Ashchurch for Tewkesbury | |
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Location | |
Place | Ashchurch |
Local authority | Tewkesbury |
Grid reference | SO926333 |
Operations | |
Station code | ASC |
Managed by | Great Western Railway |
Number of platforms | 2 |
DfT category | F2 |
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries |
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Annual rail passenger usage* | |
2011/12 | 74,174 |
2012/13 | 76,386 |
2013/14 | 83,840 |
2014/15 | 87,384 |
2015/16 | 91,000 |
History | |
24 June 1840 | Station opened |
15 November 1971 | Station Closed |
1 June 1997 | Rebuilt station opened |
National Rail – UK railway stations | |
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Ashchurch for Tewkesbury from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year. | |
Ashchurch for Tewkesbury is a railway station serving the North Gloucestershire and South Worcestershire Area from near Tewkesbury 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 near the station to Tewkesbury, which is located two miles to the west.
The original Ashchurch station was a stop on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, authorised in 1836, and whose central section from Bromsgrove to Cheltenham, including Ashchurch, was opened on 24 June 1840 (the line was open throughout a few months later). It subsequently became part of the Midland Railway, later the London, Midland and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923, and finally passed to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. It was then closed by the British Railways Board in November 1971.
Two fatal accidents occurred near the station prior to its original closure – the first on 8 January 1929 and the second forty years later on 8 March 1969.
The station reopened on 1 June 1997 on the site of the earlier station which had lain derelict for 26 years. Only one small ruined red-brick shed remains of the original station buildings. In the post-war period, the station had been used both for passenger services and for cargo loading for the nearby army base. A number of cargo sidings still exist nearby. Ashchurch was once a railway centre of some importance, as it was the junction for two branches, one each side of the main line: