St Ives railway station

St Ives

*Porth Ia*
St Ives; Porth Ia
General information
Location	St Ives, Cornwall ; England
Coordinates	50°12′32″N5°28′41″W / 50.209°N 5.478°W
Grid reference	SW519401
Managed by	Great Western Railway
Platforms	1
Other information
Station code	SIV
Classification	DfT category F1
History
Original company	Great Western Railway
Key dates
Opened	1877
Resited	1971
Passengers
2018/19	0.750 million

Last updated November 10, 2024

4 ft 81⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge. On 12 November 1894 heavy rain caused flood water to run down Tregenna Hill. It broke through a wall, flooding down onto the station below, from where it cascaded off the other side down on to the beach.^[3] The heavy fish traffic of the 19th century largely disappeared during the first half of the 20th century^[2] and all goods traffic was withdrawn from the station on 9 September 1963. The signal box was no longer staffed and all the sidings were taken out of use by 1966. A camping coach was positioned here by the Western Region in 1958 and 1959; then there were two coaches from 1960 to 1964.^[4]

The line was proposed for closure following the Beeching Report and, because of this, was mentioned in the song "Slow Train" by Flanders and Swann.^[5] The line however was reprieved, but the original curved station was closed on 23 May 1971 and a new, straight, platform opened on the site of the goods shed to replace it.^[6] The site of the original station is now a car park, but the railway also brings people from the Park and Ride car park at St Erth.

Description

The station is situated on the hill above Porthminster beach on the south side of the town. It has a single platform, which is on the left of trains arriving from St Erth, which is 4.25 miles (6.8 km) to the south. There is a large car park adjacent to the platform, and the town centre is a short walk down the hill from the car park entrance. The town's small bus station is situated at the car park entrance. A travel agency immediately adjacent to the station platform contains a rail ticket booking office. Tickets issued to/from the station describe it as "St Ives Cornwall".^[7] A path leads from the car park down to Porthminster beach, from where the South West Coast Path can be followed back to Carbis Bay or through the town towards Lands End.

Services

All trains are operated by Great Western Railway. All services operate to and from St Erth, and connect with trains on the Cornish Main Line. During the daytime there are two services each hour. Only one of these typically calls at Lelant, with some gaps. The first and last train of the day (plus an early evening service on Saturday) are extended to Penzance ^[8] to facilitate crew changes.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Carbis Bay		Great Western Railway St Ives Bay Line		Terminus

Related Research Articles

The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of 7 ft —later slightly widened to 7 ft 1⁄4 in —but, from 1854, a series of amalgamations saw it also operate 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbis Bay</span> Human settlement in Cornwall, England

Carbis Bay is a seaside resort and village in Cornwall, England. It lies 1 mile (1.6 km) southeast of St Ives, on the western coast of St Ives Bay, on the Atlantic coast. The South West Coast Path passes above the beach.

The St Ives Bay Line is a 4.25 miles (6.84 km) railway line from St Erth to St Ives in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It was opened in 1877, the last new 7 ft broad gauge passenger railway to be constructed in the country. Converted to standard gauge in 1892, it continues to operate as a community railway, carrying tourists as well as local passengers. It has five stations including the junction with the Cornish Main Line at St Erth.

Newton Abbot railway station serves the market town of Newton Abbot in Devon, England. It is 214 miles 5 chains (345 km) from London Paddington. The station today is managed by Great Western Railway, who provide train services along with CrossCountry.

Bodmin Parkway railway station is on the Cornish Main Line that serves the nearby town of Bodmin and other parts of mid-Cornwall, England. It is situated 3 miles (4.8 km) south-east of the town of Bodmin in the civil parish of St Winnow, 274 miles 3 chains from London Paddington measured via Box and Plymouth Millbay. Network Rail’s National Rail Timetable dated May 2023 records the distance from London Paddington to Bodmin Parkway as 252.50 miles.

Par railway station serves the villages of Par, Tywardreath and St Blazey, Cornwall, England. The station is 281 miles 66 chains down the line from London Paddington, measured via Box and Plymouth Millbay. It is the junction for the Atlantic Coast Line to Newquay.

St Austell station is a Grade II listed station which serves the town of St Austell, Cornwall, England. It is 286 miles 26 chains from the zero point at London Paddington measured via Box and Plymouth Millbay. The station is operated by Great Western Railway.

Truro railway station serves the city of Truro, Cornwall, England. The station is on the Cornish Main Line and is the junction for the Maritime Line to Falmouth Docks. It is situated at milepost 300.75 miles (484.01 km) from London Paddington, which is measured via Bristol Temple Meads, although most trains use the shorter route via Newbury.

Redruth station serves the town of Redruth, Cornwall, United Kingdom; it is situated on the Cornish Main Line between Truro and Camborne. The station is 309 miles 68 chains down the line from the zero point at London Paddington, measured via Box and Plymouth Millbay.

Camborne railway station serves the town of Camborne, Cornwall, England. The station is 313 miles 40 chains from the zero point at London Paddington measured via Box and Plymouth Millbay.

St Erth railway station is a Grade II listed station situated at Rose-an-Grouse in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It serves the nearby village of St Erth, which is about 0.75 miles (1.21 km) away, and is the junction for the St Ives Bay Line to St Ives. The station is 320 miles 78 chains from the zero point at London Paddington measured via Box and Plymouth Millbay.

