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Pilning railway station is a minor station on the
South Wales Main Line The South Wales Main Line ( cy, Prif Linell De Cymru), originally known as the London, Bristol and South Wales Direct Railway or simply as the Bristol and South Wales Direct Railway, is a branch of the Great Western Main Line in Great Britain. ...
near
Pilning Pilning is a village in South Gloucestershire, England, close to Redwick and Severn Beach. Pilning is close to the M4, M49 and A403 roads, and has the South Wales Main Line railway running through it, with a minor station. The civil parish ...
,
South Gloucestershire South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke, the latter three forming ...
, England. It is from and is the last station on the English side before the
Severn Tunnel The Severn Tunnel ( cy, Twnnel Hafren) is a railway tunnel in the United Kingdom, linking South Gloucestershire in the west of England to Monmouthshire in south Wales under the estuary of the River Severn. It was constructed by the Great Western ...
through to
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
. Its three letter station code is PIL. It is managed by Great Western Railway, who provide the two train services per week from the station. The station was opened by the
Bristol and South Wales Union Railway The Bristol and South Wales Union Railway was built to connect Bristol, England, with south Wales. The route involved a ferry crossing of the River Severn but was considerably shorter than the alternative route through Gloucester. The ferry wa ...
in 1863, but was resited in 1886 when the
Severn Tunnel The Severn Tunnel ( cy, Twnnel Hafren) is a railway tunnel in the United Kingdom, linking South Gloucestershire in the west of England to Monmouthshire in south Wales under the estuary of the River Severn. It was constructed by the Great Western ...
was opened. The station had an extensive goods yard, boasting one of the largest railway communities in the Bristol area, and operated a
motorail A motorail train or accompanied car train (ACT) is a passenger train on which passengers can take their car or automobile along with them on their journey. Passengers are carried in normal passenger carriages or in sleeping carriages on longer ...
service to Wales. In 1928 the original station was reopened on the Severn Beach Line, which allowed passengers and freight to reach
Avonmouth Docks The Avonmouth Docks are part of the Port of Bristol, in England. They are situated on the northern side of the mouth of the River Avon, opposite the Royal Portbury Dock on the southern side, where the river joins the Severn estuary, within Avo ...
, though this only lasted until 1964. The goods yard was closed in 1965, and the station buildings later demolished, with very little in the way of facilities. Passenger services also declined, to two trains per day in the 1970s and the current service level of two trains per week in 2006. The station's footbridge was removed in 2016 as part of Great Western Main Line electrification project, meaning that only eastbound trains can now use the station. Campaigners have alleged this is part of an attempted closure by stealth, although the incident raised the station's profile nationally. Pilning is one of the least-used stations in Britain, but passenger numbers have increased in recent years due to efforts by the Pilning Station Group.


Description

Pilning railway station is located in the
Pilning Pilning is a village in South Gloucestershire, England, close to Redwick and Severn Beach. Pilning is close to the M4, M49 and A403 roads, and has the South Wales Main Line railway running through it, with a minor station. The civil parish ...
area of
South Gloucestershire South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke, the latter three forming ...
, north of the
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
conurbation. The surrounding area is primarily farmland, with the village itself some further west. The station is on the
South Wales Main Line The South Wales Main Line ( cy, Prif Linell De Cymru), originally known as the London, Bristol and South Wales Direct Railway or simply as the Bristol and South Wales Direct Railway, is a branch of the Great Western Main Line in Great Britain. ...
between and , from and from via Bristol Parkway.Railways in the United Kingdom are, for historical reasons, measured in miles and chains. There are 80 chains to the mile. West of Pilning, the railway descends into a cutting and then into the
Severn Tunnel The Severn Tunnel ( cy, Twnnel Hafren) is a railway tunnel in the United Kingdom, linking South Gloucestershire in the west of England to Monmouthshire in south Wales under the estuary of the River Severn. It was constructed by the Great Western ...
, emerging in Wales at , away. The next station to the east is , distant. The station sits on an embankment, with a bridge over the road east of the station and over an irrigation channel at the west. The railway through Pilning has three tracks: from north to south these are the Up Tunnel towards Bristol; the Down Tunnel towards Wales; and then the Down Pilning Loop, also towards Wales. A fourth track, the Up Pilning Loop, ends just west of the station. All three tracks through the station are unidirectional. The two Tunnel lines have a speed limit, while the loop has a speed limit of . The line is electrified using
overhead wires An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipment ...
. Despite there being three tracks, Pilning only has a single platform in use, Platform 1, on the north side of the line. This is long and serves trains towards Bristol. The old down platform, Platform 2, sits between the Down Tunnel and Down Pilning Loop, but is no longer accessible to the public. It is long. There is an old brick station building on Platform 1 but it is not in railway use. Infrastructure owner
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
has a compound at the station. Facilities at Pilning are extremely basic: the platform, which is covered by CCTV, has a bus stop-style shelter on it but no seats. Customer help points on the platform and timetable boards provide service information, but there are no facilities for buying tickets. There is a free car park with 10 spaces and four bicycle stands, and also a payphone. Access is via a long ramp from the main road. Pilning is consistently one of the least-used stations in Britain, recording less than 50 annual passengers several times between 1997 and 2015. Numbers have since increased by a factor of ten, thanks in part to campaigns by the Pilning Station Group; however as of 2017/18 it is still the 35th least used station of the 2,559 in Britain.


