Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 18:55 28 Mar 2024
* Easter getaways hit by travel disruption
- How do I renew my UK passport and what is the 10-year rule?
- Passengers pleaded with knifeman during attack
- Family anger at sentence on fatal crash driver, 19
- Easter travel warning as millions set to hit roads
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
28th Mar (1988)
Formal end to carrying coffins by BR (link)

Train RunningCancelled
16:54 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
17:48 Reading to Gatwick Airport
17:54 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
17:57 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street
18:03 London Paddington to Penzance
18:08 London Paddington to Frome
Additional 18:25 Shalford to Reading
18:36 London Paddington to Plymouth
18:37 Westbury to Swindon
18:51 Filton Abbey Wood to Bristol Temple Meads
18:55 Bedwyn to Newbury
19:23 Reading to Gatwick Airport
19:24 Newbury to Bedwyn
19:33 London Paddington to Worcester Shrub Hill
19:55 Bedwyn to Newbury
20:13 Swindon to Westbury
20:16 Frome to Westbury
20:49 Newbury to Bedwyn
20:56 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington
21:16 Bedwyn to Newbury
21:53 Newbury to Bedwyn
22:25 Bedwyn to Newbury
22:47 Newbury to Bedwyn
Short Run
15:03 London Paddington to Penzance
15:30 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour
16:19 Carmarthen to London Paddington
16:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central
16:35 London Paddington to Plymouth
16:50 Plymouth to London Paddington
17:03 London Paddington to Penzance
17:20 Reading to Gatwick Airport
17:30 London Paddington to Taunton
17:36 London Paddington to Plymouth
17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury
17:59 Gatwick Airport to Reading
18:18 Newbury to London Paddington
18:19 Reading to Gatwick Airport
18:54 Reading to Gatwick Airport
18:59 Gatwick Airport to Reading
19:06 London Paddington to Bedwyn
19:29 Gatwick Airport to Reading
20:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
20:42 Bedwyn to London Paddington
Delayed
13:59 Cardiff Central to Penzance
14:15 Penzance to London Paddington
16:03 London Paddington to Penzance
16:15 Penzance to London Paddington
Additional 17:17 Exeter St Davids to Penzance
Additional 17:26 Castle Cary to Penzance
17:29 Gatwick Airport to Reading
An additional train service has been planned to operate as shown 18:25 Shalford to Reading
18:29 Gatwick Airport to Reading
19:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
etc
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 28, 2024, 18:57:50 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[133] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[132] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[53] Return of the BRUTE?
[44] If not HS2 to Manchester, how will traffic be carried?
[41] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[32] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
 
News: the Great Western Coffee Shop ... keeping you up to date with travel around the South West
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1] 2 3
  Print  
Author Topic: Bristol Underground System. Still on the cards?  (Read 8158 times)
johnneyw
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 2257


From station to station, back to Bristol city....


View Profile
« on: October 17, 2019, 13:26:19 »

Mayor Marv's state of Bristol speech last night pledged to build an underground system witnhin 10 years. I thought this one was quietly being dropped but I suppose there are elections in the fairly near distance.
Logged
Red Squirrel
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 5190


There are some who call me... Tim


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2019, 16:57:31 »

Here's the 'transport' section of Marvin Rees' 'State of the City' address, as reported on the Bristol City Council website

Quote

Transformation of transport in the city is needed and will include the following.

A Bus Deal that will:

  • double services on key routes as well as regular commuter services down main arterial routes. This is public investment in prioritisation and infrastructure that will trigger private investment in services as the first step towards making public transport the mode of choice
  • bring greater reliability and connectivity with a loop service – a circle line that will connect the city central areas of Broadmead and Cabot Circus to the Centre, Redcliffe, Temple Meads, and Old Market every few minutes
  • Traffic will bypass the city central areas completely enabling pedestrianisation of the Old City and the City Centre.

