Ascot railway station serves the town of Ascot, in Berkshire, England. It is down the line from . The station and all trains serving it are operated by South Western Railway. It is at the junction of the Waterloo to Reading line with the Ascot to Guildford line.
The Staines, Wokingham and Woking Junction Railway opened the station when it reached Ascot on 4 June 1856. On 9 July, the line was extended to . On 18 March 1878 Ascot became a junction when the line towards was opened. Later the London and South Western Railway took over the SWWJR. In the Grouping of 1923, the L&SWR became part of the Southern Railway, which electrified both lines using a third rail system on 1 January 1939. Under nationalisation in 1948, Ascot station became part of the Southern Region of British Railways.
The L&SWR opened Ascot Race Course Platform or Ascot West in 1922 to serve Ascot Racecourse. British Rail closed it in 1965.
Ascot had four signal boxes until the 1960s: 'A' and 'B' boxes controlled the main station, West box controlled the racecourse station and "Drake & Mount's Siding" the carriage sidings east of the station. The line through the station is now under the control of the panel box at .
When British Rail sectorised itself in the 1980s, the station was made part of Network SouthEast.
In 1982, a fire severely damaged the station buildings on the up (London-bound) side.
The station has three active platforms and one disused platform:
Where trains are running from London through to Guildford or vice versa, they use platform 2. All lines are bi-directional.
All services at Ascot are operated by South Western Railway.
The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:
Additional services call at the station during the peak hours. In addition, during the Royal Ascot week, the services through the station are significantly increased.
On Sundays, the services to and from Aldershot are reduced to hourly and are extended to and from .