains.

Station buildings
The original station building at Chippenham was to Brunel's design and was opened in 1841. With the subsequent opening of new lines to Salisbury and Weymouth, the station was not adequate to meet the increased demand and was redesigned by J H Bertram in 1856-58; it is Grade II listed. It is constructed in Bath stone ashlar with a bay window at one end and a wing at the other making a long, low composition.

In the station yard, there is another Grade II listed building partly in random stone but mainly weather-boarded on a timber frame with a pitched slate roof. It is an early weighbridge house and coal merchant's office. It is known that coal merchants opened a depot in 1840 and the building dates from that time. The building is painted dark green and currently leased by North Wiltshire Artspace (charity), and rented out to various groups.

Immediately west of the station lies Chippenham Viaduct designed by Brunel in 1841. It is Grade II listed. The first arch, over New Road, appears to have been modelled on the Roman triumphal arch. It has a 26ft span and is flanked by two smaller pedestrian arches of 10ft each. All is surmounted by a heavy cornice and parapet. The north side is constructed from Bath Stone Ashlar with some brick patching while the south side is in blue brick following widening in the early 1900s.

Engineering works
Immediately to the north of the station itself is an engineering works, originally founded to support the Great Western Railway, and now supplying equipment to the worldwide rail industry. It was founded in 1842 by Rowland Brotherhood and, as of 2008, is occupied by Invensys Rail Systems and its UK manufacturing subsidiary, Westinghouse Rail Systems. For most of its life, it manufactured railway air braking systems and railway signalling.

Services
The station has frequent services to Swindon, Reading and London and to Bath and Bristol Temple Meads, with some Bristol trains continuing to Weston-super-Mare and beyond. Currently (June 2009) these operate approximately every half hour in each direction Mondays-Saturdays, with seven through services to/from Weston-super-Mare (these run mainly during the weekday business peaks, although certain summer Saturday trains also operate). There is an hourly service each way on Sundays.

The service to Trowbridge and Westbury is much less frequent, with just one morning and one evening train each way per day since 2006 (compared to five each way prior to that). At present both Monday-Friday services run to Southampton Central, although those in the opposite direction start from Westbury. There are also two Saturday services each way (but at different times to the weekday ones) and a single train each way on Sundays.