The changing face of Bristol

[JZ]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

Where's the "Head in hands" button?

When this project is finally finished, anyone who has been involved for any significant period in approving or managing it, either as part of the railway industry or in local government, should be disqualified from responsibility for ANYTHING more than making the tea, ever again.

I think most of them will be retired by then. It will be in the hands of a new bunch of...............(insert your own explicative)

 

2 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Sadly it seems like the Changing Face of Bristol still won't be seeing any passenger trains from Portishead for some while. A decision on the Development Consent Order was expected by 19th April 2022, but this has now been put back again to 19th February 2023 to give North Somerset Council 'further time to demonstrate funding for the entire scheme has been secured.' The cynic in me thinks that by February 2023 costs will have risen yet again so the whole scheme will have to justify itself all over again.

 

cheers 

I joined what was First Great Western in 2008. It was predicted then that the Portishead line would reopen by 2012. I'm probably going to retire at sometime in the next 12 months, so highly unlikely that I'll ever work a train over it. Hopefully my son will.

[Tim V]

The only train I was on that got to Portishead, the Avon & Somerset rambler of 24/10/78. The train had been delayed by a couple of weeks - so it was getting dark by the time we got to Portishead.

 

[Platform 1]

5 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Sadly it seems like the Changing Face of Bristol still won't be seeing any passenger trains from Portishead for some while. A decision on the Development Consent Order was expected by 19th April 2022, but this has now been put back again to 19th February 2023 to give North Somerset Council 'further time to demonstrate funding for the entire scheme has been secured.'

 

Hmm, I smell a rat!  I wonder who doesn't want this to happen?

 

Can't help but compare Portishead with Okehampton: 9 miles for £116m vs. 15 miles for £40m.  Double standards?

 

 

[Rivercider]

2 hours ago, Tim V said:

The only train I was on that got to Portishead, the Avon & Somerset rambler of 24/10/78. The train had been delayed by a couple of weeks - so it was getting dark by the time we got to Portishead.

 

That photo was taken about the time I started work as a TOPS clerk in Bristol AFC. The wood pulp trains had recently ceased by the time I joined the TOPS, Ketton cement in presflos was the only traffic I remember to or from Portishead.

 

cheers 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Rivercider
correction

[Fat Controller]

3 hours ago, Rivercider said:

That photo was taken about the time I started work as a TOPS clerk in Bristol AFC. The wood pulp trains had recently ceased by the time I joined the TOPS, Ketton cement in presflos was the only traffic I remember to or from Portishead.

 

cheers 

Only a couple of years earlier, there had been outwards phosphorus traffic from Albright and Wilson, and inwards coal from Radstock to the power station. When did these two cease?

[Rivercider]

5 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Only a couple of years earlier, there had been outwards phosphorus traffic from Albright and Wilson, and inwards coal from Radstock to the power station. When did these two cease?

Lower Writhlington and Kilmersdon the last two active collieries in the North Somerset coal field ceased production in 1973 when Portishead 'B' Power station was converted from coal to oil, the last coal train arrived on 16th November 1973. 

 

cheers

[Tim V]

This must be a scene that has changed beyond recognition - Portishead in 1980.

 

[Andy Kirkham]

A view of some of the Portishead traffic around 1972. I never did manage to catch a coal train, but not having access to WTTs, I had no way of knowing when they ran. But I learned by observation that there was a reliable Up train mid-afternoon with cement and phosphorus.

 

I was at the Cathedral School and had to endure Saturday morning school, but in compensation we had Thursday afternoons off, which gave me the opportunity to chase this train.

 

Woodpullp. Did these run at fixed times or did it depend on the tides and when the ship docked?

Bitumen (?) and cement

 

Cement

 

Cement & phsphorus

 

Cement and phosphorus

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by Andy Kirkham

[phil-b259]

21 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Sadly it seems like the Changing Face of Bristol still won't be seeing any passenger trains from Portishead for some while. A decision on the Development Consent Order was expected by 19th April 2022, but this has now been put back again to 19th February 2023 to give North Somerset Council 'further time to demonstrate funding for the entire scheme has been secured.' The cynic in me thinks that by February 2023 costs will have risen yet again so the whole scheme will have to justify itself all over again.

