A very enjoyable afternoon spent at Slough Railway station on the Great Western Mainline where we see plenty of services from Great Western Railway.
This was cut short due to my battery failing whilst filming so I do apologise for the abrupt ending to this film.
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Slough station was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1840, although this is where things get a little bit complicated so ill try and keep it as short but as informative as possible. Whilst the line was opened in 1838 there wasn't actually a station here until 1840, which you've already guessed. However although there wasn't an official station here you would still find that passenger trains would call here. Doesn't really make sense does it? Well the way in which this was achieved was because the local inn known as the Crown Inn would distribute tickets for passengers there. This was done because when the line was being constructed there was a clause in its contract that meant when the line reached Slough no station could be built within 3 miles of Eton College without permission from the highest members of the school. This was blocked at first by the Head Teacher of the school who goes by the name Dr. John Keate. Now this shows what life was like back in those days, the head teacher made the claim the arrival of the train station would "intefere with the discipline of the school, the studies and amusement of the boy's, affecting the healthiness of the place, from the increase of floods, and even endangering the life of the boys" Now to me that just sounds absolutely astonishing but then when you consider what life was like back then that would have been the norm.
It took 2 years for GWR to initially get approval to build a station. Which it eventually did. In turn this then caused quite a monumental moment for the railways. Because of this station being completed it allowed Queen Victoria to mark her first ever journey by train from Slough to Bishops Gate just near Paddington. Because of this a new line was built from Slough to Windsor which was first built for the Queens convenience. Of course nowadays it's just a normal line which takes roughly 6 minutes. Because of the fact that the Queen used this station it was actually given the title of the Royal Station, however this was only for a short time. Because of the grand title it meant that the station actually needed to be bigger than those around it.
The approach roads to the station were also made wider to accommodate the Queens carriage and the entourage that would naturally follow on behind.
It was the in 1883 that the District Railway started running their trains from Mansion House to Windsor and Eaton Central, however this service was axed 2 years later as it was deemed uneconomic.
Slough station was closed in 1884 and rebuilt as the current station we all see today. However this was moved 200 metres up the line.
The station has seen 2 seperate accidents taking place. The first was in 1900 which involved a Paddington to Falmouth Docks express train colliding with a slower local train. The driver of the express train was put at fault having gone through 2 red signals at full speed. The local service was in the station at the time, 5 passengers on the local train were killed in the collision.
The next accident took place in 1994 when I class 165 ran fast into the station and collided with the buffers. The cause of that accident was put down to poor adhesion on the line which resulted in the train carrying its speed into the statioh which meant it couldn't stop in time. Although it was discovered that the driver was going way to fast to beging with.
My next station is going to be Langley.
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