Mass Transit that will:

  • offer a real alternative to the car
  • be developed within the next decade
  • bring four lines of mainly underground, low carbon, rapid and reliable mass transport:
    • The first line will connect Temple Meads to the airport, looping through the south of Bristol
    • The next line will connect the northern fringe, from Cribbs Causeway to the centre, and the south and east central areas of the city
    • And then finally it will connect the rest to the east, going as far as Lyde Green and Hicks Gate.
  • growing the urban rail network.

Logged

Things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.
johnneyw
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 2257


From station to station, back to Bristol city....


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2019, 18:55:44 »

When Marv was speaking on BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Radio Bristol today, the 10 year timeframe quite surprised me, especially when you consider the time taken so far and the years still to go before the much shorter (and partly extant) Portishead Line is due to be ready.
Logged
Noggin
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 514


View Profile
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2019, 08:57:56 »

When Marv was speaking on BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Radio Bristol today, the 10 year timeframe quite surprised me, especially when you consider the time taken so far and the years still to go before the much shorter (and partly extant) Portishead Line is due to be ready.

Indeed, at the very least you need a couple of years to do the planning, couple of years for the consultation/public enquiry, couple of years to get the act of Parliament/TaWA, then you have to build the thing!

And that is of course assuming that the darn thing can be physically threaded through the city. I've said it before, but heading north from Broadmead, the first real opportunity for the line to surface would be pretty much Southmead, and there aren't many easy sites suitable for station buildings/ventilation shafts.

As for the bus plans, where exactly do they expect traffic to go if they ban traffic from the Old City and the City Centre? Said it before, but surely it would be better to leave it, but introduce a workpace parking levy like Nottingham did and earn some dosh to build something more straightforward like a tram system?
Logged
Red Squirrel
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 5190


There are some who call me... Tim


View Profile
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2019, 09:34:52 »

Quote
...a loop service – a circle line that will connect the city central areas of Broadmead and Cabot Circus to the Centre, Redcliffe, Temple Meads, and Old Market every few minutes

Sounds very familiar. For younger readers, here's what this could look like:


Source: Bristol Omnibus Co Bristol City and Country Area Bus Timetable, 1st December 1974 until 11th October 1975
Logged

Things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.
johnneyw
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 2257


From station to station, back to Bristol city....


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2019, 10:09:36 »

The 1000 cars at Canon's Marsh car park have gone underground and I bet it's rather less than that number now.

Edit: The pedestrian underground car park entrances around Millennium Square always reminded me of Metro Station entrances!
Logged
TonyK
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 6435


The artist formerly known as Four Track, Now!


View Profile
« Reply #6 on: October 21, 2019, 19:21:05 »

Here's the 'transport' section of Marvin Rees' 'State of the City' address, as reported on the Bristol City Council website

Quote

Transformation of transport in the city is needed and will include the following.

A Bus Deal that will:

  • double services on key routes as well as regular commuter services down main arterial routes. This is public investment in prioritisation and infrastructure that will trigger private investment in services as the first step towards making public transport the mode of choice
  • bring greater reliability and connectivity with a loop service – a circle line that will connect the city central areas of Broadmead and Cabot Circus to the Centre, Redcliffe, Temple Meads, and Old Market every few minutes
  • Traffic will bypass the city central areas completely enabling pedestrianisation of the Old City and the City Centre.

Mass Transit that will:

  • offer a real alternative to the car
  • be developed within the next decade
  • bring four lines of mainly underground, low carbon, rapid and reliable mass transport:
    • The first line will connect Temple Meads to the airport, looping through the south of Bristol
    • The next line will connect the northern fringe, from Cribbs Causeway to the centre, and the south and east central areas of the city
    • And then finally it will connect the rest to the east, going as far as Lyde Green and Hicks Gate.
  • growing the urban rail network.



The words seem to be carefully chosen. Were the plan to be the building of an underground railway, I am sure the council document would have said that explicitly. So what is it? Underground MetroBust is asking for trouble. A line from the airport "looping through the south of Bristol" conjures up a vision of a railway joining the main line around Parson Street, but MetroBust arguably loops through the south of Bristol. Similarly, joining up Cribbs and the northern frozen zone to the nearby railway  would be very welcome, but underground?

