Didcot Parkway is a railway station serving the town of Didcot in Oxfordshire, England. The station was opened as Didcot on 12 June 1844 and renamed Didcot Parkway on 29 July 1985 by British Rail to reflect its role as a park and ride railhead. It is down the line from and is situated between to the east and to the west. The station is served by local services operated by Great Western Railway from to Didcot and , and by main line services from Paddington to the south-west of England and south Wales. Just to the north of the station is the Didcot Railway Centre, which is accessed through the station. The centre is a comprehensive exhibition of original Great Western Railway rolling stock, with demonstration running tracks and including a reconstructed station named Didcot Halt. History The railway has run through Didcot since 1 June 1840, when the Great Western Railway extended its main line from Reading to . During this period a stagecoach transported passengers to Oxford from Steventon. A few weeks later the line was extended to Faringdon Road station near West Challow, and eventually to Bristol. On 12 June 1844 the line from Didcot to Oxford was opened and Didcot station was opened at the junction. The original intended route would have taken a line from Steventon to Oxford via Abingdon, but Abingdon's townspeople objected to this idea. Otherwise, it is unlikely that Didcot would have evolved into the town it is today, as its initial growth was prompted by the coming of the railway. The Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway (DN&S) linked Didcot with , carrying services to Southampton via Newbury, , and . In its latter years it was reduced to a rural backwater before its closure just before the Beeching cuts. The DN&S was closed to passengers on 10 September 1962 and to freight in 1967. At the eastern end of Platform 1, there is a raised section of the east car park, which used to be the bay platform for the DN&S line. On 7 December 1964, local passenger services between Didcot and were withdrawn and the stations at Steventon, , , , and were closed. In 1985, a new main building for the station was built along with a new 600-space car park on the site of the former provender store to the west of the station for Park and