Bristol's local railway services now link across the city - through services across Temple Meads station. What an excellent idea - whist Temple Meads is a major interchange, it's not everyone's destination. I joined some friends from
FoSBR» yesterdy to learn how this was working - starting off by joining the train that arrived from Weston-super-mare at around 08:40 and carried on to Severn Beach. As I would have expected, lots of people getting off having come into Bristol and relatively few joining, being "against the flow" at that travel-to-work time. But a noticeable number staying to travel through, mostly to Lawrence Hill.
Coming back thouugh the city on the 10:00 from Clifton Down - a busy train - a handful of people in addtion to the FoSBR group stayed on at Temple Meads. Chatting with one get who was delighted to have a though service from Avonmouth to Weston-super-mare.
In the afternoon, came back into Temple Meads on the 16:30 from Bridgewater - that one was an
HST▸ from the West Country headed, after a pause in Bristol, for Cardiff. Incredibly, it called at Parson Street and Bedminster. Equally incrediby, there were lots of people standing on the final approach into Temple Meads and those stops were right. I didn't look at how many people got off as I was keen to be away in a (vain) attempt to make a none-connection.
Early days, but the move to link these trains looks like it's a good one and already showing utility, as well as perhaps being operationally convenient. So - how to market it? Some of the folks there were discussing this and looking at "Soundbites" -
"Sea to city to Sea" - joining up a through train through Bristols suburban station to the sea at both ends.
Red stations - inner city stops
Blue stations - Seaside
Green stations - Countryside and towns on the way
Cyan stations - outer city stops
Yellow station - Bristol Temple Meads for interchange to main line routes
White station - Park and ride under construction
Click on the map to explore geographics
