Semington Halt Railway Station
Semington Halt railway station was the railway station serving Semington in Wiltshire, England. The station was on the Devizes Branch Line, in between Holt Junction and Seend. Opening Semington Halt station opened in 1857 for the residents of Semington, during a time when the Great Western Railway was increasing the number of halts in the South West. After completion of the eastern section of track, the Devizes line was a main line from London to Bristol, which meant passing through Semington. However the Devizes line lost to competition and returned to a branch line in 1900. Closure Semington Halt suffered from reduced traffic after the completion of the Stert and Westbury Railway that bypassed the Devizes branch line in order to reduce the London to Bristol distance by five miles. The entire branch line was closed in 1966 under the Beeching cuts and the halt was destroyed in 1970, along with the rest of the line. The site of the station is now a private residen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Semington
Semington is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is about south of Melksham and about northeast of Trowbridge. The parish includes the hamlets of Little Marsh and Littleton.election-maps.co.uk Semington Civil Parish boundary on Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 colour raster layer. Retrieved 23 October 2006. The village has two locks on the , known as the , and nearby is the start of the disused [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the northeast and Berkshire to the east. The county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the county town of Trowbridge. Within the county's boundary are two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles (which together are a UNESCO Cultural and World Heritage site) and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral. Swindon is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wilts, Somerset And Weymouth Railway
The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was an early railway company in south-western England. It obtained Parliamentary powers in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham in Wiltshire, southward to Salisbury and Weymouth in Dorset. It opened the first part of the network but found it impossible to raise further money and sold its line to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1850. The GWR took over the construction and undertook to build an adjacent connecting line; the network was complete in 1857. In the early years of the 20th century the GWR wanted to shorten its route from London to the West of England and built "cut-off" lines in succession to link part of the WS&WR network, so that by 1906 the express trains ran over the Westbury to Castle Cary section. In 1933 further improvements were made, and that part of the line was established as part of the "holiday line" to Devon and Cornwall. The network was already a major trunk route for coal from South Wales coa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ... with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), 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 —later slightly widened to —but, from 1854, a series of Consolidation (business), amalgamations saw it also operate Standard gauge, standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which ama ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Holt Junction Railway Station
Holt Junction was a railway station which served the village of Holt, Wiltshire, England between 1861 and 1966. It stood on the Wessex Main Line at its junction with the western end of the Devizes branch. History The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway Company opened their line southward from near Chippenham, at first only as far as Westbury, in 1848; the line passed Holt village to the southeast but there were no local stations. The company sold its line to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1850. In 1857 the GWR completed the Devizes branch line, which met the earlier line to the east of the village. By 1861 there was a single-platform station at the junction to allow passengers to transfer between main line and branch trains. Holt Junction station opened to passengers in 1874, although the only access from the village was by footpath; in 1877 a road connection was made and a goods shed was added. In 1862 the GWR extended its Reading-Hungerford line westward via to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Seend
Seend is a village and civil parish about southeast of the market town of Melksham, Wiltshire, England. It lies about west of Devizes and northeast of the county town of Trowbridge. The parish includes the sub-village of Seend Cleeve and the hamlets of Inmarsh, Martinslade, Seend Head, Sells Green and The Stocks (the latter being contiguous with Seend Cleeve). Seend village is on a hilltop more than above sea level. The hill is bordered to the west and south by Semington Brook, a tributary of the River Avon, and to the east by Summerham Brook, which is a tributary of Semington Brook. The village's High Street is the A361 Trowbridge-Devizes road; the A365 links the A361 with Melksham and passes through Sells Green. Toponym The village name has had earlier forms, notably in the 17th century: ''Seene'' (1602—1635), ''Scene'' (1650), ''Seend Vulgo'' (1670) and ''Seen'' (1675). The name is from Old English "sende" meaning a sandy place. Manor The Domesday Book of 1086 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stert And Westbury Railway
The Stert and Westbury Railway was opened by the Great Western Railway Company in 1900 in Wiltshire, England. It shortened the distance between London Paddington station and , and since 1906 has also formed part of the Reading to Taunton line for a shorter journey from London to . History The Great Western Railway (GWR) had opened its main line between London Paddington and in 1841. It was extended westwards through and trains were running through to by 1867. Another route left the main line at Thingley Junction, west of , ran south to in 1848 and was extended to Weymouth in 1857. Both these lines carried trains connecting with ships – from the Channel Islands at Weymouth, and from America at Plymouth – but the GWR was sometimes referred to as the 'Great Way Round' as its routes to these places were longer than the rival London and South Western Railway. In 1895 the GWR started work on laying a second track on the Berks and Hants Extension Railway which was part of a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beeching Cuts
The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes'' (1965), written by Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board. The first report identified 2,363 stations and of railway line for closure, amounting to 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and 67,700 British Rail positions, with an objective of stemming the large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running. The second report identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. The 1963 report also recommended some less well-publicised changes, including a switch to the now-standard practice of containerisation for rail freight, and the replacement of some services ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Devizes Station
Devizes railway station was the railway station serving Devizes in Wiltshire, England between 1857 and 1966. The station was on the Devizes branch line, between Pans Lane Halt and Bromham & Rowde. Early plans The idea of having a railway station in Devizes was first conceived in 1830 before the Great Western Railway (GWR) had begun to construct their main lines. Devizes was regularly considered by the GWR as a main stop on its London to Bristol Line but lost out to Swindon due to its smaller population and lower growth rate. A station in Devizes was needed to support industry and agriculture in the town, as its only transport route was the Kennet and Avon Canal, opened in 1810. A branch to Devizes was included in plans for the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway, authorised by Parliament in 1845, but that company was sold to the GWR in 1850. West from Devizes In 1854 the GWR finally began to build from near on the former WS&WR line eastward to Devizes, completing the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Former Great Western Railway Stations
A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature. A former may become an integral part of the finished structure, as in an aircraft fuselage, or it may be removable, being using in the construction process and then discarded or re-used. Aircraft formers Formers are used in the construction of aircraft fuselage, of which a typical fuselage has a series from the nose to the empennage, typically perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The primary purpose of formers is to establish the shape of the fuselage and reduce the column length of stringers to prevent instability. Formers are typically attached to longerons, which support the skin of the aircraft. The "former-and-longeron" technique (also called stations and stringers) was adopted from boat construction, and was typical of light aircraft built unti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |