Freight To/From Avonmouth

[60026to]

As you may or may not know I currently work in Portbury and on the odd occasion I am lucky enough to see various Freightliner HeavyHaul working to and from the docks there ( I haven't seen a DBSchenker working for ages due to the shift I do).

 

By the autumn this year I should move to our brand new shiney warehouse on Poplar Way West, Avonmouth and has luck would have it the new warehouse is being built right next to the freight-only line (Avonmouth - Bristol Parkway). So I was wondering what is the freight activity like at the moment on this line.

 

For the first time today I actually visited the site (just to get my bearings) and before I located the new warehouse I stopped off at the Avonmouth Bulk Handling Terminal (13:00) to see what was what. One DBS coal train was being loaded (the last few HTAs) while another had been loaded and was stabled in the yard and a lone DBS 66059 was stabled to the right of the afore-mentioned HTAs.

 

As I later found out, one of the HTA rakes was headed by 66069 which I saw heading east-bound over the M49, adjacent to Moorhouse Lane at 13:28.

 

Personally I can't wait to leave Portbury and move to Avonmouth ( that M5 Avonmouth bridge facing the wind is a right pain in the bum) so I was just curious as to what I might see to and from Avonmouth as in over eight years 'grafting' in Portbury apart from numerous coal trains I only ever saw one car train and the infamous NetworkRail Class 150 DMU.

 

Weather permitting I hope to visit the M49/Moorhouse Lane location this Friday and will hopefully take some vids and pics as I don't think that I have ever seen any vids or pics from this location, surprising really as it does seem like a good spot.

 

Cheers for now,

Matt.

Edited January 23, 2012 by 60026to

[chriswild]

hi coal is loaded at avonmouth for aberthaw p.s as far as i know, also didcot has recieved coal from there for a number of years, though i think recently its imported coal has come from other sources as well.

In the past there has been a variety of freight there, i think some aggregates may be loaded/unloaded there as well, but beyond that i don't know.

Chris

[Captain Kernow]

There is also traffic to/from Avonmouth Docks, plus some of the other terminals in the area, such as Chittening.

 

Here is a photo taken around 7 years ago of the EWS tripper returning from Chittening to Avonmouth:

[Ogauge83A]

A couple freights in the shots i took just before Christmas, one at St Andrews Road station loading up and the other from the road bridge to the north of there which passes over the freight line and parallels the Severn Beach passenger line, I've not seen anything going down to the estate and there is no longer an 08/09 outbased there.

 

http://antony-christie.blogspot.com/2011/12/severn-beach.html

 

Tony

[60026to]

Many thanks for the info and the pics.

 

Its a beautiful sunny day here in Bristol so as planned I shall venture out and take some pics, later on.

 

Kind regards,

Matt.

[Fat Controller]

I'd be interested to see what's left down there; I worked at Tenneco (Butler's) on Smoke Lane for about 18 months from July '76, and often used to catch the train to and from St Andrew's Road. At the time, Fisons had an ammonia terminal next to the platform; guaranteed to clear your head in the morning. The Smelter received coke and despatched zinc blocks by rail. The yard at St Andrew's Road had taken over a lot of the traffic which had previously been dealt with at Stoke Gifford and elsewhere, and was usually quite busy. Chittening was moribund- rail traffic from there didn't restart until I'd left the area.

[60026to]

As planned I did venture down there yesterday took some bad images and seen no freight traffic whatsoever.

 

Below: This bridge takes the railway over Moorhouse Lane.

 

Below: This will be my new place of work later on in the year and the railway line passes right behind the warehouse.

 

 

And finally this fairly new bridge crosses over the M49 (you'll have to imagine a Class 66 powering a heavily loaded Avonmouth-Aberthaw coal !)

 

The most intresting thing that I saw yesterday was a heron but alas no pics as it kept flying away when I was close enough to 'snap' it.

 

many thanks,

Matt.

[Downendian]

This route was fascinating in the 1970s and used to bring foreign motive power to Bristol (ER based 31s split box 37s, LMR 25s foreign 47/3s and the occasional pair of 20s).

 

Neil

[richscylla]

What is the current state of affairs when it comes to Railfreight at Avonmouth?

[Fat Controller]

What is the current state of affairs when it comes to Railfreight at Avonmouth?

There was coal traffic from Bennett's Siding to Cardiff Docks last week. There is meant to be stone traffic from Whatley to Hinkley Point power station being loaded on ships starting soon, if it hasn't already. Also cement traffic, from possibly several locations, including Aberthaw, to a terminal at the docks, imported stone from Ireland for various destinations, and trainload domestic waste to the incinerator at Severn Beach.

