Slough railway station

Slough railway station, in Slough, Berkshire, England, is served by local services operated by Great Western Railway from Paddington to Reading and main line services on the Great Western Main Line, the original line of the Great Western Railway. It is also the junction for the Windsor branch.

The station is just to the north of the town centre, on the north side of the A4.

Main line trains run to and from Oxford, Worcester Shrub Hill, Worcester Foregate Street, Hereford, Cheltenham Spa, Gloucester and many other destinations.

History

The first section of the Great Western Railway (GWR), between the original station at Paddington and the original station at Maidenhead, opened on 4 June 1838, but although trains stopped at Slough, there was no actual station: tickets were sold at the Crown Inn. This was because the Act which authorised the construction of the GWR contained a clause which forbade the construction of a station within 3 miles (4.8 km) of Eton College without the permission of the Provost and Fellows of the school; but it did not explicitly prevent trains from stopping for passengers. Following the repeal of the relevant clauses in the GWR Act, the first proper station at Slough opened on 1 June 1840. The arrival of the railway led to Queen Victoria making her first railway journey, from Slough to Bishop's Bridge near Paddington, in 1842. Later, a branch to Windsor & Eton Central was built for the Queen's greater convenience. Nowadays, the journey time between Windsor and Slough is six minutes.

Train station

A train station, railway station, railroad station, or depot (see below) is a railway facility where trains regularly stop to load or unload passengers or freight.

It generally consists of at least one track-side platform and a station building (depot) providing such ancillary services as ticket sales and waiting rooms. If a station is on a single-track line, it often has a passing loop to facilitate traffic movements. The smallest stations are most often referred to as "stops" or, in some parts of the world, as "halts" (flag stops).

Stations may be at ground level, underground, or elevated. Connections may be available to intersecting rail lines or other transport modes such as buses, trams or other rapid transit systems.

Terminology

In the United States, the most common term in contemporary usage is train station. Railway station and railroad station are less frequent; also, American usage makes a distinction between the terms railroad and railway.

In Britain and other Commonwealth countries, traditional usage favours railway station or simply station, even though train station, which is often perceived as an Americanism, is now about as common as railway station in writing; railroad station is not used, railroad being obsolete there. In British usage, the word station is commonly understood to mean a railway station unless otherwise qualified.

Slough

Slough (ⁱ/ˈslaʊ/) is a town in Berkshire, England, about 20 miles (30 kilometres) west of central London. It is bisected by the A4 and the Great Western Main Line. In 2011, the population of Slough was 140,200 and the most ethnically diverse in the United Kingdom outside London, with the highest proportion of religious adherents in England.Historically part of Buckinghamshire, Slough is home to the Slough Trading Estate, the largest industrial estate in single private ownership in Europe.

History

The first recorded uses of the name occur as Slo in 1196, Sloo in 1336, and Le Slowe, Slowe or Slow in 1437. It first seems to have applied to a hamlet between Upton to the east and Chalvey to the west, roughly around the "Crown Crossroads" where the road to Windsor (now the A332) met the Great West Road. The Domesday Survey of 1086 refers to Upton, and a wood for 200 pigs, worth £15. During the 13th century, King Henry III had a palace at Cippenham. Parts of Upton Court were built in 1325, while St Mary the Virgin Church in Langley was probably built in the late 11th or early 12th century, though it has been rebuilt and enlarged several times.

Slough (disambiguation)

Slough is a town in Berkshire, England.

Slough may also refer to:

Hydrology

Places

Biology and medicine

Literature

People

See also

Slough (hydrology)

A slough is a wetland, usually a swamp or shallow lake, often a backwater to a larger body of water. Water tends to be stagnant or may flow slowly on a seasonal basis.

In North America, a slough can be a side-channel from or feeding a river, or an inlet or natural channel only sporadically filled with water. An example of this is Finn Slough on the Fraser River, whose lower reaches have dozens of notable sloughs.

References