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I attended a meeting of my region's RailFuture branch in Stonehouse yesterday.  Although just 35 miles from home, it took me all day to get there and back – a combination of infrequent trains (at the Melksham end), awful connections (both between trains and from trains to meeting time) and a routing that involved a dogleg via Swindon. See http://www.passenger.chat/22458

Stonehouse has a natural affinity and economic pull to Bristol - 30 miles away, but its trains are on a "cross line" running from Cheltenham Spa via Gloucester to Swindon and alternate trains (to become nearly all in a month's time) on to London. For Bristol, people travelling from the current Stonehouse (Burdett Road) Station need to change at Gloucester (for the hourly stopper), Cheltenham Spa (for the express which runs every 30 minutes) or even Swindon (if headed to Bath rather than Bristol).  All sounds very familiar to us in Melksham - where the trains head for Swindon and Westbury, and the biggest draw in Bath and Bristol - a similar distance as Stonehouse to Bristol.

Maps at the end of this post to give the reader some context

As well as simialirites, there are differences at Stonehouse.  The Cheltenham Spa and Gloucester to Bristol line actually passes the side of Stonehouse, but there's no station on that line.  And Stonehouse runs into Ebley and the town of Stroud up the Stroudwater valley (also with its own station on the London to Cheltenham Spa service) with a total population in the catchment of some 60,000 to 70,000.  Molly Scot Cato, the green MEP for the South West, lives locally and attended the meeting - she talked briefly of the inefficiency (time and sustainability) of her travelling from the local station to Plymouth ... passing by her home 40 minutes after she's left after an undesired excursion via Cheltenham.  I'll stress this is not a party political issue - the conservative candidate (Siobahn Baillie) was in the audience, and the MP standing for re-election (David Drew) sent his apologies and has been know as a long time supporter of the campaign to re-open a station at Stonehouse (Bristol Road) on the main Birmingham to Bristol line.

This campaign has come up before on the forum, with David getting an honourable mention:


The meeting was chaired and presented by Robert Crockford, a long time advocate for the new station, a former BR (Southern) man, who's used skills learned there to develop the potential passenger flow data for the proposed station. A good selection of town councillors, county reps, Stroudwater Canal managers (a canal restoration funded to a similar or greater level than a station would need, and well under way - https://www.cotswoldcanals.org.uk) helped make up a very high powered audience; I noted a sign in sheet so that Robert and the others involved should have the tools to follow up.

Robert quoted figures in passenger journeys per head of population per annum as one of his key measures.  It's an excellent measure (and one I have extensively used).  Figures of just under 8 jpppa (journeys per person per annum) quoted for current stations / service in the Stroud Valley, with a suggestion that the number would be around 20 with the new station at Bristol Road added. Making that a station with around 600,000 journeys per annum - "in the top third of UK stations in terms of passenger numbers".  I would agree that the projection makes sense; it's in line with comparable areas in neighbouring counties.  Robert was very kind to suggest that Melksham was a good example of growth for them to look at - frankly, I'm not so sure; we have risen from 0.3 jpppa to around 2.8 jpppa which is still far short of what's being achieved already in the Stroud Valley. However all (bar one) other Wilshire stations already have a figure of 20 jpppa or better - some up to 50 - so his target is realistic.  He just needs the station, reliable, fast(ish) and affordable services there to where people want to go, and joined up elements to ensure they can get to the station.

At this stage of exploring options, what are the future options to enable Stonehouse and Stroud Valley people to get to Bristol by rail?
1. A combined station at Standish Junction
2. Road transport to Cam and Dursley
3. Better interchange at Cheltenham or Gloucester
4. Local service reversing at Standish
5. Leave as it is
6. A suggestion to re-open (part of?) the old Nailsworth branch to a south-facing junction
7. Re-open Stonehouse (Bristol Road)
Some of these can be chucked out very quickly ... others worth exploring.

Should the re-opening of Bristol Road come out tops, there are many other questions such as
a. Availability of land
b. Availability of paths (need for loops??)
c. Effect on through passengers of extra stop (also consider Charfield campaign)
d. Abstraction from Burdett Road and from Cam and Dursley
e. Financial sustainability of linking bus service and ability to provide robust connections
f. Who's going to pay for it?

