History
The station was opened by the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) on 5 September 1848, and was the initial terminus of the WS&WR line from Chippenham. This line was later extended to Frome, which opened on 7 October 1850. The Salisbury branch opened on 30 June 1856, whilst the opening of the line to Patney & Chirton in 1900 (along with that further west from Castle Cary to Cogload Junction six years later) completed the GWR's new main line from London Paddington to Taunton and beyond.
In the 1880s, the station was one of the meeting places of the South and West Wilts Hunt.
In 1901, Westbury railway station was entirely rebuilt, creating two "island" platforms six hundred feet long and forty feet wide. It has since been rebuilt and remodelled several times, most recently when the area was resignalled in 1985, but without changing the underlying form created in 1901. A freight yard next to the station is used by bulk limestone trains from the rail-served quarries at Merehead and Whatley in Somerset.
Read more about this topic: Westbury Railway Station
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