Hook railway station

Hook station serves the town of Hook and surrounding villages in Hampshire, southern England. There are two platforms serving the outer pair of tracks while the centre pair of tracks have no platforms and are used by fast services between the South Coast and the West Country. There is a small coffee shop on Platform 1 and a private hire car office on Platform 2.Most services to and from this station terminate at either Basingstoke or London Waterloo and run every half-hour except on Sundays when there is only one service per hour in each direction. The railway station is situated next to a Tesco superstore and is located within a 5-minute walk of Hook.HistoryThe railway that runs through Hook was built in 1839, but Hook only got its railway station in 1883 after a lengthy campaign by local landowners. It was built by London and South Western Railway in their typical style. It was built with two platforms and two tracks, but was expanded to four platforms and tracks in 1901-2 as Hook grew in size. The middle island platform was removed around the 1960s but its tracks still survive.In 1940, a bomb landed on the tracks a little way from the station. Worried it could damage the tracks, six soldiers were called to dispose of the bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb went off killing the six soldiers and injuring their sergeant. A group of local people have arranged to have a memorial plaque to them displayed in the station.