Service

Pilning is managed by Great Western Railway, which operate all services from the station. A
parliamentary service A parliamentary train was a passenger service operated in the United Kingdom to comply with the Railway Regulation Act 1844 that required train companies to provide inexpensive and basic rail transport for less affluent passengers. The act req ...
of two trains per week operates; as of the December 2019 timetable these are the Saturday 08:33 and 14:33 services from to and respectively. The standard journey time to Bristol Temple Meads is 20 minutes, and to Taunton is 80 minutes. Services at Pilning are formed using GWR Shortened
British Rail Classes 253, 254 and 255 Class 253, Class 254 and Class 255 are TOPS classifications that have been applied to InterCity 125 high speed trains in Great Britain in the past. The classifications are not currently in official use, but the Class 255 designation was resurrec ...
and
diesel multiple-unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...
trains. Due to there being no westbound trains, a fares easement is in place allowing passengers to travel to in order to return eastbound to Pilning. Rail replacement buses do not call at Pilning; in the event of engineering works taxis are provided instead. Great Western Railway services between and South Wales pass through Pilning non-stop throughout the day, two trains per hour in each direction on weekdays, one train per hour at weekends. Other Great Western Railway services between Cardiff and Taunton or also pass through non-stop, again two trains per hour in each direction on weekdays, one train per hour at weekends. Freight trains also operate through Pilning, roughly two per hour each way, with many transporting coal between Bristol and South Wales.


History


Bristol and South Wales Union Railway

Pilning railway station first opened on 8 September 1863 when services began on the
Bristol and South Wales Union Railway The Bristol and South Wales Union Railway was built to connect Bristol, England, with south Wales. The route involved a ferry crossing of the River Severn but was considerably shorter than the alternative route through Gloucester. The ferry wa ...
(BSWUR). The railway ran from to , north of Bristol on the banks of the
River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...
, where passengers could transfer onto a ferry to cross the river into Wales. The line, engineered by
Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "on ...
, was built as single track broad gauge. Pilning was from Temple Meads, initially the fifth station along the line, between east and west. There was a single platform on the north side of the line, and a siding to the south. Few details are known about this iteration of the station, nor are there any photos from its time in use. The station was east of the village of
Pilning Pilning is a village in South Gloucestershire, England, close to Redwick and Severn Beach. Pilning is close to the M4, M49 and A403 roads, and has the South Wales Main Line railway running through it, with a minor station. The civil parish ...
in Gloucestershire, on Pilning Street, a road between Pilning and Easter Compton, which was further south. The immediate area was farmland with little in the way of housing, although there was a pub, The Plough, across the road from the station. To the east the line crossed the road at a
level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...
, which was operated from the station using levers. There were initially six trains per day on weekdays in each direction, with three trains per day on Sundays. In 1868 the BSWUR was amalgamated with the Great Western Railway (GWR), which had from the beginning operated all BSWUR services; and in 1873 the line was converted to standard gauge.