Penzance railway station serves the town of Penzance in west Cornwall, England. It is the terminus of the Cornish Main Line and the southernmost railway station in Great Britain, situated at milepost 326.5 miles (525.5 km) from London Paddington. The station is owned by Network Rail and managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates train services together with CrossCountry.

Barnstaple railway station is the northern terminus of the Tarka Line and serves the town of Barnstaple, Devon. It is 39 miles 75 chains (64.3 km) from Exeter Central and 211.25 miles (339.97 km) from London Waterloo. It is managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates the passenger service.

Plymouth Millbay railway station was the original railway terminus in Plymouth, Devon, England. It was used for passenger trains from 1849 to 1941. It was rebuilt in 1903.

Carbis Bay railway station is on the St Ives Bay Line in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom and serves the village and beach of Carbis Bay, a community that only adopted this name after the arrival of the railway in 1877. Carbis Viaduct is situated on the St Ives (west) side of the station.

Lelant railway station is on the waterfront of the Hayle estuary below the village of Lelant in Cornwall, United Kingdom.

Lelant Saltings railway station was opened on 27 May 1978 to provide a park and ride facility for visitors to St Ives, Cornwall, England. It is situated on the A3074 road close to the junction with the A30 near the foot of the hill up to Lelant village. The park and ride facility closed in June 2019, replaced by a new one at nearby St Erth railway station, but the Saltings station remains open with a very limited service of trains.

The West Cornwall Railway was a railway company in Cornwall, Great Britain, formed in 1846 to construct a railway between Penzance and Truro. It purchased the existing Hayle Railway, and improved its main line, and built new sections between Penzance and Hayle, and between Redruth and Truro, and opened throughout in 1852.

The Helston Railway is a heritage railway in Cornwall which aims to rebuild and preserve as much as possible of the former GWR Helston Railway between Nancegollen and Water-Ma-Trout on the outskirts of Helston. It is operated by the Helston Railway Preservation Company using members of the Helston Railway Preservation Society.

References

1 2 MacDermot, E T (1931). History of the Great Western Railway. Vol. 2 (1863-1921) (1 ed.). London: Great Western Railway.
1 2 Bennett, Alan (1990) [1988]. The Great Western Railway in West Cornwall (2 ed.). Cheltenham: Runpast Publishing. ISBN 1-870754-12-3.
1 2 Bray, Lena; Bray, Donald (1992) [1981]. St Ives Heritage (Second ed.). Devoran: Landfall Publications. ISBN 1-873443-06-4.
↑ McRae, Andrew (1998). British Railways Camping Coach Holidays: A Tour of Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Vol. Scenes from the Past: 30 (Part Two). Foxline. p. 95. ISBN 1-870119-53-3.
↑ "Flanders & Swann Online". Slow Train. Archived from the original on 13 April 2013. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
↑ Cooke, R A (1977). Track Layout Diagrams of the GWR and BR WR: Section 10, West Cornwall. Harwell: R A Cooke.
↑ "St Ives Cornwall | Train Stations | Great Western Railway". www.gwr.com. Archived from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
↑ Table 144 National Rail timetable, May 2019

This station offers access to the South West Coast Path
Distance to path	100 yards (91 m)
Next station anticlockwise	Penzance 41 miles (66 km)
Next station clockwise	Carbis Bay 1 mile (2 km)

External links

Video footage and history of St Ives railway station
Train times and station information for St Ives railway station from National Rail

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[MacDermot_1931-1] 1 2 MacDermot, E T (1931). History of the Great Western Railway. Vol. 2 (1863-1921) (1 ed.). London: Great Western Railway.

[Bennett-2] 1 2 Bennett, Alan (1990) [1988]. The Great Western Railway in West Cornwall (2 ed.). Cheltenham: Runpast Publishing. ISBN 1-870754-12-3.

[Bray_1981-3] 1 2 Bray, Lena; Bray, Donald (1992) [1981]. St Ives Heritage (Second ed.). Devoran: Landfall Publications. ISBN 1-873443-06-4.

[4] McRae, Andrew (1998). British Railways Camping Coach Holidays: A Tour of Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Vol. Scenes from the Past: 30 (Part Two). Foxline. p. 95. ISBN 1-870119-53-3.

[5] "Flanders & Swann Online". Slow Train. Archived from the original on 13 April 2013. Retrieved 14 May 2009.

[6] Cooke, R A (1977). Track Layout Diagrams of the GWR and BR WR: Section 10, West Cornwall. Harwell: R A Cooke.

[7] "St Ives Cornwall | Train Stations | Great Western Railway". www.gwr.com. Archived from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2022.

[8] Table 144 National Rail timetable, May 2019

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St Ives Porth Ia

General information
Location	St Ives, Cornwall England
Coordinates	50°12′32″N5°28′41″W / 50.209°N 5.478°W / 50.209; -5.478
Grid reference	SW519401
Managed by	Great Western Railway
Platforms	1
Other information
Station code	SIV
Classification	DfT category F1
History
Original company	Great Western Railway
Key dates
Opened	1877
Resited	1971
Passengers

2018/19	0.750 million