Trains at Didcot Parkway, GWML, 16/04/25

Didcot Parkway is a railway station serving Didcot, a town in Oxfordshire, England. The station was opened as Didcot on 12 June 1844 and was renamed Didcot Parkway on 29 July 1985 by British Rail, to reflect its role as a park and ride railhead. It is 53 miles 10 chains (53.13 mi; 85.5 km) down the line from London Paddington and is situated between Cholsey to the east and Swindon to the west. The station is a stop on local services operated by Great Western Railway between Reading and Oxford, and by main line services from Paddington to the south-west of England and south Wales. Just to the north of the station is the Didcot Railway Centre, which is accessed through the station. The centre is a comprehensive exhibition of original Great Western Railway rolling stock, with demonstration running tracks and including a reconstructed station named Didcot Halt. The railway has run through Didcot since 1 June 1840, when the Great Western Railway extended its main line from Reading to Steventon. During this period a stagecoach transported passengers to Oxford from Steventon. A few weeks later the line was extended to Faringdon Road station near West Challow, and eventually to Bristol. On 12 June 1844 the line from Didcot to Oxford was opened and Didcot station was opened at the junction. The original intended route would have taken a line from Steventon to Oxford via Abingdon, but Abingdon's townspeople objected to this idea. Otherwise, it is unlikely that Didcot would have evolved into the town it is today, as its initial growth was prompted by the coming of the railway. In 2018, a multi-storey car park was opened, costing £20 million and increasing the number of spaces by 65% to 1800. The car park also has a sheltered footbridge. In 2021, a new cycle storage hub was constructed, providing 600 covered spaces, LED lighting, CCTV cameras and a bike repair station. The project cost £1m, and was completed by a partnership of GWR, DfT and Network Rail. The station is located just to the north of the town centre in Didcot. It can only be accessed by car from Station Road itself on the south side of the railway, although passengers may park in Foxhall Road Long Stay Car Park, situated on Basil Hill Road, and cross a footbridge to the station. The station entrance is at road level; platforms 2-5 may be accessed by lifts, while platform 1 may be accessed from the ramp to the left of the station building near the taxi rank. All services are operated by Great Western Railway. The junction at the west end of the station which is accessible from platforms 3, 4, and 5 (the Oxford bound platforms) is known as Chester Line Junction. This is so called because that was as far at the Great Western Railway could take you from here. West of the station is Foxhall Junction which allows freight trains from Oxford to travel towards Swindon. Immediately beyond this two goods lines diverge on the north side of the line. The first served a loop for Merry-go-round trains that used to deliver coal to Didcot Power Station. The second serves the Milton Freight Terminal, though this line is not in regular use. Beyond this the four main and relief lines merge into three at Foxhall Junction and after a small loop just before Steventon, the four lines pass under the A34 and become two lines as far as the old station at Wantage Road. As part of the 21st-century modernisation of the Great Western Main Line, the GWML was electrified to just west of Didcot Parkway in January 2018. It was extended west to Swindon in November 2018. It was originally proposed that the Oxford line also be electrified, however cost overruns resulted in this being deferred. As a result, Didcot Parkway has seen an increase in the number of terminating services with Class 387s electric multiple units connecting at Didcot with British Rail Class 165 / 166 diesel multiple units. Duration of the video: 09:38 - 12:00 We’ll be seeing services by Great Western Railway, Cross Country, Locomotive Services and various freight as well. I hope you enjoyed this video if you did smash that like button and don’t forget to subscribe for more upcoming content that’ll be featured on the channel and feel free to leave any comments or suggestions of stations that you would like me to do in the comments below as I’ll try respond back to them as soon as possible. I really appreciated my time session that was spent at Didcot Parkway especially with the amount of variety I had especially with how much freight I saw plus I had bit of a bonus seeing a railtour coming through the station despite it running late but the main thing is I managed to see it bypass through the station. My next station will be Reading which is just a few stops up the line from here I haven’t visited that station for quite a long time but I’m sure it’ll be worth revisiting so until then thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.