High Level station

Although the BSWUR made travel from Bristol to Wales easier, the change from train to ferry to train was inconvenient, and so plans to build a tunnel under the Severn were considered even before the railway opened. Parliamentary permission was gained in 1872, with construction beginning in 1873. GWR chairman
Daniel Gooch Sir Daniel Gooch, 1st Baronet (24 August 1816 – 15 October 1889) was an English railway locomotive and transatlantic cable engineer. He was the first Locomotive Superintendent, Superintendent of Locomotive Engines on the Great Western Rai ...
and other directors visited Pilning in 1884 as part of an inspection tour of the works. The route to the tunnel diverged from the New Passage line east of Pilning, necessitating the building of a replacement station on the new line, approximately south of the original. The new station opened with the first passenger services through the tunnel on 1 December 1886. The New Passage branch, including the original station, was closed to passengers the same day, despite requests from local residents that a reduced service continue to operate. The route remained in goods use to allow trains to deliver coal to the Severn Tunnel pumping station, which was on a spur off the New Passage route. The new station was built on an embankment, and would eventually become known as Pilning High Level. The railway crossed the road via a bridge east of the original station's level crossing, and the new station entrance adjacent to that level crossing. To the west the line went into a cutting descending towards the Severn Tunnel. The station embankment also crossed a small irrigation channel at Gumhurn Bridge. The new station was further along the line from Bristol at , with Patchway now to the east, having been resited in 1885. The next station west was , away the other side of the Severn. There were two platforms, either side of the two running lines, although double-tracking to Patchway was only completed in 1887. The northern platform served eastbound trains, the southern one was for westbound trains. The station buildings were of a standard GWR design with chimneys and a fretted canopy; however this design bore no resemblance to the other stations along the line. The main station building was on the northern platform, containing the station master's office, booking office, parcels office and toilets. There was a smaller waiting room on the westbound platform. The platforms were wooden, with gas lamps and wooden bench seats. A large covered footbridge connected the platforms east of the buildings. In 1905 there were 30 staff employed by the station – 14 signalmen, 6 signalmen/porters, 8 porters, a tunnel inspector and the stationmaster – making it one of the largest railway communities in the Bristol area. Staff members were given
first aid First aid is the first and immediate assistance given to any person with either a minor or serious illness or injury, with care provided to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening, or to promote recovery. It includes initial in ...
training and examinations by
St John Ambulance St John Ambulance is the name of a number of affiliated organisations in different countries which teach and provide first aid and emergency medical services, and are primarily staffed by volunteers. The associations are overseen by the internat ...
, with an annual awards event. The station had a large goods yard to the south and east of the station, including a cattle pen and loading bay at the east end of the northern platform. A siding between the platforms and the junction was converted to a goods loop in 1904, a westbound goods loop south of the station was laid in 1905, and a further eastbound loop just west of the station in 1906. The station had two signal boxes: Station Box was sited at the western end of the southern platform and had 54 levers; Junction Box was east at the eastern end of the goods yard and had 68 levers. As the final station before the Severn Tunnel, the yard was used to inspect wagons before they entered the tunnel, and also to house an emergency rescue locomotive. Heavier trains had a special
brake van Brake van and guard's van are terms used mainly in the UK, Ireland, Australia and India for a railway vehicle equipped with a hand brake which can be applied by the guard. The equivalent North American term is caboose, but a British brake van ...
added, as the standard Great Western brake van had an open veranda and thus exposed the guards to choking fumes while in the tunnel. Banking locomotives were also kept at Pilning to help trains with the steep slopes between the Severn Tunnel and Patchway. In 1910, the GWR introduced a
Motorail A motorail train or accompanied car train (ACT) is a passenger train on which passengers can take their car or automobile along with them on their journey. Passengers are carried in normal passenger carriages or in sleeping carriages on longer ...
service through the Severn Tunnel, operating between Pilning and Severn Tunnel Junction. Vehicles were loaded onto special wagons which were then attached to passenger trains using two dedicated shunting locomotives. Waterproof covers were available to protect cars from the conditions inside the tunnel, while passengers travelled in a coach hauled by the same train. There were usually two or three such trains per day. The service continued for more than fifty years, barring a cessation during
World War I 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 ...
. The opening of the
Severn Bridge The Severn Bridge ( cy, Pont Hafren) is a motorway suspension bridge that spans the River Severn between South Gloucestershire in England and Monmouthshire in South East Wales. It is the original Severn road crossing between England and Wale ...
in 1966, allowing direct road travel between Bristol and South Wales, brought about the end of the service, with the final train running on 6 October 1966.


