Great Western Coffee Shop

For FoSBR members:

   

An excellent meeting last night ... noted a couple of members there.  Good to hear of progress and many good plans.

Concern that plans for Portishead are only for an hourly service which is regarded as less than adequate for a suburban railway (and yet Keynsham lost a number of its extras last month and is now down to hourly, with the GWR rep hedging her bets as to when the paths so cleared will be properly reused for the half hourly train).

Pilning remains at 2 trains per week, and the GWR have no plans to stop more unless they are instructed to do so by the DfT.   The close proximity to the Severnside business area has not gone un-noticed (if it has, please let me remind readers):
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/pilagain22.jpg)
But the suggested solution seems to be to provide passenger rail access via Severn Beach, with passengers from North Bristol travelling there via Henbury and a new chord from there to "the Beach" rather than by an improved Pilning Station (where, it must be admitted, improvements are needed).  South Wales to Severnside commuters would be encouraged to make virtually a complete circle - passing though but not stopping at Pilning, then onward via Patchway, North Filton and Henbury.  Apparently it's operationally awkward to stop at Pilning - even though that clearly was not a problem in the past ...

Agreed, it was an interesting and well run meeting.  I managed to miss the first twenty minutes or so due to "problemo technicus" (apologies to The Fast Show) with my Zoom app but I gather it was recorded and will be available to view at some time (FoSBR website?).

Particularly interesting to me was that the chord between the Severn Beach Line and the line to Henbury seems to be being taken seriously by a lot of bodies.  Did anyone mention it's possible cost in the meeting?

johnneyw,

Unfortunately we started recording after the meeting started, and missed part of Jane Jones' presentation. Hopefully we can get hold of the slides and make them available though.

Yes we do plan to put the recording up on YouTube as last year.

As far as we are aware the chord from Henbury to Severn Beach has not been costed. As a slightt aside, you may have heard Bernard Kennedy throw in an interesting observation that with the closure of the coal conveyor, the possibility of the Avonmouth - Henbury looks a bit more promising now. Interesting times!