 

cheers 

 

Yup

 

Its blatantly obvious that with fishing fuel prices, rising labour prices, a shortage of construction materials plus a general reduction in rail passengers its going to be very difficult for North Somerset Council to have the funding to keep pace thus allowing HM Treasury to scrap the scheme as 'unfordable'

 

Now given the need to fight climate change and the long term performance of rail it would be nice to think saner heads would prevail but with the current lot in charge at Westminster (and the obsession with financial greed) you have got as much chance of that happening as hell freezing over

 

 

[MidlandRed]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Yup

 

Its blatantly obvious that with fishing fuel prices, rising labour prices, a shortage of construction materials plus a general reduction in rail passengers its going to be very difficult for North Somerset Council to have the funding to keep pace thus allowing HM Treasury to scrap the scheme as 'unfordable'

 

Now given the need to fight climate change and the long term performance of rail it would be nice to think saner heads would prevail but with the current lot in charge at Westminster (and the obsession with financial greed) you have got as much chance of that happening as hell freezing over

 

 

A Development Consent Order (DCO) requires all funding to be in place/confirmed before consent can be given. This outcome at least allows further work on funding to be carried out. 

 

With the vast increases in the costs of construction materials, there is a possibility of more DCOs, and for a range of other types of projects being delayed as a result - it’s not just an impact, potentially on rail. 

[young37215]

Staggering that Bristol Parkway is 50 years old as I can remember it being opened. As a young trainspotter and latterly haulage basher, Parkway has been a signiificant influence on the majority of my life.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-wiltshire-61275648

[Darius43]

4 hours ago, young37215 said:

Staggering that Bristol Parkway is 50 years old as I can remember it being opened. As a young trainspotter and latterly haulage basher, Parkway has been a signiificant influence on the majority of my life.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-wiltshire-61275648

That reporter looks familiar…

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[Artless Bodger]

4 hours ago, young37215 said:

Staggering that Bristol Parkway is 50 years old as I can remember it being opened. As a young trainspotter and latterly haulage basher, Parkway has been a signiificant influence on the majority of my life.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-wiltshire-61275648

Was Bristol Parkway named as such primarily because of the car park or because it was at the end of the Parkway road? I had a map in the 70s which named the M32 the Parkway - not certain it was actually a motorway initially?

[Andy Kirkham]

3 hours ago, Artless Bodger said:

Was Bristol Parkway named as such primarily because of the car park or because it was at the end of the Parkway road? I had a map in the 70s which named the M32 the Parkway - not certain it was actually a motorway initially?

The name resulted from a public competion. I think it was meant to suggest both the ease of parking (which I believe was originally free) as well as proximity to the the nearby M32 - which was indeed named The Parkway when it first opened - even though the station is not directly served by the M32.

 

The name Parkway as applied to the M32 derives from the Stoke Park estate through which the motorway is built, with the prominent house on the hill which is a landmark for all motorists.

 

[The Stationmaster]

On 01/05/2022 at 11:41, young37215 said:

Staggering that Bristol Parkway is 50 years old as I can remember it being opened. As a young trainspotter and latterly haulage basher, Parkway has been a signiificant influence on the majority of my life.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-wiltshire-61275648

Not much of the original station (or the car park) left now apart from the basic platform structure adjacent to the Main Lines

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Not much of the original station (or the car park) left now apart from the basic platform structure adjacent to the Main Lines

Indeed, Bristol Parkway has been rebuilt multiple times and evolved steadily in 50 years, notably without too much disruption to operations from what I remember.  It should be a model for new stations (like Portishead) to design for expansion, rather than insist the maximum predicted capacity has to be in place from Day One.  Get it built and open, then incrementally expand as the demand is demonstrated.  At the moment, it seems to be "hourly service or nothing", so the town gets 100% of nothing instead of 50% of something (I appreciate that re-signaling is required which is always disruptive).  Meanwhile, thousands continue to waste time and fuel every day commuting into Bristol by car. 

[Artless Bodger]

19 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

The name Parkway as applied to the M32 derives from the Stoke Park estate through which the motorway is built, with the prominent house on the hill which is a landmark for all motorists.

Thank you. Head Gardener lived in Cheswick for a few years and we enjoyed walking in Stoke Park. A few times I wandered through the park and down to the Frome path at the bottom of Blackberry Hill, following it down to where the 13 arches once crossed the valley, some little bits of it still extant. 

 

It seemed as though the cutting which led to the MR bridge over Filton bank above Narroways had been filled in, I'd expected it to be quite deep - did they dump the rubble from the 13 arches there?

 

A fascinating place Bristol - railway wise, e.g. finding old Barlow rails used for gate posts around Canon's Marsh, only other place I'd seen them was 4 short pieces covering a drainage sump in the cess at Mortimer station - now gone.

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Indeed, Bristol Parkway has been rebuilt multiple times and evolved steadily in 50 years, notably without too much disruption to operations from what I remember.  It should be a model for new stations (like Portishead) to design for expansion, rather than insist the maximum predicted capacity has to be in place from Day One.  Get it built and open, then incrementally expand as the demand is demonstrated.  At the moment, it seems to be "hourly service or nothing", so the town gets 100% of nothing instead of 50% of something (I appreciate that re-signaling is required which is always disruptive).  Meanwhile, thousands continue to waste time and fuel every day commuting into Bristol by car. 

