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Taunton railway station is a junction station on the route from London to Penzance, west of London Paddington station.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher= Network Rail )〕 It is situated in Taunton, Somerset, England and is operated by Great Western Railway. It is also served by CrossCountry trains and by the West Somerset Railway on special event days and by mainline steam excursions. == History == Originally opened on 1 July 1842 as part of the Bristol and Exeter Railway, Taunton was the terminus of the line until a new temporary terminus was opened on 1 May 1843 further west at Beambridge. Isambard Kingdom Brunel's original design was for a single-sided station with two platforms, each with their own buildings and train sheds, placed on the south side of the line. An hotel was built between them and the Grand Western Canal. Having both platforms on the town side of the line was meant to help passengers but was found to be problematic as the railway became busier, with each train having to cross the line used by trains in the opposite direction. An engine shed was provided at the west end of the station. A series of branches opened in the area during the next thirty years. These were the Yeovil branch line (1 October 1853); the West Somerset Railway to Watchet (31 March 1862); the Chard Branch Line (11 September 1866); and the Devon and Somerset Railway (8 June 1871, extended to Barnstaple 1 November 1873).〔 While none of these branches had a junction in Taunton, the trains were generally run through to Taunton to provide connections. The station was unable to cope with all these extra trains and passengers, so a major rebuilding was completed on 17 August 1868.〔 The "up station" at the east end was demolished and replaced by more conventional platform on the north side of the line; the "down station" was extended onto the site now vacated, and a new single train shed was provided covering the whole station. Goods traffic was moved away from the passenger platforms by the opening on 1 November 1896 of a pair of avoiding lines that skirted around the south side of the station behind the old hotel. A larger engine shed was opened in the same year. The platforms were extended again in 1895. Now covering the whole length of the original single-sided station, they were the longest platforms on the Great Western Railway (which had amalgamated with the Bristol and Exeter company on 1 January 1876). New bay platforms were added to handle the trains from the branch lines. In the 1930s the lines through Taunton from Cogload Junction to Norton Fitzwarren were widened from two to four tracks; those east of Taunton were brought into use on 13 December 1931 and those to the west on 14 February 1932. This work forced another rebuilding of the station. The train shed was dismantled and new buildings constructed on the up (north) side along with a new island platform in the middle of the station.〔 This gave a platform face for each of the four through lines, which were brought into use on 7 February 1932. Work included a new subway that replaced the old footbridge, and a new booking office at road level on the north side of the station. The old goods shed was replaced by a two-storey goods warehouse next to the avoiding line, east of the station on 20 February 1932. The platforms were numbered: # The down relief platform, principally used by expresses from Bristol # A bay at the east end, used for arrivals from Chard, Yeovil, Castle Cary # The inner bay at the west end, double sided around the single track, principally used for Barnstaple departures # The outer bay at the west end, principally used for Minehead departures # The down main platform, mainly used by expresses from London # The up main platform, mainly used by expresses to London # The up relief platform, mainly used by expresses to Bristol # A bay at the west end, occasionally used for Minehead/Barnstaple arrivals # A bay at the east end, used for stopping train departures to Bristol and Yeovil Although some no longer have tracks, all the platform structures remain. Until 1970 the four tracks to the east of Taunton were not used as normal main and relief lines, but with the inner main lines for trains to London and the outer lines for trains to Bristol, to align with the way the tracks diverged at Cogload Junction, some miles to the east of the station. In 1970 the central island platform was closed off and all trains stopping at Taunton used the outer platforms, except in an emergency when the central platform was pressed into use. London trains stopping at Taunton (which was most of them) now crossed over to the main lines at the London end of the station. The second pair of lines from Cogload were removed in 1986.〔 The goods depot closed for general traffic in 1965, although bulk coal was handled until 1972. The engine shed closed on 1 January 1972, by which time it only served as a fueling point for local diesel shunting locomotives. The various branch lines closed during the 1960s and 1970s, so only one bay platform was retained for local trains starting towards Bristol. The island platform was taken out of regular use for a few years, although it could be opened up in an emergency (albeit with no platform numbers, nor a lift). This situation no longer applies as the platforms were reopened for normal services in 2000 and a new lift installed in 2007 to replace an electric "stair lift" which could carry one seated person at a time but no luggage. A west-facing bay platform has also been reinstated for passeneger use, although there are no regular trains timetabled to use it. Today the original "down station" building survives, along with the hotel and the extensions added in 1868. An examination of the brickwork on the south-side building reveals where the footbridge was removed in favour of the present subway. On the north side, the ticket office dates from 1983 but the remaining buildings generally date from the 1932 rebuilding and stand on foundations from 1868. The goods warehouse is largely derelict and most of the engine shed has been razed to the ground except for an asbestos-clad repair shop built in 1932 and the ramp that used to serve an elevated coaling stage. The engine sidings are still used by engineers' plant machines; Freightliner locomotives are generally stabled at Fairwater Yard but occasionally use the old engine shed sidings for additional storage space. The avoiding line is truncated but serves as a headshunt for the long engineers trains using Fairwater Yard. The footbridge to the west of the station, known in the town as "Fortysteps", although Network Rail prefer to label it "40 Steps", a favoured location for generations of rail enthusiasts, was demolished at the end of 2013, due to construction of a new road alongside the railway. This was however replaced by a more modern bridge with both steps and slopes making it more accessible. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Taunton railway station」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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