Great Western Coffee Shop

Bedminster Station is a bit of a bleak place, but its fortunes may be about to improve. A new development at Bedminster Green will bring 3,000 more people within a short walk of the station; trains to Portishead will stop there and there is talk of re-quadrifying the lines.

But access is not good; there is a single subway entrance on the wrong side of the tracks for the main shopping area and Bedminster Green, leading to ramps which are too steep. In 2019 a development framework (https://news.bristol.gov.uk/resources/bedminster-green-framework-framework-document) was produced for the area which proposed building a new entrance building on a plot of council-owned land between the station and Whitehouse Lane. The subway would be extended under the track to connect to this.

Further study showed that this would be difficult because the up relief line, under which the subway would have to pass, is lower than the other lines. This makes everything that much more complicated, i.e. expensive!

Bristol Civic Society and FoSBR have both responded to a recent consultation on transport links in the area, in the hope that even if funding cannot be found immediately the site will be retained so that access can be improved at some future date. Their responses are here:

https://www.bristolcivicsociety.org.uk/bedminster-green-river-restoration-and-transport-consultation/

https://fosbr.org.uk/bedminster-station/

Something I missed earlier was that WECA's Strategic Rail Plan contains plans to reinstate four tracks through Bedminster Station (see https://bit.ly/3eonMn2, P.46):

Under 'New schemes to be developed in the 10 Year Rail Delivery Plan and delivered 2030 to 2045', we have:


When Filton Bank was re-quadrified, Stapleton Road and Lawrence Hill Stations (which had had four-platforms) were reconfigured as two-platform stations on the new relief lines, with the main lines bypassing them.

It has been proven more than once(!) that it's above my pay grade to try to second-guess Network Rail, but does it not seem likely that both Bedminster and Parson Street stations might get rejigged in a similar way, with the northern tracks becoming the relief lines and the platforms on the new mains being demolished?

Do any members have a view on this? Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

To be honest,I don't think re-instating the "down slow line" will improve things.
You only get stopped at Bedminster if your booked platform is occupied when your train service has run early.
Can't recall getting delayed heading down towards weston super mare. 

MetroWest will increase the number of stopping trains on this route, so while things may be OK now that may change. Note that the WECA Rail Plan is talking about 10 to 25 years into the future.

Beware - paper exercise ...

a) Heading out towards Weston, I suspect trains are held back at Temple Meads if an express needs to go first, rather than out on the line.

b) Would it be an idea to signal what is currently the inbound relief for bidirectional running of passenger carrying trains?  My thought is that outbound Portishead trains use that line, with inbound on the inbound main for the most part.  Avoids conflicting moves of down Portishead trains over the up main.   Add to this - reinstate a direct line from the Weston direction into Platform 2; I know most trains are planned to run through, but that extra flexibility ...

BCC have published the results of their consultation on transport at Bedminster. Very pleased to see this:

Rail

Improve accessibility to Bedminster station

We’ve now prioritised improving accessibility to the station and we’ll be working with stakeholders on this. We hope to have a proposal that improves access to the station, particularly for those on the north side of the railway line, in the near future.

Can't wait to see the details!

just wish Parson Street could have step free access installed

Actually I now realise I was confused; this is a document from a year ago before BCC got the experts in to look at what was possible.

We have the same aspiration for Nailsea & Backwell - but, unfortunately, it's a similar £1m plus that would be needed to achieve that.  ::)