Severn Beach Line - services and incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[Red Squirrel]

If you've got 40 minutes to spare, this video might interest you. It's a driver's eye view of one of the Great Railway Journeys of the World - Bristol to Severn Beach! To be honest I think the passengers get a better view.

It's a bit frustrating to see all that space where the second track could be! Things get a bit nauseating north of St Andrews Road - I don't remember the track being that bad, but the camera keeps wilting and the picture seems to develop a visual migraine. But all good fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikQjyKV1Nkc

[Red Squirrel]

Council calls on Government to fund flood defences to protect Severn Beach rail branch line

27th February 2024

Further funding is needed to expand the Avonmouth and Severnside Enterprise Area (ASEA) Flood Defence and Ecology Mitigation Project to also help protect the Severn Beach rail branch line.

The existing flood defence work includes planning permission for 1.5km of defence on the landward side of the railway and is being delivered jointly by South Gloucestershire and Bristol City Councils with the Environment Agency (EA). The work will provide 17km of new and improved defences to reduce flood risk to 2,500 homes and businesses, and by reducing flood risk will help to unlock 12,000 new jobs through enabling development in the Enterprise Area for the West of England.

A defence on the seaward side is needed to protect the railway, which is designated as Critical National Infrastructure and supports the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)’s aspirations for Carbon Net Zero as it connects to the Suez Energy from Waste site. The facility takes up to 370,000 tonnes of waste each year from six boroughs in West London as well as from Bristol.

South Gloucestershire Council leader, Cllr Claire Young, has written to the Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Mark Harper, to ask that the Department of Transport (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) reconsiders a decision not to fund partnership schemes with Network Rail, which would be included in the expanded programme. A partnership is needed in this case as the seaward defence would be on Network Rail land.

Councillor Young’s letter said that Government funding will be vital to maintain the ASEA project programme and deliver the wider project outcomes. The ASEA project has already allocated £4 million to the work, which is expected to cost between £10-12 million.

Councillor Young said: “The councils, working with the Environment Agency, have designed a project that will protect homes and businesses on Severnside, as well as help to create new natural habitats in an ecologically unique area. It is vital that this work is itself protected by the extension of the defences to protect the rail line and all that relies upon it against the threat of rising sea levels.

“We look forward to hearing from the Transport Secretary soon that the Government will reconsider this investment in truly vital infrastructure to protect communities, businesses and nature in South Gloucestershire.”

A copy of the letter is available here: https://sites.southglos.gov.uk/newsroom/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2024/02/Avonmouth-and-Severnside-Enterprise-Area-ASEA-Flood-Defence-and-Ecology-Mitigation-7.pdf

Source: South Gloucestershire Council

[IndustryInsider]

Yes, the whole thing is jerky and looks like it’s been recorded in one frame rate and rendered at another, but the bit from St. Andrews Road is very odd, almost as if it’s a camera fault or perhaps a rendering glitch?

[stuving]

I may have commented before that, for an island nation, we don't seem very conscious of tides and how they vary. Tide forecasts and warnings have a very narrow audience. Obviously it's different in France ...

To say how big tides will be over a wide area you need a coefficient, used to scale up (or down) the average tide height at each place. I have seen different ones used here, so we do not appear to have a standard definition. There is (of course) a standard French one, with extreme values of 20 and 120. Next Monday or Tuesday this month's peak (at spring tide) will be 118 - not far short of the maximum. This is the highest tide for ten years, and that made it national TV news in France.

Local tides depend not just on the global and regional factors captured by a coefficient valid for the whole Atlantic and channel costs of France, but on all sorts of local ones too. So the tides at Sea Mills may not be the highest for ten years - but expect something of that order. 

[Hafren]

The reports of issues near Avonmouth correlate reasonably well with the equinoctial spring tides...

https://ntslf.org/tides/hilo?port=Avonmouth

Perhaps this data needs to be fed into Journeycheck!

[ellendune]

I may have commented before that, for an island nation, we don't seem very conscious of tides and how they vary. Tide forecasts and warnings have a very narrow audience. Obviously it's different in France ...

I know about the tides, but I am not conscious of them of a day to day basis perhaps because I live in north Wiltshire on the 125m contour line.  Even if all the ice sheets melt and the sea rises by 70m I am still not sure that I would need to be conscious of them here!

[TonyK]

I know about the tides, but I am not conscious of them of a day to day basis perhaps because I live in north Wiltshire on the 125m contour line.  Even if all the ice sheets melt and the sea rises by 70m I am still not sure that I would need to be conscious of them here!

I'm around 80 metres AMSL so would need a boat to get to the station. On the plus side, we would both find the value of our homes increasing significantly.

