Saltash railway station () serves the town of

Saltash Saltash () is a town and civil parish in south Cornwall, England. It had a population of 16,184 in 2011 census. Saltash faces the city of Plymouth over the River Tamar and is popularly known as "the Gateway to Cornwall". Saltash’s landmarks ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, England. It is on the south side of the town between the

Royal Albert Bridge The Royal Albert Bridge is a railway bridge which spans the River Tamar in England between Plymouth, Devon and Saltash, Cornwall. Its unique design consists of two lenticular iron trusses above the water, with conventional plate-girder app ...

which crosses the

River Tamar The Tamar (; ) is a river in south west England that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). A large part of the valley of the Tamar is protected as the Tamar Valley National Landscape (an Area of Outsta ...

and the Coombe Viaduct which spans a small tributary of the same river. Trains are operated by

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

. The station is from via Box and Plymouth Millbay. The line singles at the east end of the station passing over the Royal Albert Bridge.

History

The station opened with the

Cornwall Railway The Cornwall Railway was a broad gauge railway from Plymouth in Devon to Falmouth, Cornwall, Falmouth in Cornwall, England, built in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was constantly beset with shortage of capital for the construct ...

on 4 May 1859. It was described at the time as being "at the head of that town. It consists of an arrival and departure station, both being stone buildings, and possessing all requisite offices for the accommodation of the traffic. New and convenient approaches are likely to be made to that station by the corporation and the owners of adjoining property, which will prove a great public benefit." 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 opened early in 1863 and the station was rebuilt in 1880–1881. The Cornwall Railway was amalgamated into the

on 1 July 1889. To counter competition from electric

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

s, the

opened several small stations in Plymouth and began to operate an intensive service of local trains between Saltash, Plymouth and

Plympton Plympton is a suburb of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England. It is in origin an ancient Stannary, stannary town. It was an important trading centre for locally mined tin, and a seaport before the River Plym silted up and trade moved down riv ...

in July 1904. The services were vastly reduced after the Tamar road bridge opened in 1961. The Great Western Railway was

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 ...

into

British Rail 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 Comm ...

from 1 January 1948 which was in turn privatised in the 1990s. The unused station building was sold off in the 1990s and fell into disrepair. Saltash Town Council purchased the building in 2017 and — along with

Cornwall Council Cornwall Council ( ), known between 1889 and 2009 as Cornwall County Council (), is the local authority which governs the non-metropolitan county of Cornwall in South West England. Since 2009 it has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary ...

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and railway infrastructure manager, infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. ...

and the Railway Heritage Trust — worked to restore the building. The restored building was opened in November 2021, with a waiting room, toilets and refreshments, a community hall and business hub.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed and has no

ticket Ticket or tickets may refer to: Slips of paper * Lottery ticket * Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start) * Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a to ...

provision, so all tickets must be purchased in advance or from the conductor on the train. Waiting shelters, bicycle racks and bench seats are provided on each side, while train running information is offered via customer help points, timetable posters and a public telephone. Step-free access is available to both platforms.

Services

Saltash - GWR 150261 arriving from Penzance

Saltash is served by most

trains on the

Cornish Main Line The Cornish Main Line is a railway line in Cornwall and Devon in the United Kingdom. It runs from Penzance to Plymouth, crossing from Cornwall into Devon over the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash. It directly serves Truro, St Austell, Bodmin (by ...

between and including a few that run to or from

London Paddington station Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a London station group, London railway station and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by ...

. On weekdays there are one or two trains each hour in each direction during the daytime but early mornings, in the evenings and on Sundays the service is less frequent.

References

External links

Saltash Rail Users Group

{{Cornwall railway stations Railway stations in Cornwall Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1859 Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations served by Great Western Railway DfT Category F2 stations