Westbury chocker with wagons on google maps

[adb968008]

2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Of course, in the good old days you got decent engines at Westbury!

 

 

Mike.

Strange, I was too young to ever see D818 Glory in blue...

 

i only ever ever saw it in green, until it was scrapped.

cant say that about too many diesels.

Edited July 19, 2019 by adb968008

[adb968008]

There can’t be too many places left on the network like Westbury...

 

Pretty much a 2 street village with off shoots, yet with a train service that pretty much used to allow  you to go many major stations including Scotland and Wales, though of late it has lost its northern services and become more GW focussed.

 

I never understood why the massive wide platforms, and so limited facilities to what is essentially a connections based station.

Edited July 19, 2019 by adb968008

[The Stationmaster]

9 hours ago, adb968008 said:

There can’t be too many places left on the network like Westbury...

 

Pretty much a 2 street village with off shoots, yet with a train service that pretty much used to allow  you to go many major stations including Scotland and Wales, though of late it has lost its northern services and become more GW focussed.

 

I never understood why the massive wide platforms, and so limited facilities to what is essentially a connections based station.

I often described it as a  one horse town - with a very visible horse.

 

The train service pattern has varied considerably over the years but it had obviously originally been a place very much with an eye to connecting traffic rather than originating passenger traffic so once upon a time i believe there were buffets on both of the islands although the main one was always on the Down side and of course the full normal range of passenger facilities also existed on both platforms plus considerable canopy cover to hopefully keep the weather off.   But it was at one time very much a place of the railway especially after the ironworks closed down.

 

Nowadays it is far from a 2 street village - it had a population of almost 17,000 at the 2011 census and there has continued to be considerable residential development since then.

[Kris]

Westbury have never been a vibrant town in my memory. The facilities don’t match the population, it’s very much a dormitory town. 

[Fat Controller]

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I often described it as a  one horse town - with a very visible horse.

 

The train service pattern has varied considerably over the years but it had obviously originally been a place very much with an eye to connecting traffic rather than originating passenger traffic so once upon a time i believe there were buffets on both of the islands although the main one was always on the Down side and of course the full normal range of passenger facilities also existed on both platforms plus considerable canopy cover to hopefully keep the weather off.   But it was at one time very much a place of the railway especially after the ironworks closed down.

 

Nowadays it is far from a 2 street village - it had a population of almost 17,000 at the 2011 census and there has continued to be considerable residential development since then.

Wasn't there some sort of Army training college near the Down side of the station at one point? 

[The Stationmaster]

49 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Wasn't there some sort of Army training college near the Down side of the station at one point? 

The Army's School of Infantry was(is) at Warminster but they often unloaded their ammo at Westbury - sometimes in considerable quantities.  The training school opposite the station was the WR training school created in the very early 1970s out of one end of the former hostel building - excellent training although the food wasn't particularly wonderful.

 

I think there was at one time an MoD (Army) place up on the Warminster Road -  used for officer selection interviews of some sort and we had regular groups coming and going in the 1970s; one of the civilian staff used to commute from Reading!  The town wasn't too badly off for shops as they covered most small town style needs but there wasn't much variety beyond the basics back in the 1970s.  There was however an excellent chippy so office 'fish & chips day' on Fridays was always a very nice meal.

2 hours ago, Kris said:

Westbury have never been a vibrant town in my memory. The facilities don’t match the population, it’s very much a dormitory town. 

In the 1970s there was a considerable amount of local employment - the railway employed several hundred people, there was the cement works, and West Wilts Trading Estate with quite a few employers and then after the mid 1970s also the Celcon building block factory as well.  The number of heavy lorries you encountered on the road between Yarnbrook crossroads and the trading estate entrance could be quite frustrating at times (it's even worse nowadays).

 

Nowadays it has become much more of a dormitory town following the very considerable residential development which I think got underway in the 1990s.

[Fat Controller]

It was the Officer Selection place I was thinking of. What did surprise me, looking at the aerial views on Google, was how big Dilton was. Having seen the size of the halt, I pictured the settlement being on the same scale.

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

It was the Officer Selection place I was thinking of. What did surprise me, looking at the aerial views on Google, was how big Dilton was. Having seen the size of the halt, I pictured the settlement being on the same scale.

I think Dilton has also grown and of course Westbury has merged into Westbury Leigh with no green space between them now and very little between Leigh and Dilton Marsh.   it all feels very overdeveloped on the few occasions I get down there nowadays and it is no pleasure driving in the area with busy roads. (alas the pub (outside Frome) where I occasionally attend reunion lunches can only be reached by road so it's either cadge a lift or do the whole journey by car.

[Rivercider]

On 20/07/2019 at 07:39, Kris said:

Westbury have never been a vibrant town in my memory. The facilities don’t match the population, it’s very much a dormitory town. 

I started the first of my two spells working at Westbury in 1991, the local branch of my bank (Midland as it was then) closed the same week.....  Apart from a couple of pub crawls I never visited the 'centre' of town in the 18 months I was there 

 

cheers

[The Stationmaster]

11 hours ago, Rivercider said:

I started the first of my two spells working at Westbury in 1991, the local branch of my bank (Midland as it was then) closed the same week.....  Apart from a couple of pub crawls I never visited the 'centre' of town in the 18 months I was there 

 

cheers

The walk would have done you good   Mind you it was not a particularly inspiring walk.