In this summary, I'm just giving bullet points.  Opening a conversation, perhaps.  Most people walk to (the) station and, yes, it is proposed on the edge of the urban area. Employment around the station site, tick.  Funding.  Local support more than just "yes we support you" words - an active project lead.  Marketing, surveys of local sentiment, etc (the five elements we were asked to provide for the TransWilts trial service are a good start).  Robert has an opportunity to capitalise on yesterday's meeting - step up a gear. The idea of this re-opening has been bumping along for 20 years but references online at present are stale; good to see a real kick of life / interest yesterday - I hope the meeting has formed the grounding for a fresh look at the idea and perhaps it'll progress to more than just a look.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/sbroad.jpg)
Existing stations (purple) and suggested site for new station (green)
Under a ScribbleMaps (https://www.scribblemaps.com/) license

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/sbradle.jpg)
Stonehouse in context (and showing the absurd extra mileage to go via Cheltenham to Bristol
Huge "thank you" to Richard Fairhurst (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?action=profile;u=435) for his Adlestrop Railway Atlas (http://systemed.net/atlas/)

I grew up near Stonehouse and thought of this possibility immediately I saw your other post about the Melksham to Stonehouse journey. Back then, in the mid to late 80s and early 90s, the connections were IIRC better via Swindon but fares higher than via Gloucester. Cam & Dursley station hadn't opened at that time, and wouldn't have been much use to me anyway.

Looking at your list:
1 seems a bad idea, if it is to replace the current station. The junction is not easy to access.
2 and 3 seem attractive, and 4 if it can be done without interfering with other services. I don't really see how 6 would improve services to Bristol. 7 would certainly get my vote – or would have done when I lived there.

It strikes me that there should be a better service than hourly between Gloucester and Bristol, and reopening the station on the main line could help to make it more viable. 

Also, there is a huge amount of development south of Gloucester, around Quedgeley and Hardwick that could either do with its own station, or if that isn't possible, would find a new station at Stonehouse very attractive for commuting to Bristol (if there was enough parking).

If there waa sufficient demand for a service to the south along the Midland main line from Stonehouse, it would be far far cheaper to provide a regular interval bus service to Cam & Dursley. And that could be done potentially within days if there was a will to do it..

I doubt if I'll live long enough to see any of the other proposals bear fruit, once they've been through cost-benefit analyses, planning, appeals, NIMBYs and so on.

The proposed new Stonehouse station looks to be very close by to where work on the line is already earmarked to take place fairly soon with the reconstruction of the rail bridge over the Cotswold Canal at Ocean Basin in order to restore navigable access to the next phase of canal restoration. This should be completed well before any work on a new station would start.  Shame, in a way, that this bridge and any new station were not ready to start at the same time as it might have meant less line closures.

If you're looking at the dates for the reconstruction of the rail / canal bridge, the lady from the Cotswold Canal Trust at yesterdays meeting told us that' booked in already with Network Rail for May 2021.    The campaign for the new station there (or, rather, re-opening of a 1965 closure) has been gently bouncing along - I understand - for several decades and needs moving from "good idea" to let's have a proper look" ... too late for all those GRIPping stages to be done for 2021, I'm afraid.

From the Stroud News and Journal (https://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/news/18041930.real-age-train/)

i don't shock easily, but I came close to it this afternoon when I looked up the current bus services to Cam & Dursley station.

There is only one route that gives a reasonable service to the station car park - the 2-hourly service 60 from Gloucester to Dursley that runs down the main road, so of little use if you are going to or from Stonehouse. There is a service 65 that runs from Stroud via an interesting route of Nailsworth, Nympsfield, Uley and Dursley which terminates at Upper Cam, a last a couple of miles from the station, but two service per day at the peak are extended to the station. And by the way, that service runs on weekdays only. Then there is an hourly serice 61 which actually does run from Stroud and Stonehouse to Dursley, but that takes a wander off to Slimbridge on the way and stays on the main A4135 road through Cam and doesn't directly serve the station. Ironically, it does serve the former apprioach road to Coaley Junction station!

Call me naive if you will, but I tend to hold the view that in these deregulated days, if there is money to be made out of a bus service then someone will run it. The fact that no operator seems to be particulrly bothered about providing a regular bus between Stonehouse and Cam & Dursley station suggests to me that there is curretly insufficien demand. If this is so it wouldn't bode very well for a station reopening campaign.

