General information | |
---|---|
Location | Cheltenham England |
Coordinates | 51°53′49″N2°06′00″W / 51.897°N 2.100°W |
Grid reference | SO931220 |
Managed by | Great Western Railway |
Platforms | 2 |
Other information | |
Station code | CNM |
Classification | DfT category C1 |
History | |
Original company | Birmingham and Gloucester Railway |
Pre-grouping | Midland Railway |
Post-grouping | LMS |
Key dates | |
24 June 1840 | Opened as Cheltenham |
1 February 1925 | Renamed Cheltenham Spa (Lansdown) |
1 January 1948 | Renamed Cheltenham Spa |
Passengers | |
2018/19 | 2.468 million |
Interchange | 0.202 million |
2019/20 | 2.591 million |
Interchange | 0.241 million |
2020/21 | 0.462 million |
Interchange | 41,713 |
2021/22 | 1.794 million |
Interchange | 0.169 million |
2022/23 | 1.965 million |
Interchange | 0.222 million |
Location | |
Notes | |
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road |
Cheltenham Spa railway station serves the spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire,England. Situated on the Bristol-Birmingham main line,it is managed by Great Western Railway,despite most services being operated by CrossCountry which does not manage any stations. It is located about one mile from the town centre. The official name of the town is simply Cheltenham but,when the station was renamed in 1925,the London,Midland and Scottish Railway chose to add Spa to the station name. [1] It is a key regional interchange and is the fifth busiest railway station in South West England.
The first railway to Cheltenham was the broad-gauge Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (C&GWUR),authorised by Act of Parliament in 1836,and opened between Cheltenham and Gloucester in 1840. In the same year,the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) opened its line between Cheltenham and Bromsgrove,whence trains ran on mixed-gauge tracks to Gloucester. Both railways had their own stations,but the B&GR station,which was then on the edge of the town and was named Lansdown after a housing development in that area, [2] is the only one remaining. The buildings were designed by the architect Samuel Daukes and the station was opened by the B&GR on 24 June 1840 as Lansdown. [1]
The C&GWUR was taken over by the Great Western Railway in 1844,and the B&GR by the Midland Railway in 1846. Within the town,there were three other passenger railway stations: Malvern Road , St James's and Cheltenham South and Leckhampton ;there was also High Street Halt and the Racecourse Platform ,open only on race days.
From 1892 there was a route from Cheltenham to the docks at Southampton,via Andoversford and the Midland and South Western Junction Railway.
The station was renamed Cheltenham Spa (Lansdown) on 1 February 1925 by the London,Midland and Scottish Railway,and renamed again as Cheltenham Spa by British Railways at some point after 1 January 1948. [3]
Railways around Cheltenham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cheltenham Spa station is served by 8 to 12 trains every hour during the daytime on Mondays to Saturdays; services are less frequent on Sundays. Three train operating companies services stop here:
Preceding station | National Rail | Following station | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Gloucester | Transport for Wales Maesteg - Cheltenham | Terminus | ||
Gloucester | CrossCountry Cardiff – Nottingham | Worcestershire Parkway or Ashchurch for Tewkesbury | ||
Bristol Parkway | CrossCountry South West – North East and Scotland | Birmingham New Street | ||
CrossCountry Bristol – Manchester | ||||
Gloucester | Great Western Railway Cheltenham – London/Swindon | Terminus | ||
Gloucester | Great Western Railway Great Malvern – Westbury | Ashchurch for Tewkesbury | ||
Disused railways | ||||
Badgeworth | Birmingham and Gloucester Railway | Swindon (Glos) | ||
Churchdown | Midland Railway | Cheltenham High Street | ||
Terminus | Great Western Railway Midland and South Western Junction Railway | Leckhampton Line and station closed | ||
Proposed Heritage railways | ||||
Cheltenham Malvern Road Line and station closed | Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway | Terminus |
In early 2012, Cheltenham Council released a concept statement promoting various enhancements at the station. [13] In March 2013, the Gloucestershire Local Transport Body (LTB) asked for bids from the local area for transport projects which could be funded in the period 2015 to 2019. A proposal to significantly enhance the station with new passenger facilities, and install a new south-facing bay platform to enable trains to reverse and increase capacity, was put forward.[ citation needed ]
During the development phase of the submission, it was found that two new bay platforms were required. This configuration formed the basis of a station regeneration proposal that was submitted to the Gloucestershire Local Transport Body for consideration in early March 2013. Following short-listing to stage 2, a second funding proposal was submitted in May 2013. Proposals for the station and various other transport schemes were published for public consultation on the LTB website in the same month,[ citation needed ] and the LTB allocated £3.3 million to the scheme, which had an estimated total cost of £20 million. [14]
In February 2014, the scheme was shelved after both Network Rail and train operator First Great Western refused to back the portion of the proposals relating to the additional platforms, though they were supportive of the need to upgrade other passenger facilities, i.e. station building & taxi/bus interchange improvements and better car parking. [14]
The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) was the first name of the railway linking the cities in its name and of the company which pioneered and developed it; the line opened in stages in 1840, using a terminus at Camp Hill in Birmingham. It linked with the Bristol and Gloucester Railway in Gloucester, but at first that company's line was broad gauge, and Gloucester was a point of the necessary but inconvenient transhipment of goods and passengers onto 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in gauge that became the national standard. Nearly all of the original main line remains active as a "trunk" route, also known as an arterial route or line.
