Monkton Combe Halt railway station was a railway station in

Monkton Combe Monkton Combe is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in north Somerset, England, south of Bath, Somerset, Bath. The parish, which includes the Hamlet (place), hamlet of Tucking Mill, had a population of 554 in 2013. It was form ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, UK. It was built by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

in 1910, on the Camerton branch of the

Bristol and North Somerset Railway The Bristol and North Somerset Railway was a railway line in the West of England that connected Bristol with Radstock, through Pensford and further into northern Somerset, to allow access to the Somerset Coalfield. The line ran almost due so ...

line.

Operation

The Camerton branch had been built in 1882 from Hallatrow to Camerton, and extended in 1910 through Monkton Combe, where the station and level-crossing were built, to

Limpley Stoke railway station Limpley Stoke railway station is a former railway station in Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire, England, UK. The station was originally started by the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway, which was bought by the Great Western Railway before service s ...

, where it joined up with the line from

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

Bradford-on-Avon railway station Bradford-on-Avon railway station is a railway station on the Wessex Main Line in between and , serving the town of Bradford on Avon (the station name is hyphenated, unlike the name of the town), in Wiltshire, England. The station is south ea ...

. Passenger services started in 1910 and were suspended during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

on 22 March 1915; they resumed on 9 July 1923 ( though Midford Halt never reopened) but were withdrawn entirely two years later on 21 September 1925. Passenger services ran five times a day and used

GWR steam rail motors The steam rail motors (SRM) were self-propelled carriages operated by the Great Western Railway in England and Wales from 1903 to 1935. They incorporated a steam locomotive within the body of the carriage. History In the first years of the t ...

, and the station was run by one man who was also responsible for the level crossing, the signals, and maintaining the gardens. After the end of regular passenger services, traffic included coal trains, some goods wagons to the mill, and a special train, with covered wagons for luggage, delivered or collected the boys from Monkton School at the beginning and end of school terms.

Closure

The goods services between Limpley Stoke and Camerton continued until Camerton Pit, the last working coal mine in the Cam Valley, ended production in 1950 and the line closed on 15 February 1951. In 1952, the station was used as "Titfield" station in the

Ealing comedy The Ealing comedies is an informal name for a series of comedy films produced by the London-based Ealing Studios during a ten-year period from 1947 to 1957. Often considered to reflect Britain's post-war spirit, the most celebrated films in the ...

film ''

The Titfield Thunderbolt ''The Titfield Thunderbolt'' is a 1953 British comedy film directed by Charles Crichton and starring Stanley Holloway, Naunton Wayne, George Relph and John Gregson. The screenplay concerns a group of villagers trying to keep their branch l ...

''. Many of the scenes of the village of "Titfield" were shot in the nearby village of Freshford.. The same station location was also used in the 1931 version of The Ghost Train film.The Ghost Train (1931)
/ref> The station was demolished in 1958.

References

{{Closed stations Wiltshire Disused railway stations in Bristol, Bath and South Gloucestershire Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1910 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1915 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1923 Monkton Combe Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1925