Yeovil Junction railway station

Yeovil Junction
General information
Location	South Somerset
Managed by	South West Trains
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	YVJ
History
Original company	Salisbury and Yeovil Railway
Pre-grouping	London and South Western Railway
Post-grouping	Southern Railway
Key dates
1860	Opened

Yeovil Junction Railway Station serves the town of Yeovil, Somerset, England. The station is on the West of England Main Line 122.75 miles (198 km) south west of London Waterloo towards Exeter. Yeovil Junction is one of two stations serving Yeovil, neither of which are close to the centre of the town (unlike Yeovil Town station which closed in 1967). The station actually straddles the border between Somerset and Dorset.

History

The station was opened by the Salisbury and Yeovil Railway on 19 July 1860.

As its name suggests, the station was formerly a junction, with the line that served the now defunct station of Yeovil Town. There is still a junction of tracks at this point, enabling trains to be switched onto the Heart of Wessex Line from Castle Cary to Weymouth (which also has a station at Yeovil Pen Mill). However, this routing is now only used as an emergency diversion, typically when the direct route from Exeter to Castle Cary is obstructed by engineering works or flooding in the Exe valley.

Description

It is located in the village of Stoford just outside the town. There are bus routes (South West Coaches Route 68/74 Mon-Sat or First 980 Sunday) that connect the station to Yeovil Town Centre and the nearby village of Barwick.

The station now has a buffet called "Peppers" which opened on Tuesday 23 October 2007.

Gallery

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Services

There is generally an hourly service eastwards to Salisbury and London Waterloo, and hourly or two hourly service westwards to Exeter depending upon the time of day. Network Rail propose to reinstate a 3 miles (4.8 km) section of double track in the Axminster-Chard area which will improve reliability and provide sufficient capacity for an hourly service to Exeter.

Some of the services through Yeovil continue beyond Exeter St Davids, after reversing, and go to Paignton, whilst others go through to Plymouth.

It is usually served by Class 159 DMU units in either single three car formation, or twinned as a six car set. Occasionally SWT's Class 158 DMUs also venture down this far.

The Class 170s that SWT had until recently also used to run down to Yeovil Junction occasionally, but they have all now moved up to First Trans Pennine Express, except 170392 which has gone to Southern. These 170s have been replaced with 8 refurbed 159/1xx three car units, and also there are going eventually to be a total of 11 refurbed 158 two car units.

Due to the influx of additional units at Salisbury depot, sometimes SWT will stable up to three 159 units in the sidings at Yeovil next to the unused platforms 3 & 4, especially over weekends.

Most evenings around 20:00 a 159 unit after terminating at Yeovil, will return to Salisbury depot via the junction as an ECS move, heading down to Yeovil Pen Mill, running through Castle Cary up to Westbury, where it reverses down the Warminster line to Salisbury.

 

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Sherborne		South West Trains West of England Main Line		Crewkerne

Routeing

According to section E of the National Routeing Guide, passengers travelling to Yeovil Junction may not travel through Yeovil Pen Mill and vice-versa.

Yeovil Railway Centre

Yeovil Junction is also the base of the Yeovil Railway Centre. The station used to have four active platforms, but as only two are now used (island platform) the other island is used by Yeovil Railway Centre to run their steam engine (Pectin) down a short stretch of track, along with a selection of small diesel shunters (Ruston - named Yeo) and also diesel loco 50050 (Fearless) which is currently under restoration at the site. The station also has the only mainline accessible turntable in the South West Region so is used as a turning, watering and coaling point for many main line steam services running to Weymouth & Exeter etc.