New Wellington Railway Station Worth £15m Could Open By 2025
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
Efforts to build a new railway station could soon move a step closer – if plans for 220 new homes are approved.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Somerset West and Taunton Council and Mid Devon District Council put together plans to reopen Wellington and Cullompton railway stations
Both closed during the infamous Beeching cuts of the mid-1960s.
Reading the article, it looks like the Department for Transport are going to pay for the station.
Four weeks ago, I went to the opening of Reading Green Park station, which I wrote about in Reading Green Park Station – 27th May 2023.
When I was there, I met the guy, who works for Great Western Railway, who is responsible for new stations in the area, who when I asked him about Wellington and Cullompton, indicated that they might be treated together.
In Thoughts About Electrification Through Devon And Cornwall, I speculated that there might be some electrification in the area to charge battery-electric trains on their way to and from the Devon and Cornwall Peninsular. As the M5 motorway goes through the area close to the railway, who would complain about some well-designed overhead electrification.
Network Rail could even use a design like this.
The structural rhomboid shape on top is made from laminated wood.
I describe it in detail in Prototype Overhead Line Structure Revealed.
According to Real Time Trains, Taunton and Exeter St. David’s are 30.7 miles apart and a typical train takes twenty-seven minutes, so I’m fairly sure that a long enough electrified section can be created to fully charge trains, even if they speed through at nearly 70 mph.
Services
The BBC article says this about services.
David Northey, a retired strategic planner with Network Rail, said at a public meeting held in May, that the station would initially be served by trains every two hours as part of the Great Western Railway service between Exeter St. David’s and Cardiff Central.
However, he said this likely increase to once per hour as demand grows.
There are currently four services that go through the site of the proposed stations at Wellington and Cullompton.
- London Paddington and Exeter St. David’s
- London Paddington and Plumouth
- London Paddington and Penzance
- Cardiff Central and Penzance
Note.
- All trains have a frequency of one train per two hours (tp2h).
- There is a train every thirty minutes.
- All trains stop at Taunton, Tiverton Parkway and Exeter St. Davids.
If at some time in the future all services are run by battery-electric Class 802 trains, I suspect GWR will have fun working out an efficient charging and stopping schedule, which increases the number of stops at Wellington and Cullompton stations.
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