Gloucester, formerly known as Gloucester Central, is a railway station serving the city of Gloucester in England. It is located 114 miles 4 chains (183.5 km) west of London Paddington, via Stroud.
Ashchurch for Tewkesbury is a railway station serves the market town of Tewkesbury and the village of Ashchurch in Gloucestershire, England. The station is located less than 1⁄4 mile (400 m) from junction 9 of the M5 motorway and located on the main Bristol–Birmingham main line 7+1⁄4 miles (11.7 km) north of Cheltenham Spa and was opened on 1 June 1997 by Railtrack. There are regular bus connections from the station to Tewkesbury town centre, Gloucester Transport Hub and Cheltenham.
Stonehouse railway station serves the town of Stonehouse in Gloucestershire, England. The station is a stop on the Golden Valley Line between Swindon and Gloucester; it is located 104 miles 74 chains (168.9 km) down the line from London Paddington.
Stroud railway station serves the market town of Stroud in Gloucestershire, England. It is a stop on the Gloucester–Swindon Golden Valley Line and was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It is located 102 miles 13 chains (164.4 km) west of London Paddington.
Kemble railway station is a railway station that serves the village of Kemble in Gloucestershire, England. The station is on the Swindon to Gloucester "Golden Valley" line, 90 miles 79 chains (146.4 km) from the zero point at Paddington. Despite its rural location, Kemble station has a high number of passengers, due mainly to the proximity of Cirencester.
Cam and Dursley railway station is a railway station serving the large village of Cam and the market town of Dursley in Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the main Bristol-Birmingham line, between Yate and Gloucester, at a site close to where Coaley Junction railway station was situated from 1856 to 1965.
The Bristol and Gloucester Railway was a railway company opened in 1844 to run services between Bristol and Gloucester. It was built on the 7 ftBrunel gauge, but it was acquired in 1845 by the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge Midland Railway, which also acquired the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway at the same time.
Swindon railway station is on the Great Western Main Line in South West England, serving the town of Swindon, Wiltshire. The station is 77 miles 23 chains down the line from the zero point at London Paddington and lies between Didcot Parkway and Chippenham. It is managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates all of the services from the station.
Barnt Green railway station serves the village of Barnt Green, North Worcestershire, England. It is situated 9+1⁄2 miles (15.3 km) south west of Birmingham New Street. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by West Midlands Trains.
Worcester Shrub Hill railway station is one of two railway stations serving the city of Worcester in Worcestershire, England. The other station is Worcester Foregate Street in the city centre. A third station, Worcestershire Parkway, is located just outside the city to the south-east. The station is managed by West Midlands Trains, operating here under the West Midlands Railway brand, and it is also served by Great Western Railway.
Yate railway station serves the town of Yate in South Gloucestershire, in south west England. The station is located on the main Bristol to Birmingham line between Bristol Parkway and Cam & Dursley, and is operated by Great Western Railway.
The North Warwickshire Line is a suburban railway line in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom. It runs from Birmingham to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, now the southern terminus of the line, although until 1976 the line continued to Cheltenham as part of the Great Western Railway route from Birmingham to Bristol.
The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway was a railway company intended to link Cheltenham, Gloucester and Swindon, in England. It was authorised in 1836 but it found it very hard to raise money for the construction, and it opened only a part of its line, between Swindon and Cirencester, in 1841. It sold its business to the Great Western Railway, which quickly built the line through to Gloucester in 1845 and Cheltenham in 1847; part of that route was shared with other companies.
Rail services in the West of England refer to passenger rail journeys made in the Bristol commuter area. 17 million passenger rail journeys were made in 2019-20 within the Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath region.
The Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad, also known as the Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, connected Gloucester and Cheltenham with horse-drawn trams. Its primary economic purpose was the transport of coal from Gloucester's docks to the rapidly developing spa town of Cheltenham and the transport of building stone from quarries on nearby Leckhampton Hill.
The Cirencester branch line was a five-mile-long single-track branch railway line in Gloucestershire, England that connected Cirencester to the main line at Kemble. It was opened by the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway in 1841. The main line was extended from Kemble to a junction near Gloucester in 1845, by the GWR which had taken over the C&GWUR. The branch supported a busy passenger and goods business, but these declined in the 1930s, and closure was threatened in the 1950s. To reduce costs and maintain the viability of the line, lightweight four-wheel diesel railbuses were introduced, and they proved popular. Nevertheless, the line's decline was inexorable, passenger service closed in 1964 and the goods service ending the following year.
Cheltenham Spa Malvern Road railway station was a station in the town of Cheltenham.
Cheltenham Spa St. James railway station was a station in the town of Cheltenham.
Cheltenham High Street railway station was built by the Midland Railway to serve the north-western part of Cheltenham.