Halts in London

First Great Western designate their stations in the timetable x meaning "Request stop. Advise the Conductor if you wish to alight, signal the driver if you wish to board".

At Lympstone Commando you can only get off if you are a serviceman/woman. If you are on Army business I think you have to use the main gate on the main road on the other side of the camp. The Avocet line has a half hour service most of the day. Paignton since December has also a half hour service during the day to Newton Abbot

And, more infuriatingly, Wiki has this, when I googled Last BR station with gas lighting:

"Ilkley is notable in that it was the last British Rail station to be lit by gas. The gas lights were extinguished for the last time on 8 May 1988."



Fortunately, Ilkley is also nowhere near Selsdon nor Emerson Park, so the London crown is still up for grabs.

From memory, wasn't a "platform" a location that had no facilities for handling goods, rather than anything to do with passenger provision?

Now then-that could be right. I'm just thinking of a few lines here in Plymouth. The current branch to Gunnislake used to stretch to Callington and was LSWR, then Southern Railway. There were many variations of which of the stations culled in 1966 were halts-but pictures I've seen for all of Latchley, Luckett and Chilsworthy(the what-were-they trio) show minimal but clear goods handlings facilities.

Compared to the GWR & the Princetown branch(closed 1956), only the branch junction(Horrabridge)& terminus had these. The three halts at Ingra Tor, Burrator and King Tor were opened years after the line and were intended for hikers etc only.

And, possibly the clincher-on Brunel's main line from Exeter to Plymouth, there is, according to Wiki:

Bittaford Platform[edit]

Located at

50.3977°N 3.8766°W

An unstaffed station was opened by the Great Western Railway at Bittaford on 18 November 1907 and closed on 2 March 1959. It was situated immediately east of Bittaford Viaduct.

There were no goods facilities but Redlake Siding was opened ¾ mile to the west on 10 September 1911. This siding served a large china clay drier which processed clay brought by pipeline from Redlake on Dartmoor; the eight mile long, 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Redlake Tramway was used to carry materials between Redlake Siding and the clay pits.

There are no visible remains of the platform, but original iron tube fencing remains to be seen behind the site of the former London bound platform .The clay drier at Redlake Siding is still intact, now modified for use by an engineering company, despite the siding closing on 7 July 1932.


That's the only platform I can trace, note it was opened as Halt(e)s started coming into use and specifically was built without regard to goods handling.

Jumping back up to Kent, the Hundred of Hoo Railway had halts at Uralite, Beluncle & Grain Crossing and all had goods handling facilities or, in the case of Beluncle were built next to a previously-existing farmer's goods siding. On the SER line from Charing X to Strood before that line branched off, Stone Crossing and Swanscombe Halts, later to become stations, had goods-handling facilities from the start for the local chalk & cement industries.

Thanks-that's cleared that one up. Now if we can nail down Emerson Park's conversion!

Indeed, I think that the signing will changed into LO one with the rounder much like what happened on the BML.