Avoncliff - station, facilities, services, events and incidents - merged posts

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

Waiting in the rain will be a thing of the past with the opening of a new shelter at a tiny railway station. Transport operator First Great Western's decision to put up the shelter at Avoncliff near Bradford on Avon follows a regionwide vote.

The shelter has been designed by the Avoncliff Community Group - made up of local people who keep an eye on the station. Volunteer supporters, rail user groups and other community representatives along the length of the Bristol to Weymouth Heart of Wessex line were asked to vote on which projects should receive funding, with the Avoncliff shelter coming in the top three in the Community Wishlist programme.

See http://thisisbath.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=21017496

[Lee]

Photo of the new Avoncliff shelter :

[SuperGlam]

Fantastic Chris!  For all the money ATW^▸ (Arriva Trains Wales (former TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company))) spends on the new updgraded Merthyr line - not one seat is at MVL or QYD!

[John R]

More to the point, there is no sign of the half hourly service which was promised once the ^18m of investment was completed.

Going back to Avoncliff, the foliage in the shelter makes it look quite well established.

[moonraker]

     http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/search/4298050.It___s_plain_loco_near_Bradford_on_Avon/

  This is a clip from this weeks Wiltshire Crimes reporting on building work at Avoncliff.    As usual the report has inaccuracies the most obvious being 100 MPH speed.

  As we all know it is 70 mph and trains stopping at Avoncliff will be doing about 30 at the most.....    It never ceases to amaze me at the stupidity of Joe Public and Railways not many folk would dream of walking across a motorway with tools and building supplies

  Darwin Award for those involved

[devon_metro]

Workmen refurbishing a former mill in Avoncliff village have been spotted running across tracks on a bend near Avoncliff Halt, which is used by First Great Western express trains travelling from Bristol to Plymouth, to get to the building as there is no other form of access.

Where do they make this up from??

The only Bristol to Plymouth express trains are operated by Cross Country and on run on selected weekends when the mainline is shut.


On a side note, My local paper mentioned that the 12B and 12C bus routes failed to stop at a bus stop due to poor access. I'm not surprised considering the former doesn't exists and the later doesn't go past that particular bus stop! I'm sure Z^e might know what i'm on about if he ever reads the Herald Express!

[inspector_blakey]

Ok so the story may be inaccurate about the exact line speed and the route of the trains involved (but it is true that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) expresses to PLY^» (Plymouth - next trains) travel at over 100 mph, they just don't do it through AVF  ), but full marks to the local rag for picking up on the story and reporting it. It doesn't matter where a train's travelling from and to, when it hits you the consequences remain much the same.

If they're using an authorized foot crossing that's cretinous enough, but if they're just swanning across a mainline railway carrying their building materials that's lunacy, and criminal lunacy to boot given that railway trespass is an offence.

[John R]

Workmen refurbishing a former mill in Avoncliff village have been spotted running across tracks on a bend near Avoncliff Halt, which is used by First Great Western express trains travelling from Bristol to Plymouth, to get to the building as there is no other form of access.

Where do they make this up from??

The only Bristol to Plymouth express trains are operated by Cross Country and on run on selected weekends when the mainline is shut.

But they are diverted via Bath at weekends currently, so it isn't not an unreasonable statement. Who knows whether or not the photo was taken on a Saturday?

[smithy]

that is not the only act of stupidity around same area.

i have personally witnessed a young woman wrestling pushchair (complete with kid)shopping bags and a dog on lead across the foot crossing near BOA when a cardiff bound 158 s heading towards her.the 158 had just left BOA so not going that quick and could of stopped but the point is she had a complete disregard for the dangers,just imagine if the service was late and running fast so not calling at BOA she could of been toast and took the child with her.

[Godfrey Tables]

Hello everyone,
I'm new here, although I have been reading this forum for some time this is my first actual post. Hopefully the first of many

I have a question that I have not been able to find an answer to:
Does anyone know if Avoncliff is still a request stop?

All references to it ever having been a request stop seem to have vanished, but I'm unable to find any information that definitely confirms such a change.

I sometimes travel there from Pewsey for an evening out, and upon return will catch a train that gets me back to Westbury in time for the last connecting train back.

When I last used the service I played safe and requested the train to stop anyway. When on board I asked the train manager about this and she said that this particular service used to be a request stop and now isn't. But she did not know if this applied to other services.

I hope this doesn't seem like a trivial question. On the one hand I don't want to distract the driver needlessly by requesting, if they're going to stop anyway. On the other hand, if I didn't signal to the driver and the train went through I'd be stranded!

Many thanks

[JayMac]

By no means a trivial question. I wasn't sure and I've been here a fair old while. So I checked.

Avoncliff is no longer a request stop.

It has a roughly hourly service Mon-Sat in each direction made up of services to and from Weymouth and/or Westbury, with the odd additional service to/from points beyond Westbury. On Sundays, the service is less frequent but all services timetabled to call at Avoncliff will stop. There are no longer any request stop services. Here's a link to the current timetable:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/Timetables/May%202013%20timetable/GW13M_TT25_WEB.ashx

Hope that's of help to you. And on behalf of the Coffee Shop team may I extend a warm welcome to the forum Godfrey Tables. Lurkers who take the plunge are more than welcome. 

[Godfrey Tables]

Thank-you bignosemac for looking into this, and your warm welcome.

And apologies for not posting into the correct part of the forum, as I've just realised that seeing as the majority of services are to Weymouth and not Portsmouth I wrote this in the wrong place. Woops!

[inspector_blakey]

Confirmed from personal experience on a trip to the Cross Guns a couple of weeks back.

Although it's not a request stop, the platform is so short that the conductor will only open a single, "local" door at the front of the train. That obviously doesn't make a lot of difference to you if you're joining the train, but if you're alighting then you need to be at the very front door.

[JayMac]

And apologies for not posting into the correct part of the forum, as I've just realised that seeing as the majority of services are to Weymouth and not Portsmouth

Fixed that for you. 

[TonyK]

In case anyone looks at this after 8 September 2013, the current timetable can be found here. Avoncliff remains a scheduled stop. Only Dilton Marsh needs Jenny Agguter's underwear on this route.