Chard Central railway station was the principal

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

Chard Chard (; '' Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris'', Cicla Group and Flavescens Group) is a green leafy vegetable. In the cultivars of the Flavescens Group, or Swiss chard, the leaf stalks are large and often prepared separately from the leaf b ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It was opened in 1866 and closed in 1962, during which time it was known by three different names.

History

The first railway to serve Chard was the

London and South Western Railway The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exete ...

(LSWR) which opened Chard Road on its new

Yeovil Yeovil () is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Somerset, England. It is close to Somerset's southern border with Dorset, west of London, south of Bristol, west of Sherborne and east of Taunton. The population of the bui ...

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

line in 1860. On 8 May 1863 a second station was opened at as the terminus of a branch from Chard Road. A second railway was opened on 11 September 1866 by the

Bristol and Exeter Railway The Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) was an English railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter. It was built on the broad gauge and its engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in stages between 1841 and 1844. It was allied wi ...

(B&ER). This line terminated at a new station a short distance north of Chard Town and was served by trains from . Eleven weeks later, on 26 November, a connecting line was opened between Chard Town and the B&ER station, which was known at this time as 'Chard Joint', and the station was then used as the terminus for both railways. Both railway companies provided staff and there were even separate

signal box A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

es controlling train movements at each end of the station The LSWR was built to

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

but the B&ER was a

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...

until 19 July 1891. From 1 January 1917 the Great Western Railway (GWR, which had

amalgamated Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form. Amalgamation, amalgam, and other derivatives may refer to: Mathematics and science * Amalgam (chemistry), the combination of mercury with another metal **Pan ama ...

with the B&ER in 1876) took over the operation of trains on the LSWR branch. This allowed some economies to be made, although the trains to Taunton and Chard Junction were still mostly advertised as separate services. In 1923 the LSWR became a part of the larger Southern Railway (SR). The SR platform and sidings were removed by the end of 1927 and the following year their signal box was closed. It was renamed as plain 'Chard' on 1 March 1928, but it appeared as such in GWR timetables before that date. 1948 saw the SR and GWR

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with ...

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commis ...

and from 26 September 1949 it was known as 'Chard Central'. Passenger trains were withdrawn from both branches on 10 September 1962. Public goods traffic continued until 3 February 1964 but goods trains still ran until 3 October 1966 to serve a private siding. After this all track was lifted.

Description

The station was built in stone and brick in one of the styles favoured by

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel ( ; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", "one of the 19th-century engi ...

, although he was not the engineer of the line as he died seven years before it was opened. The

platform Platform may refer to: Arts * Platform, an arts centre at The Bridge, Easterhouse, Glasgow * ''Platform'' (1993 film), a 1993 Bollywood action film * ''Platform'' (2000 film), a 2000 film by Jia Zhangke * '' The Platform'' (2019 film) * Pla ...

and offices were on the west side of the line, the side closer to the town centre. A

train shed A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...

spanned the main platform and track. A terminal platform was provided at the north end for trains to Taunton, and at the south end for LSWR services. A

goods shed A goods shed is a railway building designed for storing goods before, after, and during loading to and unloading from a train. A typical goods shed will have a track running through it to allow goods wagons to be unloaded under cover, althou ...

was situated in the yard to the north west of the station and a private siding was provided behind it for B.G. Wyatt on the site of the

Chard Canal The Chard Canal was a tub boat canal in Somerset, England, that ran from the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal at Creech St. Michael, over four aqueducts, through three tunnels and four inclined planes to Chard. It was completed in 1842, was neve ...

wharf. A loop at the north end of the station allowed locomotives to run around their trains at the end of their journeys. The GWR signal box was on the east side of the line alongside the loop, and the LSWR one was west of the line at their end of the station. The station building and train shed still stand and are in use as commercial premises, and is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

Locomotive shed

locomotive shed A motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine sheds" or just "sheds". Facilit ...

was provided opposite the north end of the passenger platform when the station opened. Built in brick, it was long and wide, covering just one track. A wooden platform outside the shed was used to store coal for the locomotives. A

turntable A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding phys ...

was provided on its own siding south of the shed. The shed was closed as a depot on 14 July 1924 although the shed line remained in place until 1933 and the turntable until November 1935. Two GWR locomotives were allocated to Chard in 1901, a 517 Class 0-4-2T and a 1076 Class 0-6-0ST.

Services

From Chard Branch Line

References

{{Reflist

External links