page_title: Swansea railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Swansea railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Swansea High Street Station, with a GW 0-6-0PT bringing in empty stock. View NE outward from the terminus: GW South Wales main line etc. The locomotive is '8750' class 0-6-0PT No. 9792 (built 5/36, withdrawn 3/64).
context_page_description: Swansea railway station serves the city of Swansea, south Wales. It is 216 miles 7 chains measured from London Paddington on the National Rail network.
  It is the fourth-busiest station in Wales.
context_section_description: The station opened in 1850. It was built by the South Wales Railway, which amalgamated with the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1863, but it was not originally on the South Wales Railway main line, planned to connect London with the port of Fishguard, and Swansea passengers had to change at Landore, two miles to the north until at least 1879. The station has been renovated and extended several times in its lifetime - most notably in the 1880s, when the stone-built office block facing High Street, on the west side of the station, was added, and in 1925-7 when the platforms were lengthened.  The present-day frontage block, facing Ivey Place, was completed in 1934.  Nothing now remains of the original wooden station with its two platforms and galvanised iron roof.
  The majority of the rebuilt station remains intact, although the facilities have been reduced. The umbrella-type platform roofing which replaced the 1880s train-sheds in the 1920s is mostly intact although the canopy on platform 4 has been shortened.  The number of platforms was reduced from five to four in 1973 under British Rail when the old Platform 1 was eliminated, along with the loading bays and fish dock that once stood beyond it.  The remaining platforms were renumbered at the same time, so that what were platforms 2 to 5 are now platforms 1 to 4, respectively.  On the east side of the station there was a connecting line which bypassed the platforms and ran at one time to coal tips on the North Dock (closed in 1929 and subsequently infilled) and on to a junction with the high-level line from Eastern Depot to Victoria station (closed in 1965). Part of the route of this line, alongside the station itself, is now a staff car park and the remainder, which was carried on viaducts alongside the Strand, has been obliterated by modern development.  High Street goods station was on the west side of the line, just north of the passenger station.  The site has been completely cleared and used for housing and also the dedicated bus road that runs from the Landore park-and-ride facility into the city centre.  On the opposite side of the line were extensive carriage sidings (Maliphant sidings), large areas of which are, as of 2014, being redeveloped as the Hitachi IEP (Intercity Express Programme) rail service depot.
  There was great competition between the different railway companies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Swansea had seven stations in 1895, owned by five different railway companies: High Street (GWR), St Thomas (Midland Railway), East Dock (GWR), Riverside (Rhondda & Swansea Bay Railway, by which it was called simply Swansea; renamed Swansea Docks by the GWR in 1924 and Riverside two years later), Victoria and Swansea Bay (both London & North Western Railway), and Rutland Street (the town terminus of the Mumbles Railway). Only High Street now remains in the city centre.
caption: GW 0-6-0PT bringing in empty stock in 1962
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