Swindon - Transport

Transport

At the junction of two Roman roads, the town has developed over the centuries, with the assistance of the GWR and the canals, into a transport hub. It has two junctions (15 and 16) onto the M4 motorway and is on the ex-GWR main line to London.

Swindon railway station opened in 1842 as Swindon Junction, and, until 1895, every train stopped for at least 10 minutes to change locomotives. As a result, the station hosted the first recorded railway refreshment rooms.

Swindon bus operators are Thamesdown and Stagecoach. The local council acknowledges the need for more car parking as part of its vision for 2010. Swindon is one of the locations for an innovative scheme called Car share. It was set up as a joint venture between Wiltshire County Council and a private organization which now has over 300,000 members registered. Despite the name, however, it is a carpool or ride-sharing rather than a car share scheme, seeking to link people willing to share transport.

The town contains a roundabout called Magic Roundabout. This is not one roundabout but five, the central point of which is a contra-rotational hub, on at the junction of five roads: (clockwise from South) Drove Road, Fleming Way, County Road, Shrivenham Road and Queens Drive. It is built on the site of Swindon wharf on the abandoned Wilts & Berks Canal, near the County Ground. The official name used to be County Islands, although it was colloquially known as the Magic Roundabout and the name was changed in the late 1990s to match its nickname.