Somerton railway station (not to be confused with Fritwell & Somerton) was a

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 ...

situated on the Great Western Railway's

Langport and Castle Cary Railway The Langport and Castle Cary Railway is a railway line from Castle Cary railway station to Cogload Junction near Taunton, Somerset, England, which reduced the length of the journey from London to Penzance by . History Through trains from Londo ...

. It served the town of

Somerton Somerton may refer to: Places Australia * Somerton, New South Wales * Somerton Park, South Australia, a seaside Adelaide suburb ** Somerton Man, unsolved case of an unidentified man found dead in 1948 on the Somerton Park beach *Somerton, Victoria ...

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.

History

Somerton station opened to the public on 2 July 1906, in a cutting adjoining the town centre. The station had two

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 and 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 ...

, however none of these are still standing. The station stopped handling passenger services on 10 September 1962 but continued to serve freight traffic until closing altogether on 6 July 1964. Despite all the stations between and being closed, the line remained open for trains 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 ...

to stations such as , and . In recent times there have been various aspirations to re-open the station by local people, including former local MP David Heath - but until that may happen, the only real sign of the station today is a -long

siding Siding may refer to: * Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house * Siding (rail) In rail terminology, a siding is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch lin ...

which had been built originally to let goods trains be overtaken. This siding is still used occasionally by

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. ...

during night-time engineering works.

Description

The station lay just behind the West Street

girder bridge A girder bridge is a bridge that uses girders as the means of supporting its deck. The two most common types of modern steel girder bridges are plate and box. The term "girder" is often used interchangeably with "beam" in reference to bridge d ...

and ran all the way down to the Perry Hill area of the town. The main building was sited on the eastbound platform, with the goods shed at the west end of that platform. The original signal box was placed just opposite this platform, but a second signal box was opened in 1942 to control and monitor some new loop lines and sidings which created to the west of the station itself. Various local businesses used the station as a site for their companies, with a cattle market, an animal and corn feed mill, a coal yard and even a fish merchant all having stood on the site.

The site today

Up until the mid-1980s when the original signal box was demolished, a few station huts still stood on the site,Langmaid, Nancy, (c2009) ''The Wooldridge Album,'' Somerton Station but these have all ceased to exist.

Proposed reopening

A May 2018 transport strategy suggested that a station should be opened to serve the Somerton and

Langport Langport is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Somerset, England, west of Somerton, Somerset, Somerton. The parish, which covers only part of the town, has a population of 3,578. Langport is contiguous with Huish Episcopi, ...

area, and such a plan was again mentioned in the National Infrastructure Strategy in November 2020.

Services

References

{{Reflist Disused railway stations in Somerset Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1906 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1964 1906 establishments in England 1964 disestablishments in England Somerton, Somerset