Ascot Rail Station

Ascot railway station is a railway station in the town of Ascot in Berkshire, England. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by South West Trains. It is at the junction of the Waterloo to Reading line with the Ascot to Guildford line.

The station has three tracks and four platform faces. The London-bound track is a single track with platform faces on either side, both of which are called Platform 1. Until recently, both faces could be used to board London-bound trains, but now only the doors on the ticket office side of the train open. Platform 2 serves the Reading-bound line, and Platform 3 serves the Guildford line for trains starting and terminating their journeys at Ascot. Where trains are running from London through to Guildford, or vice versa, they use Platform 2. All lines are bi-directional.

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.