[Gilbert]

One of a few trains scheduled today

 

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/H42377/2018/09/24/advanced

[The Stationmaster]

hi coal is loaded at avonmouth for aberthaw p.s as far as i know, also didcot has recieved coal from there for a number of years, though i think recently its imported coal has come from other sources as well.

In the past there has been a variety of freight there, i think some aggregates may be loaded/unloaded there as well, but beyond that i don't know.

Chris

 

With the current state of the power generation industry in Britain I doubt you'll see very much coal passing through BBHT (Bristol Bulk Handling terminal).  I planned the layout there to handle 28 million tonnes of coal per annum and it was intended to serve three power stations (Didcot - now closed of course, Aberthaw - expected quantity never achieved, and 'one in the Midlands' - which never really happened).  It remains a useful yard for wagon storage, occasional coal loading, and running round etc but that is about it.  

 

The good thing about it was that BR didn't pay for the building of it as the customer, who specified the annual throughput to which I worked, paid for the whole thing plus various other parts of the overall Didcot route scheme which I specified as being required to deal with their forecast tonnage.

[Steadfast]

The coal handling terminal sidings were totally empty bar one cripple coalfish with trees growing in it when we visited last Thursday. Colas were running to Aberthaw from here last year, I've heard it may well happen again this winter. All other trains use the west wharf/ Bennetts sidings.

The Hinkley Point traffic from Whatley was a multi week trial, should resume in the not too distant future but not running at the moment.

The HTA set loads for Theale, this runs most Mondays, departs loaded about 13.00 ish.

Hanson hoppers load for West Drayton, usually run Weds and Fridays, departs about 13.00.

The Hanson cement I'm not sure what's happening, the pattern may have changed since GB took over.

The waste train runs to Severnside, 6 days a week I believe. Weekdays it arrives overnight and departs about 05.00, Sundays it arrives around 17.00

 

Jo

[richscylla]

With the current state of the power generation industry in Britain I doubt you'll see very much coal passing through BBHT (Bristol Bulk Handling terminal).  I planned the layout there to handle 28 million tonnes of coal per annum and it was intended to serve three power stations (Didcot - now closed of course, Aberthaw - expected quantity never achieved, and 'one in the Midlands' - which never really happened).  It remains a useful yard for wagon storage, occasional coal loading, and running round etc but that is about it.  

 

The good thing about it was that BR didn't pay for the building of it as the customer, who specified the annual throughput to which I worked, paid for the whole thing plus various other parts of the overall Didcot route scheme which I specified as being required to deal with their forecast tonnage.

When you say you planned the layout do you mean, you designed the track layout? I would LOVE to hear/read a detailed explanation about how the process was done and what led to the layout as it is. I was thinking about modelling something similar to BBHT and so it would be amazing to get your thoughts on track layout for something like this. 

[The Stationmaster]

When you say you planned the layout do you mean, you designed the track layout? I would LOVE to hear/read a detailed explanation about how the process was done and what led to the layout as it is. I was thinking about modelling something similar to BBHT and so it would be amazing to get your thoughts on track layout for something like this. 

 

I mean exactly that - yes, I've really planned 12":1' scale track layouts.  Now I said planned because that was to differentiate my sketching out a plan of the layout I wanted from a Civil Engineer doing the actual detailed design on a 40ft;1" scale drawing - a matter of railway terminology.  I gave him my plan, he had a site survey plus various detailed requirements from me regarding specific lengths needed in various sidings etc plus unusual track centres for the loading bunkers and he then did a scale drawing off my plan.

 

The interesting part was that - like a model railway - the layout had to fit into a specific site particularly the length: I used the train length and loco lengths that I needed plus an estimated length for pointwork and clearance at fouling points.  So I was pleased to find that when the scale drawing was complete it fitted the length of the site with about 20 feet to spare.

 

So how did I set about it,  in a summary -

 

1,  Decide on the train length I needed to move the traffic (coal) at the specified (by the client) rate to the principal destination (Didcot) and make sure that train length was sufficient for other destinations in the spec (it was).

2, Decide which locos I wanted to be used to move that tonnage of trains in the timings I wanted (I based my planning on 2xClass37 but the business sector decided to use Class 60s when the flow started).

 

So from the above I knew what size of train and loco, from the daily tonnage spec I knew the maximum number of trains required each day.  i then needed to know the rate at which a train could be loaded - how long it would take and whether or not it could be done from a single full bunker or if reclaim (adding more coal to the bunker during loading) would be needed.   

 

3. Knowing how long loading would take plus knowing the number of trains on the principal route, plus knowing the maximum tonnages (p.a.) for the other destinations and knowing the length of trains for them let me than calculate how many sidings were needed for inward empty trains against the timetables we were drawing up for them and at hat was influenced by the rate at which trains could be loaded.