[Mark A]

Here comes the sea. Bristol this morning, video from Twitter.

Mark


https://twitter.com/beardedjourno/status/1767482265930449047

[grahame]

From National Rail

Expected sea flooding the railway between Dovey Junction and Aberystwyth / Pwllheli means lines will be closed from approximately 09:00. As a result, no trains will be able to run between these stations.

We expect disruption to continue until 12:00.

From GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)

Cancellations to services between Severn Beach and Clifton Down via Avonmouth

Due to flooding between Clifton Down and Avonmouth the line is blocked. Disruption is expected until 12:00 13/03.

Train services between Severn Beach and Clifton Down via Avonmouth will be cancelled or revised. Some stations between Avonmouth and Clifton Down will not be served.

GWR have also provided substantial customer advice - thank you

Apologies to customers wishing to use the Severn Beach line today. As a consequence of flooding in the Sea Mills area, the line is currently blocked between Avonmouth and Clifton Down.
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We're operating a shuttle service between Severn Beach and Avonmouth utilising a three coach train. The departure times of these can be found in journey planners and at stations. 8-seat taxis will then replace trains between Avonmouth and Clifton Down in both directions. Trains to / from Bristol Temple Meads will start / terminate at Clifton Down. Please be prepared to change trains at either Avonmouth or Clifton Down depending on where you're travelling from.
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This plan is expected to remain in place until midday.
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Please note that the pick up / drop off point at Clifton Down will be in the pay and display car park on the opposite side of the tracks to Sainsbury's just off Whiteladies Road.
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We've also requested ticket acceptance on local bus routes in the area to accept our customers however such agreements have not yet been confirmed.
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During this disruption if you wish to use local buses as an alternative means of transport and the local bus is not accepting GWR tickets please purchase a ticket on the bus, keep it and send it, together with your train ticket, to us to claim for a refund.
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If you require further information please speak to our station or onboard staff, use the Customer Help Points located on platform level, tweet us @GWRHelp via X platform (formerly Twitter) or call National Rail Enquiries on 03457 484 950.
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Once again we apologise for any inconvenience caused to your journey with us today.

[CyclingSid]

and another result https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-68533039

[Mark A]

From National Rail

Expected sea flooding the railway between Dovey Junction and Aberystwyth / Pwllheli *snip*.

*snip*

I'm trying to recall if previous to this I've read the (honest) attribution 'Sea flooding' as a reason for a railway line closing. It's a phrase that's not yet caught on when referring to flooding of the branch to Looe. With Dovey Junction though, the water is really close at hand there and even when the line doesn't flood the amount of wrack that collects by the station tells a tale.

The railway there is, though, built out of reach of ordinary tides and surges. At nearby Penhelig, below the railway and along the shore, traces of an attempt to build a road that was far too close to high water level if not actually beneath it, as can be seen in the photo below, perhaps the walls are the base of a short causeway, but even so, very vulnerable.

Mark

https://i.postimg.cc/1t4XHyfS/dovey-estuary-rails-1200.jpg

[Red Squirrel]

I was alerted recently via x/twitter of a passenger receiving a penalty fare for boarding at Clifton Down station without a ticket.

Upon investigating, it became apparent that the Severn Beach line (with the exception of Severn Beach, St Andrews Road, Avonmouth, Shirehampton, Sea Mills and Stapleton Rd - i.e. just over half the stations on the line) is now a Penalty Fares line - and has been since January 2023.

I'd be very interested to know how aware other people were of this change:

• Did you know about this?
• How did you find out?
• When?

To be clear, I absolutely support better revenue protection on this line - ticketless travel has undoubtedly suppressed recorded passenger numbers over the years. I'm just trying to find out how well this change was communicated.

[ChrisB]

I sem to recall it got mentioned on this board when it started or soon after.
Posters must have gone up at every station that it applies to too

[Red Squirrel]

Ah yes - I see it here:

Something of a first for me on the Severn Beach Line.  Announcement today over the public address system by the train manager that this was now a penalty fare line with the new £100 rather than £20 penalty fare in force for those boarding without tickets.  She still seemed to be issuing tickets and the announcement took the form more of a forewarning than one of imminent doom to ticketless passengers that hadn't yet realised this......and yes, I purchased my Totnes return using the platform machine.

There are indeed posters - for example, at Clifton Down there is a poster near one of the three entrances, and at Montpelier there is one at one of the two entrances. In both examples these are unlikely to be noticed by anyone using the alternative entrances, and are not visible from the platform(s).

I wonder for how long they made these announcements on the PA^▸ (Public Address)? I certainly never heard one.

[grahame]

Putting beach*penalty into the deep search box finds (as I write) four threads including the one Red Squirrel has located