St Budeaux Ferry Road railway station

Railway station in Devon, England

St Budeaux Ferry Road railway station is a suburban station in St Budeaux, Plymouth, England. It is 250 miles 15 chains (402.6 km) from London Paddington via Box and Plymouth Millbay.^[1]

It is served by Great Western Railway services during the rush hours and late morning/early afternoon only. The vast majority of services pass through non-stop due to the proximity of St Budeaux Victoria Road: the entrances to the two stations are directly opposite each other. To the west, the line singles and crosses into Cornwall on the Royal Albert Bridge.

The station is unstaffed with step-free access to both platforms.

History

The station was opened by the Great Western Railway on 1 June 1904^[2] as St Budeaux Platform, and was later renamed St Budeaux Ferry Road^[when?] to avoid confusion with the London and South Western Railway St Budeaux Victoria Road station.

The reason for the separate stations is due to the two railways taking different routes into the city. A junction was laid between the two lines during World War II and the London and South Western Railway line between Victoria Road and Plymouth closed in 1964.

Services

Ferry Road has a limited service of Great Western Railway trains on the Cornish Main Line between Plymouth, Liskeard and Penzance, some of which continue eastwards from Plymouth towards Exeter St Davids and beyond.^[3] A Sunday service is offered, but this is very restricted (two trains each way, westbound in the morning and back towards Plymouth in the evening).

A more frequent service to Plymouth (every two hours for most of the day) operates from the adjacent St Budeaux Victoria Road on the Tamar Valley Line.

References

1. Padgett, David (June 2018) [1989]. Munsey, Myles (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 3: Western & Wales (6th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. map 9B. ISBN 978-1-9996271-0-2.
2. Oakley, Mike (2007). Devon Railway Stations. Wimborne: The Dovecote Press. ISBN 978-1-904349-55-6.
3. Table 135 National Rail timetable, May 2023

Further reading

• Beck, Keith; Copsey, John (1990). The Great Western in South Devon. Didcot: Wild Swan Publication. ISBN 0-906867-90-8.
• Cooke, R A (1979). Track Layout Diagrams of the GWR and BR WR: Section 12, Plymouth. Harwell: R A Cooke.
• Crozier, Larry (2000). Mechanical Signalling in Plymouth. Wallasey: Signalling Record Society. ISBN 1-873228-18-X.
• Jacobs, Gerald (2005). Railway Track Diagrams Book 3: Western. Bradford-on-Avon: Trackmaps. ISBN 0-9549866-1-X.
• Leitch, Russell (2002). Plymouth's Railways in the 1930s. Peterborough: Railway Correspondence and Travel Society. ISBN 0-901115-91-6.
• Mosley, Brian (17 February 2007). "St Budeaux Ferry Road Station (GWR)". Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History. Plymouth Data. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2015.