That is a long way to travel by bus to catch an infrequent local train service. It would be very uncompetitive in journey time with driving and have limited benefit over taking the bus all the way to  Bristol; which would avoid the risk of missed connections. In transport planning terms there's a high 'interchange penalty'. So I wouldn't regard a low level of demand for a very unattractive journey requiring interchange as a good indicator of demand for a rail service that people could actually walk to.

Stonehouse Bristol Road is at the western end of Stonehouse, which is the westernmost town in the Stroud Valleys. There's a long string of places most of which are way too far to walk and the bus service is not too good, so unless you drive there (I don't know how much room there would be for a car park) or get a lift, you're probably dependent anyway on a Swindon to Gloucester train then a walk through the town – if you're coming from Chalford, Brimscombe, Sapperton, Thrupp, etc. I presume people further east who would get Kemble services would change via Swindon. From that point of view, a local service reversing at Standish junction would make sense – if it could be made regular enough and if it wouldn't get in the way of running other services using that junction.

I was impressed with both Robert's depth of study of issues;  issues raised by Bmblbzzz, by mjones and by Robin Summerhill are all noted.  We did talk / hear of buses - and their failure - as shuttles, through from Cam and from Dursley to Cam & Dursley.   Of car parking for the new station, space availability, proportions of people who walk to a typical station, how it would differ, etc, here an how that journey would be made attractive.  I don't know the full stack up, of course ... but it sounds rather like others do.

I think you are overstating your case somewhat, especially the "infrequent local train service" element. Whilst I agree that the service to Cam & Dursley isn't Bakerloo Line frequency, it is hourly virtually clock face in both directions, and there are people who post on this forum who would give their right arm for a frequency like that for their local station. And you know who I have in mind whem I wrote that!!

I agree that the existig bus service leaves a lot to be desired, and said as much in my last post. But it is only just over 5 miles betwen Burdett Road and Cam & Dursley by the most direct route (via Stanley and Frocester) and about 8 miles using the main A38. In 1963 the Bristol Omnibus Company service 461 was doing Stonehouse Oldends Lane to Coaley Junction in about 22 minutes; these days it takes Stagecoach over 30 with their diversion to Slimbridge.

To clarify, I am not saying "don't reopen Bristol Road period." What I am saying is that a direct bus service that connected with all trains would at the very least test the market to see if there was a latent demand. Whilst people who read and cotribute to forums like these will generall prefer rail reopenings to anything else, the politicians and whoever else has to pay for these things will want to make sure that it is worth doing. This would be a way to find out.

All that said, I feel it is unlikely that Bristol Road will ever reopen at its former location. All the land on both sides has been redeveloped. Knocking down real state the build a car park is not sometghing that will cheer up the NIMBYs, so thaty won't happen. A quick squint at Google Street View and Google Maps suggests that the southern side of Bristol Road might be more suitable today.

I am  not criticising the rail service; on the contrary I am sure it would attract additional  users if  a new station were provided. My point  was that you cannot extrapolate potential demand on the basis that there is not sufficient demand to run a connecting  bus service to a station 5 to 8 miles away.  Buses do not provide a large modal share to most stations outside urban areas. The inconvenience of interchange is a very significant barrier, much higher than for changes of train. Punctuality and reliability are perceived to be much worse;  real time information is usually non existent.

 That isn't to say that a good connecting bus service couldn't or shouldn't be provided (such things are commonplace in countries that recognise that market forces alone don't provide a good transport system). However I wouldn't expect even a well designed bus service to  attract more than a small proportion of the number of people who would use the rail service if they didn't have to catch a bus first. The journey time will inevitably be a lot less competitive.

I don't believe that a bus service would test the demand in both directions.   If a service thrived, good - proof for Bristol Road though I'm sure we would be asked whether the station was then needed.  But actually it would be only testing one of the flows, with an interchange hurdle that would put off most people even if it operated well, cheaply and at the right time.  So if it failed it really would not provide evidence against the station.

A very high percentage of passengers start their journey on foot to a station. Then you have park and ride (park a car or a cycle) and kiss and ride; typically further connecting public transport comes in much lower in percentage terms, obvious exceptions as diverse as Paddington and Lymington Pier.

