Welshpool railway station serves the town of Welshpool (), in Powys, mid-Wales. It is a stop on the Cambrian Line between and Newtown, measured from Sutton Bridge Junction, where the Cambrian Line joins the Welsh Marches Line. The station was first opened in August 1860, but was resited a short distance away in May 1992 to allow for track realignment on the same day that the original closed.
History Original station
Built by the Oswestry & Newtown Railway, the original station opened on 14 August 1860 (although some sources suggest 1859). The line was initially operated by the London & North Western Railway before being absorbed by the Cambrian Railways, which became part of the Great Western Railway at the grouping that came into effect on 1 January 1923.
About 100 metres north of the station were exchange sidings with the narrow gauge Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, which opened for freight traffic in 1903. They closed in 1956, with a separate station serving passenger traffic until 1931. By 2017, the only remains are part of the cattle dock which has mixed gauge track embedded into concrete track bed.
The station building is extant and has been converted into a shop and café; all other remains of this station and the site of the railway were obliterated by the construction of the new A483 road.
Present station
There was some severe rationalisation of services under the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, with the old Cambrian main line to via closed to passengers in January 1965; most local stations towards following suit later that year. Two of the four platforms at the old station were later taken out of use. Subsequent development of the A483 road Welshpool bypass, which opened in July 1993, required the railway line to be shifted to the south. To enable this, the original station was closed and a new single island platform was constructed by British Rail north of it, to allow realignment in 1992.
The replacement station platform is reached by a pedestrian bridge crossing both the railway and the A483, with long uncovered inclines to the north and stepped access from the south. The original station building can still be seen across the road.
Facilities There are no facilities beyond a ticket vending machine, small shelter, bench seating, passenger information displays and a customer help point.
Passenger volume +Passenger Volume at Welshpool2002–032004–052005–062006–072007–082008–092009–102010–112011–122012–132013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–192019–202020–212021–222022–23Entries and exits60,53870,83372,66078,20590,10095,778101,404105,590114,364117,254122,446133,744157,646170,648180,486181,768165,72433,78298,128140,554 The statistics cover twelve month periods that start in April.
Services Transport for Wales operates trains westwards to , which then split to and ; eastbound services travel to and .
There is a basic two-hourly service each way on weekdays and Saturdays, with additional hourly Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth services at peak times. On Sundays, there is a two-hourly service on the Shrewsbury - Aberystwyth axis, five of which have through portions or connections along the coast to/from Pwllheli.
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