So we wait with bated breath. Can Marvin start from scratch and build the Corbyn-Rees line in under a decade in a city that started with an idea for trams in 2000 and ended up with three new bus routes and falling passenger numbers 18 years later? And is this contingent on a Labour landslide locally and nationally? My inner sceptic is unconvinced.

Which is sad, because Something Must Be Done. Bristol has tried nothing much, and is all out of ideas.Council bus services weren't the answer, so we privatised them. That didn't work, so we spent tens of millions on new bus lanes, and that didn't work. So we spent hundreds of millions on bus routes, and that isn't helping much.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2019, 12:04:01 by TonyK » Logged

Now, please!
Bmblbzzz
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 4256


View Profile
« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2019, 09:32:06 »

A petty disagreement, TonyK, Bristol isn't "all out of ideas", it's full of ideas but all out of putting those ideas into action.
Logged

Waiting at Pilning for the midnight sleeper to Prague.
broadgage
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 5398



View Profile
« Reply #8 on: October 23, 2019, 13:41:17 »

I rather doubt that this will happen.
Tunneling is hugely expensive and is likely to get more so due to the safety industry requiring ever wider tunnels.

New underground railways require a walkway beside the track for emergency use, how long until the safety industry require this to be wider than at present ? or provided on both sides ?
How long before conductor rails are banned, even in tunnels ? 25Kv overhead will require larger tunnels.
And of course newts, bats, and nimbys.

Look at Crossrail for some idea of cost overruns and delays.

Logged

A proper intercity train has a minimum of 8 coaches, gangwayed throughout, with first at one end, and a full sized buffet car between first and standard.
It has space for cycles, surfboards,luggage etc.
A 5 car DMU (Diesel Multiple Unit) is not a proper inter-city train. The 5+5 and 9 car DMUs are almost as bad.
Red Squirrel
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 5190


There are some who call me... Tim


View Profile
« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2019, 14:16:01 »

Were the plan to be the building of an underground railway [my italics - RS], I am sure the council document would have said that explicitly.

Last time I heard him talking about this kind of thing Marvin Rees said, sotto voce, '...not necessarily on rails'.

Underground busways are not without precedent: the Lincoln Tunnel XBL is sometimes cited as an example of underground BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). But this is usually by folk whose politics lie to the right of where one might assume a Labour Mayor's would lie and who, one would assume, could not imagine a world in which their fortunes sunk so low as to necessitate them actually having to use it...
« Last Edit: October 25, 2019, 13:13:42 by Red Squirrel » Logged

Things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.
johnneyw
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 2257


From station to station, back to Bristol city....


View Profile
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2020, 10:59:48 »

More in Bristol Live regarding the "Bristol Underground" with accompanying video. Once again, rather vague and aspirational. Yes, spring election time is in the air.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/underground-station-temple-meads-transport-3858826


Logged
Phantom
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 484



View Profile
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2020, 11:07:58 »

Yes, spring election time is in the air.


What a spooky coincidence  Grin Grin
Logged
Red Squirrel
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 5190


There are some who call me... Tim


View Profile
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2020, 14:49:33 »

Two premises:

Quote

1. We need to reduce private motor car usage by 40% in order to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets;

2. We need to find routes for a rapid transit system.


One potential conclusion is:

Quote

A. We need to reallocate some of the road space currently used by private motor cars to provide routes for rapid transit.


Another is;

Quote

B.We need to build the rapid transit system underground so that it does not interfere with traffic.


Now I'm not a professor of logic, but it seems to me that conclusion B is a cloth-eared syllogism.

Logged

Things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.
Bmblbzzz
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 4256


View Profile
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2020, 16:06:59 »

Not entirely, if you bear in mind that some of the traffic it would interfere with – particularly during construction – would be buses, cycles and pedestrians.
Logged

Waiting at Pilning for the midnight sleeper to Prague.
Adrian
Transport Scholar
Sr. Member
******
Posts: 171


View Profile
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2020, 19:27:47 »

What about option C - build an elevated monorail?
Logged
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1] 2 3
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page