A valley bus service taken to Cam and Dursely in time for the southbound service at :50 (so arrivng there at :42?) and retuning at :16 (after the arrival of the northbund service) - those are daytime clockfaces from next month also gives a clue as to another problem ... not exactly efficient with the bus.  Now - if southbound trains were at :20 as well as :50, and northbound at :12 and :42, a bus service could usefully turn around from a :12 arrival to a :16 departure ... but to rely on it people would then want every train connected and a half hourly bus!

One of the beauties of a train service is the ability within the franchise system for you to build your daily life around it as a guarantee.  One of the beauties of a bus service (for the operator) is the ability to alter or withdraw it at 72 days notice if it's not making enough of a profit, without the need to provide any alternative for the people who have risked setting up their lifestyle such that they rely on it.

Good luck with your campaign.

I would have thought that given the proximity to the M5/A419, building an Oxford Parkway-style station with large car park would have enormous potential to take north and south-bound commuter traffic from the M5 and out of city centres. Whilst it might not be very PC to do anything that encourages car journeys, ultimately it will build traffic on the line and a business case both for S-Bahn-style services between Bristol and Cheltenham/Gloucester, and electrification.

Having posted above about the very real issue of people needing to be sure of a (bus or train) service before they arrange their daily life around it, I had only a couple of hours to wait before a bus cut story (https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/villages-rossendale-cut-completely-bus-17251933) (from Lancashire) came up on my screen.


Even where we had a three YEAR trial on the TransWilts service from December 2013,  we had a memorable number of objections raised with us from people who said they would not use it as they needed a dependable travel capability around which to plan their lives.

Fully agree.

There was for many years a connecting bus service from Corby to Kettering station. I can't find any passenger numbers for it online, but I used it a couple of times (I used to live a short way north of Corby) and I'd usually be the only passenger on it.

Corby station has now reopened, and it's doing a very respectable 300k passengers per year. But you wouldn't have reopened it going by the bus passenger numbers alone.

Noggin's idea of an Oxford Parkway-style P&R is a very interesting one. There are large parts of southern Gloucester (Quedgeley, Hardwicke etc.) where a quick drive along the M5 for one junction would be a more appealing journey than hacking through Gloucester traffic to get to the city centre station.

Obviously my minor contribution wasn't noted, so I'll be a bit more controversial this time.

If the £20m or so that seems to be needed for a station these days is available for a station in the area, then I'd suggest Quedgeley has a much stronger case.  The town, (when added to adjacent Hardwicke), has a population of over 30,000*, which is around four times that of Stonehouse (and indeed, dare I say it, 50% more than Melksham).  So why build a second station for a small population when you can build a first one for a much greater population. Sound like a much better use of money to me.

Moreover, a large part of Quedgeley's population is within a 15 minute walk of the railway, and so wouldn't even need parking. The rest would have the option of a short cycle which should be encouraged.  A station here could be served by trains to Swindon as well as Bristol, and passenger numbers could in time enable a more frequent service on both routes to be justified.  It would also serve Cheltenham as well. So much more likely to be well used.

It would also serve as a better interchange from passengers from Stroud to the Bristol line than walking between stations at Stonehouse, so if the timings were aligned, could be useful there (though if the services are only hourly then I guess that would be unlikely).  Still better than a walk between stations though.

I expect there will be push back that both stations are needed, and we shouldn't have to choose.  But that's not how it works in the real world, and so if there is £20m still stuffed down some politician's back pocket after the election that hasn't mysteriously evaporated like it usually does, then I think Quedgeley would be a much better use for it.   

* It has rocketed since the 2011 census, due to infill between the A38 and railway line - bringing the population distribution much closer to the railway.

It was - but quite a way back and I was answering to very recent contributions

An intermediate station about halfway along the 12km from Standish Junction to Gloucester, and on the main line rather than the branch into Gloucester is, agreed, yet another possibility - something new and something borrowed from a couple of the other options too.


It all really needs looking at quite widely, doesn't it?  Thus all the ideas listed; I sense there'e a good case for Stonehouse (Bristol Road), but there may be other alternative cases around which are better - and we're at that point of option selection that you have whether you use GRIP or JFDI.


