Ash Vale railway station

Ash Vale is a railway station serving the village of Ash Vale in Surrey, England. It is situated at the junction of the London to Alton line and the Ascot to Guildford line, 32 miles 38 chains (52.3 km) down the line from London Waterloo. The station and all trains serving it are operated by South Western Railway.

Ash Vale
Ash Vale railway station in September 2005
General information
Location	Ash Vale, Guildford England
Grid reference	SU892533
Managed by	South Western Railway
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	AHV
Classification	DfT category D
History
Opened	2 May 1870
Passengers
2018/19	0.459 million
Interchange	0.115 million
2019/20	0.421 million
Interchange	81,604
2020/21	88,390
Interchange	15,343
2021/22	0.227 million
Interchange	44,113
2022/23	0.303 million
Interchange	68,635
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Location

The station is on an embankment^[1]: 48 and is adjacent to the Basingstoke Canal.^{[2]: Fig. 1} It is approximately half a mile from Ash Vale to North Camp station on the North Downs Line (the line between Gatwick Airport, Guildford and Reading), a distance passengers are expected to walk to make any connection. Only disabled passengers may argue that to do so would not be "reasonable" - the National Routeing Guide which defines route validity allows for the less able taking circuitous routes at the discretion of staff.

History

The station was opened by the London and South Western Railway on 2 May 1870, under the name of "North Camp and Ash Vale" and was given its present name on 30 March 1924.^{[2]: Fig. 1} It became part of the Southern Railway as a result of the Grouping of 1923.

Electrification of the line between Woking and Farnham was completed in January 1937 and electrification of the branch to Ascot was finished two years later.^[3]: 93 Responsibility for the station passed to the Southern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. The original main station building on the south side had to be demolished due to subsidence; the current replacement dates from 1972.^{[2]: Fig. 4}

When Sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Network SouthEast until the Privatisation of British Railways.

Train movements in the Ash Vale station area and the junction beyond were controlled by Ash Vale Junction signal box, constructed in June 1879.^[4] The signal box, complete with its four residents and cover staff, operated 24 hours a day, 364 days a year. The signal box closed in 2014^[5] and was demolished two years later.^{[6]: 24–25}

Services

On weekdays, there are trains approximately every 30 minutes between London Waterloo and Alton and between Ascot and Aldershot. On Sundays, trains run every 30 minutes between London and Alton and every 60 minutes between Ascot and Guildford.^[7]

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Brookwood or Woking		South Western Railway Alton Line		Aldershot
Frimley		South Western Railway Ascot to Guildford line

South Western Railway is replacing their Class 458, 455 and 707 EMUs with Class 701 "Arterio" EMUs, meaning that these new trains will stop at Ash Vale station in the future.^[8]

Accidents and incidents

In 1952 the booking clerk at Ash Vale was murdered following a hold-up by a fellow rail worker.^[9][10]

On the evening of 29 August 1990, a Class 421 electric multiple unit working a Guildford to Ascot service derailed at Ash Vale Junction. All four carriages remained upright; 20 passengers were evacuated by military personnel and escorted to Ash Vale station.^[11][12]

Gallery

• 
  A train heads south from Ash Vale station towards Aldershot in April 2006.
• 
  A departing train is signalled onto the line to Ascot in August 2023.
• 
  A train from Ascot joins the line from Woking at Ash Vale Junction in August 2023.
• 
  A 1912 Railway Clearing House map of lines around Farnham railway station

References

1. Gough, Terry (1993). Surrey and West Sussex. British Railways past and present. Vol. 18. Kettering: Past & Present Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-85895-002-3.
2. Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (1989). Branch lines around Ascot. Midhurst: Middleton Press. ISBN 0-90652-064-9.
3. Gough, Terry (2002). Surrey: the west of the county - Past and present. Kettering: Past & Present Ltd. ISBN 1-85895-213-1.
4. "Ash Vale". Signalling Record Society. 7 October 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
5. "Farnham re-signalling". RT Infrastructure Solutions. 7 March 2023 [16 February 2022]. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
6. Jackson, Allen (2017). Signalling and signal boxes along the LSWR routes. Stroud: Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4456-6938-0.
7. GB eNRT 2015-16 Edition, Tables 149 & 155 (Network Rail)
8. "Arterio | Our Trains | South Western Railway". Southwestern Railway. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
9. "Murder of Geoffrey Dean, 1952". www.btp.police.uk. Archived from the original on 19 April 2018. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
10. "Murder of Booking Clerk". The Times. No. 52474. London. 20 November 1952. p. 2.
11. "Train derailed". The Times. No. 63798. London. 30 August 1990. p. 8.
12. McCrickland, John P. (26 July 2018). "Chronology 1990". Network SouthEast Railway Society. Retrieved 21 March 2023.

Bibliography

• Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.

External links

• Train times and station information for Ash Vale railway station from National Rail

51°16′19″N 0°43′19″W