History
The station was opened when the Staines, Wokingham and Woking Junction Railway reached there on 4 June 1856; on 9 July the line was extended to Wokingham. On 18 March 1878 Ascot became a junction when the line towards Ash Vale was opened. Absorbed by the London and South Western Railway, it became part of the Southern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. Both lines were converted to electrified operation using the third rail system on 1 January 1939. The station then became part of the Southern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.
In the days when race traffic for the nearby Ascot Racecourse warranted it, a separate racecourse station known as Ascot Race Course Platform or Ascot West operated nearby from 1922 to 1965. There were also four signal boxes.
When Sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Network SouthEast until the Privatisation of British Railways.
A fire in 1982 severely damaged the station buildings on the Up (London) side.
Read more about this topic: Ascot Railway Station
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“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)