I will pick up on your population comparison.  I suggest you need to look at the contiguous built up area within walking and cycling distance of the station.  I'll take your word that Quedgeley (17,500) when added to Hardwicke is 30,000 and growing; Melksham Town (15,000) added to Melksham Without which surrounds it like a doughnut was just shy of 23,000 in the 2011 census with the boundaries (like some we are discussing elsewhere about Reading) running between and even through houses.   Current guestimate - 29,500 and they're still building.  So not sure where your "50% more" comes from.



Key / excellent points.  In practise, for most stations the walking distance is the key.


Maybe ... one of the members of the audience on Saturday said (I think) that the local transport plan for (?) Gloucestershire is being updated - consultation ending just before Christmas - and that's really where the options / needs / tradeoffs for all the various travel requirements now and into the future need to be aired.  Mind you, a consultation could be an early one - "we want your ideas" or a later one - "this is what we think, please give us your blessing".   If it's the latter, the ship is already untied and ready to go - it may even have sailed!

And that's a wider question - why does it cost so much to build a new station?

£13m seems to be the going rate for a simple two-platform station. That's the figure for Marsh Barton, Kenilworth, and Maghull North.

But then the temporary station at Workington North cost £300k, while the no-frills tiny platform at Beauly was £250k, and nearby Conon Bridge £600k.

There is clearly a middle ground to be found. If the railways are going to be an election issue, and both the Conservatives' "Reverse Beeching Fund" and Labour's pledge of renationalisation suggest they might be, then it would be sensible to look at how effectively the money is spent, not just how much money is thrown at the railways.

It was based on a quote from the following link
https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/whats-name-quedgeley-parish-council-35996
in particular Quedgeley Parish Council will become a town council, after councillors voted to make the change last night.
The area has a population of around 26,000 people, making it larger than many towns in the county.
Added to which Hardwicke is around 4,000 more, and that quote is 2 1/2 years out of date, so at current rate of growth it is going to be more than 30,000.
All this population is within 2.5km of a potential station site, so for the majority will be walkable, and for the rest, a 5-10 minute cycle ride. I'll admit I was using the Melksham Town figure and adding a bit for growth, so ignored the doughnut around it. (In fact I didn't even realise the doughnut existed.) I probably shouldn't have been provocative in making the comparison, so best not to let any argument dilute the message of Quedgeley's need for a station.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what Noggin's Parkway idea is. It seems to make sense, to have a station that could attract traffic from south Gloucester via the M5 as well as Stonehouse and Stroud via the A419, and of course this station could and should (but would?) be easily served by bus as well. But the logical place for this station, where the line crosses the A419, is almost where Bristol Rd was. So the restrictions of surrounding development preventing much car parking would apply. But I note it's specifically Oxford Parkway; is there something special about Oxford Parkway (there might well be and I wouldn't be aware of it)?

I'm also a little confused by the reference to S-Bahn. To me that means Stadtbahn, so urban rail serving districts of a large city, like Berlin, Cologne or Birmingham. But that's very different to the situation in Stonehouse! And if the S means Schnell, fast, then are we looking at XCountry services stopping here on their way between Bristol and Birmingham? I can't quite see that happening either! After that my German is stumped, sorry, leaving me  ???.

See http://www.passenger.chat/22465 - I've made wider comment on passenger services on the corridor.

Happy (Celestial) to revisit the Melksham population thing.  Not the first time and won't be the last.  We have learned to use it to our advantage  ;D

Sorry if I wasn't clear, and perhaps a station next to the A419 isn't quite as straightforward as it appears from the maps.

As I understand it, Oxford Parkway was designed to be a railhead for the Cotswolds - somewhere people could drive in comfort from home, then decant to a train for a rail leg of their commute. It seems to me that there could well be a similar market who could be tempted from their cars if there were somewhere they could drive to, grab a coffee then catch up on their emails as they go to an office in Bristol, Birmingham, or somewhere inbetween.

As for S-Bahn, I mean a 15 to 30-minute interval regional rail service that forms part of a well-defined metro network. I was thinking of Bristol to Gloucester/Cheltenham as part of a wider Bristol/Newport/Cardiff-centric network. 

