Plenty of trains race through Pilning Station, and just twice a week one calls there. On 3rd May, the Bristol Rail Campaign walked from Severn Beach to Pilning to join the train at 15:32 headed for Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance and around ten of us joined the 5 carriage electric train when it arrived through the Severn Tunnel from South Wales.

Why is the service so thin? Does anyone use it?  Could it be better?

The history

Pilning Station is about a mile from Pilning Village.  It's located where it is because it was an operational centre where the line that descends to the Severn Tunnel forked off from the line to New Passage where the ferry used to run.  Until the opening of the first Severn Bridge in 1966, you could put your car on a train here and have it taken through the tunnel to Severn Tunnel Junction, but that service ceased when the bridge opened.

Train services at this remote station decayed over the years to two trains per day in the 1970s and then to 2 trains per week in 2006. The service ran into Bristol called on a Saturday morning, and one train retuned on that afternoon.

Faced with the cost of raising and improving the footbridge on electrification in 2016, Network Rail and their contractors simply removed the bridge, and now both weekly trains call as they emerge from the Severn Tunnel on their way to Bristol, and there's no way back by train unless you double back through the tunnel.

The present

Pretty little spot for a trip?  Sorry - it isn't. There's a scrapyard of site, a high spiked fence that makes it look more like a secure prison than a railway station, and I would not risk parking a car there. There is an unlocked pedestrian gate that lets your through to walk up the ramp and through another gate onto a platform with a shuttered old building and trains rushing by every few minutes. Across the track you see the platform that trains used to call at in the other direction, now covered in weeds and electrical poles.

Why is a train service still provided?  Because the legal procedures to close a station are complex, expensive, and subject to a lot of consultation. That makes sense because it would be so easy to stop calling there, but so difficult in the future to re-establish services - in fact the current situation is perverse because the "powers that be" have reduced the service to a near-useless level - as far as they can without all this extra expense of closure.

The future

Could the station do better with more welcoming facilities and a better service? Undoubtedly it could, but whether that would be socially and financially justified has never been (to my knowledge) seriously, officially, and publicly tested, and it would certainly need investment to bring back a viable 2 way service.

Is Pilning really "in the middle of nowhere"?  It certainly felt like it when a group of about a dozen of us walked there last Saturday to catch the train. A country lane from Pilning Village isn't signposted to the station, and there's no footpath for much of the way.  We lunched at the Plough which does survive about 100 yards from the station, quiet on a Saturday lunchtime but a clue in the large car park and adverts for entertainment in the evenings that this is an out-of-town venue where noise can be made without disturbing anyone.  Ironically, the railway does run from the station down past the village itself - a re-located station would be much more logical to serve the residents of the current villages of Pilning and Redwick which it runs into.  It's also noted that the road access to Pilning village itself is much better than to the current station, and that it's only a few hundred yards across the fields to the major Severnside employment and warehousing area, with its own Motorway junction too.

I can offer you multiple scenarios

1. Put an accessible footbridge back in at the current site, improve the service, and offer a village station for the future.

2. Our country is building new homes and they require transport - not only for cars but much more for buses and trains, and where better that around new or underutilised train stations?  Pilning is attractive - people want to live within a sensible distance of Bristol, the railway line is there as are the services going where they want to go, and it's not on a flood plain nor in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

3. Relocate Pilning Station near the bridge over the B4055. It's then at the village, within 300 metres of the employment area, and with platforms on the outer tracks accessed by slopes off the road eliminates the problem of how to access an island platform at a sensible price that we have at the current site.

4. Close the current station and have the main line railway run through the area but not serve it

5. Leave it as it is until someone comes up with a solution / decision and implements it.

Option 3 is covered in more detail at https://www.passenger.chat/mirror/leaflet.pdf - it started on 1st April 2018 with a suggestion that it was - err - distinctly tongue in cheek but yet all the elements to add up to suggest that it could make sense. Other studies have confirmed this.  However, there seems to be no consensus over future direction.

Illustrtations:

Pilning Station is certainly not welcoming ...


Pilning's current station is set in the countryside - this between the village and the station


Map showing current station (entrance - red dot) and possible alternative (cyan dot)


Bristol Rail Campaign await the train


The twice-weekly train calls. Noted that only members of the Bristol Rail Campaign party got on, and no passengers left the train.

 

 
Let's record a day when it all worked - Saturday, 3rd May.

Back to a familiar scene this morning

 
Sunday May 4

 
From the BBC:

 
Good wishes to all of you - many familiar characters featured there.

Including a red squirrel - as ever, I wonder how such a tall small animal can fit under those beams. 

 
Wonderful day out ...

 
Hmm.

I understand red squirrels may have problems accessing trains at Grays. 

 

In my experience, grey squirrels prefer to drive.