Pilning Low Level

In 1900, the GWR built a new branch from the route to New Passage, running along the banks of the Severn to the docks at
Avonmouth Avonmouth is a port and outer suburb of Bristol, England, facing two rivers: the reinforced north bank of the final stage of the Avon which rises at sources in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset; and the eastern shore of the Severn Es ...
. This allowed trains to travel via the original station at Pilning and avoid congestion along the line via central Bristol. The line was single-track throughout, but Pilning had a passing loop and two loop sidings adjacent to the line. The loop was capable of holding a train of 60 wagons, while the sidings could hold 52 and 48 wagons. A brick signal box, Pilning Branch Box, more commonly known as Low Level, was opened adjacent to the level crossing in 1917. It had ten levers controlling the crossing and the eastern end of the passing loops, the western end being controlled by a ground frame. The level crossing had manually-controlled gates, requiring the signaller to leave the signal box in order to operate them. The crossing was also at the bottom of a gradient, with train operators advised to approach it cautiously. Trains working from Wales to Avonmouth required elaborate shunting moves – there was no path between the two without reversing – and so the level crossing was frequently closed, leading to traffic jams. A new route to Avonmouth, via , was opened in 1910, but no direct connection between South Wales and Avonmouth was built until 1971. In the early 1900s the nearby village of Severn Beach became a popular seaside resort, with a station opening there in 1922 for trains via Avonmouth. This spurred the upgrading of the line from Pilning to Avonmouth to passenger traffic: inspections occurred in 1927, approval was granted on 24 April 1928, and the first passenger services ran on 23 June 1928. The station at Pilning on this line opened on 9 July 1928, referred to variously as Pilning Halt, Pilning Low Level Halt and Pilning Low Level, although the latter was the most common. The station on the route via the Severn Tunnel was renamed Pilning High Level, with the station boards noting "Junction for Severn Beach and Avonmouth". The total cost of construction of the new stations at Pilning, and was estimated at £502. The new Low Level station was on the site of the original station, from Bristol Temple Meads. Patchway was the next station east, away, while to the west Cross Hands Halt was distant. The station had a single -long wooden platform on the north side of the line, with no facilities or lighting. The shortness of the platform meant that only two carriages could be accommodated, and so passengers were required to travel in the correct part of the train in order to alight. Tickets were sold from the High Level station, whose stationmaster oversaw the Low Level also. The Low Level station handled parcels traffic, unlike other halts on the route. The station had no water tower, and so locomotives were required to travel to High Level to use the facilities there. A small shelter and platform lighting were added by 1959. The initial service along this loop was nine trains per day on weekdays and four on Sundays, mostly running circular trips to and from Bristol Temple Meads via and Patchway.


British Rail

When the railways were nationalised in 1948, Pilning came under the aegis of the
Western Region of British Railways The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex-Great We ...
. In 1949 there were seven trains towards South Wales and eight towards Bristol from Wales each day, with two each way on Sundays. The Low Level station saw an additional five trains per day towards Bristol via Patchway, and seven per day towards Severn Beach, with some continuing to Bristol from there. Many trains via Severn Beach would terminate at Pilning Low Level. Passenger services between Severn Beach and Pilning were withdrawn on 23 November 1964, causing the closure of the Low Level platform. The line to Avonmouth continued in freight use, however in 1968 a
work to rule Work-to-rule (also known as an Italian strike, in Italian: ''Sciopero bianco'', or Slowdown in US usag is a job action in which employees do no more than the minimum required by the rules of their contract or job, and strictly follow time-con ...
incident precipitated the closure: a signaller at Pilning Branch Box took a sick day and train staff refused to work the crossing gates themselves. The line was officially closed on 1 September 1968 following this incident, with the Divisional Movements Manager stating it was surplus to requirements. The tracks and signal box remained in place until at least August 1970, but were eventually removed. The site is now in agricultural use, and the only remnants of the station are level crossing gates: one remaining in situ, the other now used at the
Didcot Railway Centre Didcot Railway Centre is a railway museum and preservation engineering site in Didcot, Oxfordshire, England. The site was formerly a Great Western Railway engine shed and locomotive stabling point. Background The founders and commercial backers ...
. The High Level station continued in use, but reverted to its original name, Pilning, on 6 May 1968. During the 1950s a brick building was built on the northern platform, and around the same time the footbridge had its roof and walls removed, leaving users exposed to the elements. The goods yard was closed on 29 November 1965, with the good loops westbound towards the tunnel cut short in February 1968 and the eastbound loop between the High Level station and the junction removed in May 1969. The Motorail loading bay was used to store a fire service emergency train for the Severn Tunnel, however this had been relocated to Severn Tunnel Junction by 1991. The Junction and Station signal boxes were closed on 15 March 1971, with control passed to Bristol Panel Signal Box at Bristol Temple Meads. Passenger services had increased slightly by this point, with nine or ten trains each direction between Bristol and Cardiff from Monday to Saturday and two trains each way on Sundays, but this increase was short-lived, and by 1973 Pilning received only one train per day in each direction. The station buildings had been boarded up by this point, and by 1982 had been demolished, with the exception of the 1950s brick building. Basic shelters were constructed on each platform as a replacement. The few stopping trains had to be timed for daylight hours, as the station lighting had been disconnected. British Rail was split into business-led sectors in the 1980s, at which time operations at Pilning passed to Regional Railways.