Well, my suggestion for a bus connection to Cam & Dursley as a quick fix appears to have been shot down in flames, but it appears to me that some of the arguments put against it don't stand up to too much scrutiny :)



This seems to presuppose two things. Firstly that XC trains would stop at Stonehouse which I suspect would not be the case (if it was the case, then why don't they bother with equally large catchment areas such as Yate, Ashchurch or Bromsgrove), and scondly that there is no P&R facility in the area at the moment, whilst there is - at Cam & Dursley. OK I accept that there are local issues at the station with the car park being too small to accommodate the potential demand, leading to people parking on the surrounding lanes, but that is a different issue which could have its own solutions.


I take the point about Corby, but I did say in my original post that a bus connection service to Cam & Dursley could be operating within days if there was a will to do it. Could Stonehouse Bristol Road station be reopened in the same timeframe? Daft question really, isn't it ;D

If there was a latent existing demand a bus service would test it. What the future might bring would be something else entirely


If thie had said "some stations" I may have agreed with it, but "most stations" is, in my view, utter nonsense. It certainly might be the case in leafy suburbia, it almost certainly is the case in  large urban areas, but when you get into small (ish) market town country such as Stroud, Stomehouse, or places like Chippenham, Melksham or Trowbridge, the expansion of these towns into green field sites over the last 70-odd years means that not much of them are actually within a reasonable walking distance of their stations. Of course, "reasonable" in this context is very subjective and, whilst the more fit and agile may think nothing of a 30-minute walk to their closest station, there are many others that would baulk at anything over 10 minutes. I also recall getting into a verbal spat with Graham on here about the lack of a pavement on the easten approach to Melksham station making the walking distance from the Beanacre Road end of town longer than it could be! This is of course why we build car parks at stations and we also, let us not forget, bleat incessantly on from individuals up to national government levels about bus/ rail coordination and integration. Yet in this case, apparently, we don't want a bus from Stonehouse to Cam & Dursley.

I have used Cam and Dursley station on a few occasions in recent years, and I would suggest that the number of people who live within a reasonable walking distance of it are very few - nobody living in Dursley "proper" does and neither do most of the residents of Cam. The station is in the middle of Gloucestershire countryside. And also, let us not forget, Bristol Parkway was surrounded by green fields when it opened in 1971 or whichever year it was (haven't looked it up!). I wonder how many people walked to that station back then or indeed, as a proportion of the total footfall, how many do now?

While the argument for Quedgeley as higher priority than Stonehouse Bristol Road seems strong in terms of surrounding residents and access, and it has potential as a changing point for services to the Stroud Valleys if something clever is done with connections (but then so does Gloucester), they would be different passengers and a different area.

So yes, both stations are needed! Maybe one is needed more than the other... Either would be good. But I doubt we'll actually see any. But that shouldn't stop us talking about it/them!

Sorry if you have, and I've missed it, but have you all read this? https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/travelwest/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/MW2-GlosCC-extension-report_2016-12-16.pdf

That's really interesting.  Thank you.

It says (Table 7) that the highest BCR for a single station is for Hunts Grove (Quedgeley).  But two stations at Stonehouse Bristol Rd and Charfield would give a higher BCR, as the extra running cost for a second station seems low. 

However, they didn't test the BCR for Hunts Grove and Charfield, which presumably would be even higher, firstly because HG generates more revenue than Stonehouse BR, and secondly because the sum of Stonehouse BR and Charfield is much less than the individuals presumably due to passengers choosing using whichever was built, but couldn't then use both.  I would have thought the effect of that on HG would be less, as it is a little further away to Stonehouse.

And good to see that they could all be built for my supposed £20m, at least until Network Rail gets a GRIP on the process and triples the cost (see Portishead, Marsh Barton etc). 

Comparing the coordinates given for Hunts Grove, I don't know if the location is what Noggin Celestial had in mind by Quedgeley, but it's not quite what I thought of. It's immediately north of the M5, somewhat south of the built up area of Quedegeley. There has been and continues to be a lot of residential development in the Naas area (the road heading east out of Quedgeley to Brookthorpe) but I was imagining something a bit further into the urban area, more in Tuffley I suppose. That, though would probably require clearing existing buildings at vast expense and disruption.

Anyway, isn't one of the reasons for Quedgeley/Hunts Grove having higher BCR that it gets trains on both Swindon and Bristol lines?

Edit: Celestial, not Noggin.

I think I've been the strong advocate of Quedgeley, and agree the station is a smidge south of where I would have expected it to be, which is at the former Naas Lane crossing. 