4. Assess the size of the site then using all the above information sketch out to assess if the necessary track layout could be fitted into it and having done that get my civil engineering drawing office contact to draw the scale plan to make sure I had got it right.

 

This was actually the third site I'd looked at for the client - the first was dismissed (by me) after a look at the site (which was on a gradient) but more particularly after trying to produce a timetable and trainplan which, I quickly assessed. would need quite a lot of infrastructure work, particularly signalling improvements to make it work and would have been very expensive resource wise.  The client then came up with a second site which was a lot better although designing a layout to fit was not too simple but we got as far as a 40 foot drawing and a signalling plan for that one.  The third site was the one finally chosen so we went through the site planning process again plus I produced a signalling specification for the terminal and of course anything we requiored enroute to Didcot.

 

The latter meant redoubling the branch from Stoke Gifford to Avonmouth and restoring quadruple track between Wantage Road and Challow - I was rather pleased to get that done as I had watched the original quadrupling being taken out of use before I started on BR.  I also had to somehow deal with the reversing at Didcot and came up with the idea of converting the Up Relief Line from Foxhall Jcn to Didcot Chester Line Jcn to a goods loop which would allow sufficient length to runround a train for the power station - by making it a goods loop the signal at the Didcot end could be moved nearer the station to create extra length because a trap point was put in.  I looked at other options for reversing the trains at the Didcot end and one or two didn't look too wonderful on paper but would be cheaper than the alterations at dDdcot so to settle it I borrowed a loaded mgr train hauled by a Class 60 and carried out practical trials between Swindon and Reading of the other options and they proved they weren't feasible so the loop conversion was put in as I'd specified.

 

Rather amusingly my proposal for quadrupling between Wantage Road and Challow was worked out over a weekend at home and drawing a couple of graphs to prove (or disprove) it.  After that and although my immediate boss happily accepted it the business sector wanted it checked and BR Operation Research had two men working a computer programme over a period of four weeks to prove - that I was right,  So the quadrupling went ahead and is still there and now electrified.

 

And that was basically how it was done.

[richscylla]

Thanks so much for that Mike - really fascinating stuff! 

[Rivercider]

I don not know if there was any connection but last week I watched Yeoman Bank sailing empty down the Severn Estuary bound for Glensanda,

where it had discharged I am not sure.

 

cheers

[Rivercider]

I think Aberthaw Power Station now only burns at times of peak demand, but it appears to be in use today,

there is smoke from the chimney and the layer of smog over the Severn Estuary is back.

Steep Holm, with Aberthaw Power Station just visible to the right, seen from Weston seafront, 29/9/2018

 

cheers

[richscylla]

I was down at the St. Andrews Road today and saw these... does anyone know what they are?

 

[Fat Controller]

I was down at the St. Andrews Road today and saw these... does anyone know what they are?

 

Stationmaster Mike will be able to give chapter and verse, as the coal terminal was his project; they're Stop/Proceed lights in connection with the loading of trains from the overhead hoppers, I believe. Similar lights were to be found at collieries and power stations during the 'Merry-Go-Round' days, but I think the first application was in conjunction with the hump yard at Toton, back in the 1930s.

[PatB]

Diverting slightly from purely rail movements, how does the stone to Hinkley Point work? The nearest docking facility to HP that I can think of is Dunball, so do the ships unload there? It's still a bit of a way round by road from there.

[jonny777]

I think Aberthaw Power Station now only burns at times of peak demand, but it appears to be in use today,

there is smoke from the chimney and the layer of smog over the Severn Estuary is back.

IMG_2521 a.jpg

Steep Holm, with Aberthaw Power Station just visible to the right, seen from Weston seafront, 29/9/2018

 

cheers

 

 

I can't be 100% sure, but when I worked over that side of the channel the layer of yellow/brown smog was not really from Aberthaw (even when A&B stations and the cement works were all operational) but came from Port Talbot. 

[101]

I was down at the St. Andrews Road today and saw these... does anyone know what they are?

 

Yes they're loading lights controlled by the hopper operator. As Fat controller said stop/proceed they can also display 'set back'

[KeithHC]

Diverting slightly from purely rail movements, how does the stone to Hinkley Point work? The nearest docking facility to HP that I can think of is Dunball, so do the ships unload there? It's still a bit of a way round by road from there.

They have built there own pier at Hinckley point.

 

Keith

[newbryford]

Usual pattern is 3 trainloads per week of cement from Clitheroe in Hansin liveried JPAs. Sometimes 4 using the set of Castle liveried PCAs

 

Cheers

Mick

Edited October 20, 2018 by newbryford