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Churn

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Mutant Lemming

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Did anyone on here ever use Churn station?
There is a T or H symbol on the timetable which advised that passengers could only be picked up or set down by giving prior notice to the station master at Didcot for S/B trains and Newbury for N/B trains. In the days of phones being few and far between could see that being a bit of a problem for people wanting to board at Churn.
 
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Xenophon PCDGS

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You need to understand the history of this particular station for the reasons why it was ever constructed in the first place as a temporary station and its subsequent use for military personnel in the late 19th/early 20th century.

Its general location of being on a remote part of Church Down, part of the Berkshire Downs, and only being accessible by an unmtalled road would not have been much use to members of the general public.
 
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AndrewE

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You need to understand the history of this particular station for the reasons why it was ever constructed in the first place as a temporary station and its subsequent use for military personnel in the late 19th/early 20th century.

Its general location of being on a remote part of Church Down, part of the Berkshire Downs, and only being accessible by an unmtalled road would not have been much use to members of the general public.

Depends what you mean by unmetalled. We forget how few rural roads were tarmacked before the 1950s, and this says that many weren't even macadamised (stone layers.)
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uk.transport/iNCYfxPj4uY says
in rural areas, there were many minor roads which would not have
been asphalted (or even macadamised) until the 1950s or even later. My
grandfather used to tell me of the roads leading to his farmland which were
only gravelled, at best,

So an unmetalled road wouldn't have reduced use by itself.
A
 

davetheguard

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Did anyone on here ever use Churn station?
There is a T or H symbol on the timetable which advised that passengers could only be picked up or set down by giving prior notice to the station master at Didcot for S/B trains and Newbury for N/B trains. In the days of phones being few and far between could see that being a bit of a problem for people wanting to board at Churn.

I once, back in the early 70's, sat on the remains of the platform to eat my sandwiches. I was a teenager at the time and we'd cycled out from Didcot along the old trackbed. It was passable at the time apart from a short section by Upton station.

Today, the Didcot to Upton section is a proper, signed, cycle path; I'm not sure if the section south of Upton is passable any more. The site of Churn Halt is visible from an overbridge carrying the Ridgeway national trail, and the trackbed looks completely overgrown and wet at this point.
 

Mutant Lemming

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So it was a bit like the Lympstone Commando of it's day really. Only people with business there being dropped off or picked up it seems.
 

bramling

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I once, back in the early 70's, sat on the remains of the platform to eat my sandwiches. I was a teenager at the time and we'd cycled out from Didcot along the old trackbed. It was passable at the time apart from a short section by Upton station.

Today, the Didcot to Upton section is a proper, signed, cycle path; I'm not sure if the section south of Upton is passable any more. The site of Churn Halt is visible from an overbridge carrying the Ridgeway national trail, and the trackbed looks completely overgrown and wet at this point.

One can reach the platform from the over bridge by walking northwards along the boundary of the adjacent field then turning through a gap in the hedge (marking the original access to the station?). The platform remains and the trackbed through it is overgrown but passable. A peaceful spot.
 

RSC Friends

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Oddly, I scanned a photo of the sign at Churn Halt into the Railway Studies Collection archive in Newton Abbot library on Wednesday.
It looked a peaceful spot in the picture with just open fields behind the sign. I speculated it was just a halt to load milk churns?
 
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