Yes, having more trains will help the BCR, although the figures say that there are more people living within walking distance of the station (despite the above), which will obviously help too.

From Stroud News (https://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/news/18662301.petition-underway-reopen-bristol-road-railway-station-stonehouse/)


The Petition is at https://glostext.gloucestershire.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=68

We’re at an interesting crossroads (or should that be crossrails?) - on the one hand you have plans and petitions for new or reinstated railway lines and stations.  On the other you have people predicting temporary or semi-permanent closure of lines and stations. 

I know which way I hope it goes!

Yes. There's a little nagging voice in my head saying that just as there was massive investment in the railways in the 2010's, so there was in the 1950's... and we all know what happened immediately after that...

The indications from Government certainly at the moment is to continue investing in rail for the longer term. 

In terms of time scale this Covid-19 pandemic may last 3 or even 5 years, which over the next year or so there will be a return to some sort of normality, having said that work patterns therefore commute patterns have changed and are not likely to go back to the predicted rise they were a year ago.

What we may see is a more comfortable rail travel experience, the government will continue to put pressure on removing fossil fuel used in transport and, my prediction, in 10 years time all road vehicles using UK Motorway will have to have some form of driver free control

I understand that many want Stonehouse to have its current station on the Golden Valley line AND a station at Bristol Road.

Meanwhile, Gloucester (pop. 100k plus) and Cheltenham (pop. 100k plus) only have one station - one of which is disconnected from the mainline.

It would make much more sense to open a station in the Hunts Grove area of Gloucester - as development over in the south of the city has been quite significant as of recent. This could then serve connections from the Golden Valley line towards Bristol, possibly see a couple of CrossCountry services and prove a more cost-worthy project.

Be nice to see a ticket machine on the London bound side at Stonehouse station,
heavens knows how much money is lost on Monday mornings and maybe other mornings with the trains being packed(pre-covid)

A complex issue ... I would not like to come to any conclusion on the balance between the current and latent flows, and how new flows might develop with station, service and connections changes ... all laid on top of what can be practically provided.

For traffic from STROUD to Bristol, a new station at Bristol Road would do little - people would be unlikely to walk between the two stations.  A station somewhat north of Standish, also serving the south of Gloucester would make sense as an interchange for that flow, but on the other hand it would not provide the direct Stonehouse to Bristol service.   And has anyone mentioned the growth up the Stroud Valley at places like Chalford?   I offer no solution - I do point out to Charlie that they are on one main line - from South Wales to Birmingham and Nottingham, but agree that all the expresses passing towards the South West through the outskirts of the city, but not stopping, is frustrating.

I guess you are right about Gloucester being on the mainline - just disconnected from CrossCountry services.

Obviously in the past there has been much conversation around Gloucester and it's railway station - with ideas surrounding a station near Elmbridge Court and one on the railway triangle.  As most of us probably know both proved to have complications.

The reason I would campaign for a station around the Hunts Road area of Gloucester is for three reasons:

- A: There has been significant housing development around this area in the past decade and would probably prove somewhat successful for commuters to Bristol and in the Swindon direction.

- B: Connections could be (quite drastically) be improved for those travelling from Stroud and Stonehouse who wish to travel towards Bristol or even Cheltenham. Leading into point C...

- C: There COULD be a case to call SOME CrossCountry services that (currently) travel non-stop between Bristol Parkway and Cheltenham Spa.

Obviously, it would cause many operational challenges. Would there be a case to call London-bound and services from London at a new station? Would there be a case to call CrossCountry services here? What effect would this have on journey times? Would services that reverse at Gloucester be reduced?

But it would certainly make more sense - in my opinion - than having a station for a fairly small-ish town that would not improve connections for people outside of the town.

A few decades ago, when I lived roughly halfway between Stonehouse and Stroud, I often wished there was a Stonehouse Bristol Road station. And even back then there was sporadic talk of it being reopened. I think that was before Cam & Dursley opened. Now, a decent bus service from CDU to Stonehouse and Stroud would go some way to solving this north-south connectivity problem. (I don't know what buses there currently are and by 1994 when it opened, I'd both moved away and become motorised.) Now, I'd say a station in Chalford or possibly even Sapperton would be more beneficial overall to the Stroud area.