 
I've just finished reading Porton - Reminiscences of Porton Railway Station, the Railway Cottages and the Porton Camp Light Railway by Terry Grace. Terry grew up very locally in the 1950s and, with his young friends, took part in typical childhood escapades that would shock H & S today: helping with the shunting of goods wagons (including applying their brakes on the move) and, after the Porton Military Light Railway was closed, reinstating abandoned coal wagons on its track, pushing them up the line and climbing aboard for a downhill ride.

There are photos of these wagons in military use, as well of the locomotives with timber shields around their cabs. There's an account of  the Pedrail landship (with caterpillar-type tracks and designed to convey troops) that was tested locally - and found to be unsuitable. A landslip onto the main line in January 1959 is described, when the author's grandfather stopping an oncoming train just in time.

Porton was produced through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Service, which can be an excellent way for authors to self-publish books that would not otherwise appear in print.

Terry has also produced books on aviation before the Great War at Lark Hill, near Stonehenge.

 
Saturday May 3

1W02 1150 London Paddington to Hereford was cancelled after Worcester Shrub Hill
1P31 15:18 Hereford to London Paddington was started from Shrub Hill
both "due to trespass (XA)" according to RTT.

Later:
1P31 15:18 Hereford to London Paddington was started from Shrub Hill (+30), arrived Reading +37 and was cancelled thereafter.

 
And in the afternoon
2E14 17:04 Didcot Parkway to Evesham was cancelled after Oxford
2E16 18:51 Evesham to Oxford cancelled throughout
both "due to unknown cause (ZW)" according to RTT.

 

Said excursion passing Ellerhayes Bridge, between Cullompton and Exeter. Braunton only acting as a figurehead with the diesel(s) doing the work!

 

Which, I guess, is hardly surprising given the DfT instruction to GWR to make significant cost savings which resulted in the cancellation of the entire Class 769 project and the ‘early’ withdrawal of most of the Castle Class sets.

Fleet and capacity wise, I really don’t see how GWR could do much better with what they’ve currently got to work with.  But I agree that the customer experience leaves a lot to be desired as a result.

 
From the BBC:

 

This much vaunted "capacity increase" has been achieved by wholesale shortening of the trains outside of this "core". The Cardiff - Portsmouth service now shows one solitary return trip daily by a 5 car train. As I reported a couple of months back, 4 weeks daily commuting from Warminster to Southampton was an appalling experience - but I'm so glad to know it produced more seats from Westbury to Bristol !

 

Don't I recall problems with greys at Redhill - but then isn't discrimination based on race / colour frowned upon? 

 
Makes me wonder whether the train companies have policies allowing red squirrels to travel while banning the greys? 

 
Yes, Bath Spa's one advantage at present is that its platforms are relatively wide, so can cope with large numbers at present. Getting them all on and off the trains is a challenge, which the staff there do their very best to cope with.

My biggest gripe with the current station layout is that the lift on the London-bound platform is exceptionally poorly located and also too small. Its location means that passengers wishing to use it from the entrance have to 'mix' with many of the passengers who are getting off trains from both platforms (via the subway fro those who have arrived on westbound services and from the stairs from those arriving on eastbound services). This leads to huge congestion at the pinch points here, which can lead to considerable delay and no doubt to bad behaviour as people try to get through. From there the route to the lift is then ridiculously contorted and very difficult to negotiate with large luggage/bicycles etc. And the lift is far too small to cope with the demand, and in recent times has had notices requiring no more than two people use it at any time (which many people ignore, especially groups of tourists who may not understand what the notices say).

 

I will be joining Ann - I love this walk.    Also "symbolic" of my ongoing commitment to public transport campaigning (and to walking around 20 miles every week to follow the Melksham Daily Mile from last month).  Look forward to seeing old friends and new.

 
A summary from yesterday - of 18 calls planned, just 7 happened.



Southbound at 06:32, 20:39 and 23:12
Northbound at 07:21, 08:02, 18:52 and 21:31
Early evening calls at 19:09 and 20:22 were cancelled, even though the line had been re-opened by that time.

 
It goes without saying, I hope, that the Lake District is a good place for a red squirrel to commune with their fellow ruddy rodents. Hence my comments about the land of my kin.

 
I thought I’d resurrect this old thread to report that the 08:18 WOS-PAD is going from a 5-car to a 9-car from the timetable change.

It’s a very popular train that is currently always full and standing from Oxford, sometimes very overcrowded, so great news.

 

I'd point that question at Hopwood if I were you, after all it's his trains that are being cancelled and his customers inconvenienced.  Given that, I'm sure he's all over those responsible and should be able to address your points.

 

Oops - and sadly that's not what they have done with the evening trains after all


So "disruption until 20:00" is the operational description.  Anyone who hopes to head from Melksham to Cheltenham Spa (agreed not a huge flow) at 20:25 won't get there until - what - 11 p.m. or later?  [Edit - looked it up - 23:31!]