Thornbury Branch line (currently to Tytherington) - proposal for reopening

[whole diary]

[ReWind]

I travelled to Yate by train for the first time last Friday and noticed there is a mothballed track that curves of the Northbound line ( level with the extreme end of platform 2 ).

Is this line still in use?  And if so where does it go?  Is it an old track to Thornbury?

I presume it must be/was a freight line or something has I know the only passenger services at Yate all head to Gloucester.

[John R]

It's the branch to Tytherington Quarry. Can't tell you whether or not its in regular use though.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks, John. 

It appears that the line is still in use:

The line itself remains in use as far as Tytherington Quarry, for the transport of stone from the Hanson plc site.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tytherington_railway_station for details.

[Oliver]

Been for a nosey this evening.

The former Grovesend headshunt which runs from roughly 6M 03C at the Grovesend Overbridge to the portal of Grovesend Tunnel at the A38 has been cleared of all vegetation. (Of which there was a lot!)

It has revealed a rustic set of red buffers still in situ right at the end, I can only assume they are planning to use this infrastructure as the Network Rail boundary ends where you can see the sleeper chained to the tracks - some distance from the current end of the line.

The last time i saw a train backed up to the buffers was in the early/mid 80's, even then it wasnt right up there or is that down, it was a class 33 with seacow type hoppers it went in via the loop then backed the train under the loader, well half or it then ran round and finished loading, from memory it was class 33 sir mount batten of Burma.

[Bmblbzzz]

Interesting photos. Am I right in thinking that freights are still running from the quarry?

[Oliver]

Last train ran all the way to the quarry in 2013.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Many thanks to you for posting those excellent pictures, together with your comments, Oliver. 

I've taken the opportunity to dredge up a previous topic (way back in 2009!) discussing the same line and have now merged it here, for completeness.

[TonyK]

I had heard a rumour that the line was to be brought back into service for quarry traffic - not transporting newly cut stone, but receiving waste stone.

The quarry was a brilliant landmark when flying back into Filton, and was a reporting point for pilots approching from the north for runway 27.

[Kempis]

FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) has recently done some work on the possibility of reopening the Thornbury line to passengers.

This project came out of a FOSBR survey in January 2016 which asked people in the West of England area what stations they would most like to be reopened. There was a strong response from Thornbury residents.

The line has recently been cleared for renewed freight traffic from Tytherington quarry, as can be seen from the photographs in FOSBR's paper here: https://fosbr.org.uk/files/20171009_tytherington.compressed.pdf.

In September 2017, the final report of the West of England Combined Authority's Joint Transport Study appeared to rule out the possibility of including Thornbury in its list of possible reopenings, despite plans for significant housing development there in the Joint Spatial Plan; WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about)'s priority is to extend MetroBus to Thornbury.

At WECA's meeting on 30 October, however, officials confirmed, in response to a question from FOSBR, that, although Thornbury reopening is not on the agenda at the moment, it is not ruled out for the future.

The track is in place as far as the A38, from which it is now visible. The suggestion is to extend it through the disused tunnel (now in private ownership) to a site by the roundabout on the edge of the town where Grovesend Road meets Midland Way. Alternatively, a park and ride could be considered near the quarry.

Issues include the fact that the route to Bristol is not direct (as trains would travel south-east to Yate and then south-west to Bristol), and pathing at Westerleigh Junction, where north-south trains have to cross the Paddington line on the level. It is said there is room in the timetable for only one more hourly north-south service, which WECA proposes should go to Gloucester as part of MetroWest Phase 2. 

Today's Gloucester Gazette covered the story here: http://www.gazetteseries.co.uk/news/15634388.Bid_to_revive_train_station_in_Thornbury_put_to_regional_planners/.

[Chris from Nailsea]

With many thanks for your update, Kempis, I've now also moved and merged here some previous posts from another discussion, in the interests of completeness.

CfN. 

[grahame]

Issues include the fact that the route to Bristol is not direct (as trains would travel south-east to Yate and then south-west to Bristol), and pathing at Westerleigh Junction, where north-south trains have to cross the Paddington line on the level. It is said there is room in the timetable for only one more hourly north-south service, which WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about) proposes should go to Gloucester as part of MetroWest Phase 2. 

1. There are other examples of none-direct services.   Compare mileage as the crow flies from Weston-super-mare to Newport, of if you feel that's a special case from Helmsdale to Wick or from Frome to Bath Spa.  The latter being very much on the WECA border ...

2. I know it's a practise that's faded out in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) territory - but how about portion working, splitting and joining trains at Yate?  Such practise needs a reliability of crewing, and running to schedule to avoid some very awkward delays - so perhaps not a viable option this year?   But I do note GWR moving towards more train splitting / joining en route with 10 car IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) formations shedding and gaining ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) portions to Bedminster at Temple Meads

[WelshBluebird]

2. I know it's a practise that's faded out in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) territory - but how about portion working, splitting and joining trains at Yate?  Such practise needs a reliability of crewing, and running to schedule to avoid some very awkward delays - so perhaps not a viable option this year?   But I do note GWR moving towards more train splitting / joining en route with 10 car IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) formations shedding and gaining ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) portions to Bedminster at Temple Meads

They do it a lot on the local stoppers anyway, as quite often in the peaks a Worcester to Weymouth service will pick up an extra unit between Bristol and Westbury. So it certainly wouldn't be something new!

[Red Squirrel]

Looking at Westerleigh Jct: I wonder how the cost:benefit case would stack up for making a connection between the remaining stub of the Midland line after in passes south under the GW^▸ (Great Western) line, looping round to west and joining the down GW line to the east of Ram Hill? Southbound trains would still have to cross over at Yate to access the Midland line, but that as I understand it is not where the bottleneck lies.

[johnneyw]

For a lower startup cost an ultra light rail shuttle along the line, scheduled to arrive just before as many arrivals at Yate as possible might be worth considering. Not only would it avoid rail path issues (apart from platform dwell time) but it would also allow for a relatively inexpensive start to test the market yet still be able to expand. Think of Parry People Movers or similar, there's a lot of new stuff developing apparently, start with very simple platforms along the line of the prefab bolt together variety and you may have a workable affordable proposition.

[froome]

I think a shuttle service would work well. Trains in and out of Yate are hourly in both directions and within 10-15 minutes of each other, so should be fairly simple to timetable.

Regarding the indirectness of the route to Bristol, I think this will be an issue for many people. Although well used in the peak hours, outside of these, the Frome to Bath service is only lightly used, and the bus alternative is as fast or not faster. So I suspect a Thornbury rail service will be more used by those aiming to get to Bristol Parkway, and thence for many to London, etc.