Alas often the case.  When I did some work on the reopening of passenger services on the Western Valley to Ebbw Vale I incorporated a few additions to what had been planned at rockbottom level to allow easy incorporation of additional and the second route (apart from the junction).  But it was rejected in order to keep the cost down.  If they ever do progress to the second route the costs will increase massively altering what has this far been done simply to accommodate the extra trains - and there will be inflationary increases on top of that.    But basically all I did was extend the double line sections so it would have been all plain line that went in.

[Downendian]

On 08/02/2022 at 08:06, Rivercider said:

Nice photo.

 

The Thornbury branch re-opened as far as Tytherington Quarry in 1973, there were five or six trips each way over the branch by the late 1970s. It is interesting to speculate that had the stone traffic started just two or three years earlier then Warships would almost certainly have been used on them, as they were from the Mendip quarries.

 

cheers  

Hi Kevin

I’ve just received Colin Maggs excellent book “The Yate to Thornbury branch” and like you I’d thought that Tytherington trains restarted after relaying in 1973. It was in fact a year earlier, first train starting 3rd July 1972. The formal opening, attended by Richard Marsh was on 3rd September 1973, by which time 1000 trains had passed over the relaid line. So there is a chance that class 42 warships in their final months did operate at least some of  those stone trains.

Neil 

[Andy Kirkham]

On 15/04/2022 at 09:44, Andy Kirkham said:

I have been volunteering recently in the British Heart Foundation bookshop on Blackboy Hill. It may be of interest to some of you that a large number of railway books has recently been donated and are currently on sale. I should say that there are not all that many specialist or "quality" books, mainly popular photo albums such as Bradford Bartons, The Best of Eric Treacy, Great Western Steam in the West Country etc.

 

But among the more interesting is Essery & Jenkinson's Locomotive Liveries of the LMS which I placed in the window as a lure.

 

There are still lots of railway books in the Heart Foundation shop on Blackboy Hill. They belonged to a gentleman who was a lodger in a lady's house in Knowle. The chap died evidently without relations and his landlady inherited the books. The Heart Foundation has received  two or three carrier bags full almost every week since February. The chap seems to have been an obsessive and indiscriminate hoarder; there are a fair number of duplicate titles. The books really are something of an embarassment to the shop as they take up quite a lot of shelf space and only sell slowly. After 2-3 weeks on the shelf, unsold titles are dispatched to the dealer of last resort, World of Books, who will probably pulp most of them.

 

Some highlights of the current stock are:

Through Countryside and Coalfied (the North Somerset Line) by Mike Vincent

Reflections on the Portishead Branch by Mike Vincent

Illustrated History of the North Cornwall Railway by D.J.Wroe

Lines to Torrington by John Nicholas

The Hythe & Sandgate Railway by Brian Hart (one of those Wild Swan books where the amount of text is inversely proportional to the mileage of the railway)

HMRS Livery Register no. 3 LSWR and Southern

Three bound volumes of Railway Magazine 1934, 1935 and 1957

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Andy Kirkham

[Mike Storey]

Just thought you'd all like to know that Portishead now has the green light, funding-wise anyway:

 

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2022-07-29/portishead-to-bristol-rail-line-back-on-track-after-securing-funding?fbclid=IwAR2W6CDoQZmZczVWfaffD9IaB-LWkASLs6tfO6k3RKCRq6xFExRq_YfZg2I 

 

[JZ]

10 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

Just thought you'd all like to know that Portishead now has the green light, funding-wise anyway:

 

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2022-07-29/portishead-to-bristol-rail-line-back-on-track-after-securing-funding?fbclid=IwAR2W6CDoQZmZczVWfaffD9IaB-LWkASLs6tfO6k3RKCRq6xFExRq_YfZg2I 

 

More money to get siphoned off as 'consultancy' costs.

 

[Platform 1]

Great news indeed.

But at the current rate of inflation, by the time Secretary of State for Transport approves the DCO (current deadline February 2023), the project may be ~5% short again!

 

🙁

 

[eastwestdivide]

15 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

Just thought you'd all like to know that Portishead now has the green light, funding-wise anyway:

 

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2022-07-29/portishead-to-bristol-rail-line-back-on-track-after-securing-funding?fbclid=IwAR2W6CDoQZmZczVWfaffD9IaB-LWkASLs6tfO6k3RKCRq6xFExRq_YfZg2I 

 

Bit of a caption/photo mismatch on that story at the moment. If the station design is like that, then inflation may not be a problem...

 

[Platform 1]

7 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

...the station design is like that...

 

Probably better than crawling up the Portbury Hundreds... 😮😉