Post-privatisation

The British rail network was
privatised Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
in the 1990s – the infrastructure, including stations, became property of
Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...
in 1994, and were subsequently transferred to
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
in 2002. Bristol-area passenger services were franchised to
Wales & West Wales & West was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the South Wales & West franchise from 1996 until 2001. The franchise was operated by Prism Rail from October 1996 until July 2000, when the firm was taken over by N ...
in 1997, which was succeeded by
Wessex Trains Wessex Trains was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by National Express that operated the Wessex Trains franchise from October 2001 until March 2006, when the franchise was merged with the Great Western and Thames Valley f ...
, an arm of
National Express National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...
, in 2001. The Wessex franchise was amalgamated with the Great Western franchise into the
Greater Western franchise Greater Western is a railway franchise for the provision of passenger services from London Paddington to the Cotswolds, West of England, South West England and South Wales. The current holder is Great Western Railway. History In 2003, as part of ...
from 2006, and responsibility passed to First Great Western, a subsidiary company of
FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.Great Western Railway in 2015. Services continued at two per day under Wales & West and Wessex Trains, however the Greater Western franchise of 2006 specified only two trains per week at Pilning, and so the service was reduced: from Cardiff to Bristol on Saturday morning and back the same afternoon. The station, isolated and with a skeleton service, was one of the least used stations in the country, with less than 100 passengers per year. Despite the low patronage, there was local interest in the station. The Pilning Station Group, founded by local resident Jonathan King in the 1980s, campaigned for an increase in services. Upon King's death in 2014, a small plaque dedicated to him was added to the brick abutment of the footbridge. The group devised challenges for people to travel from Pilning on the morning train, get as far as possible, and then return on the evening train. The group also successfully campaigned for an extra train to call to support a local music festival. On 5 November 2016, the footbridge at Pilning was demolished by Network Rail as part of the Great Western Main Line electrification project, as the bridge was too low for overhead wires and the low passenger numbers did not justify a replacement. The removal of the footbridge meant that the westbound platform was no longer accessible and thus was closed, with the final train having called on 10 September. Campaigners alleged that the removal amounted to a closure by stealth, with Network Rail apologising for not consulting residents or conforming to their code of best practice. Due to trains only being able to call in the eastbound direction, a fares easement was implemented to allow westbound travel to in order to return eastbound to Pilning, with the westbound service being replaced by a second eastbound service.
Geoff Marshall Geoff Marshall is an English video producer, performer, and author from London who runs a YouTube channel which is predominantly transport-themed. Born in London, he spent a short period living in the United States between 2006 and 2009, and no ...
and Vicki Pipe visited Pilning in 2017 as part of their
All the Stations ''All the Stations'' is a documentary series published on YouTube, which sees Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe visit all 2,563 stations on Great Britain's National Rail rail network, and all 198 stations in Ireland, on the railway networks of Iarn ...
project, attracting local media attention to the station's status. There was subsequently a campaign for Pilning to receive the footbridge from , following that station's closure in May 2019, however Network Rail stated that there was no financial justification for replacing the bridge. Local rail group Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways claim that Network Rail saved £658,000 by removing the bridge, and that a replacement would cost in the region of £5,000,000–£7,000,000. The Severn Tunnel electrification works made use of the Network Rail compound at Pilning, were completed in 2020, having been delayed due to corrosion in the tunnel.


Incidents

Railway staff have suffered injuries or death at Pilning; in 1893, signalman George Hann sustained severe cuts to the neck and throat after being hit by shards of glass from an unwanted bottle of lemon squash, which had been thrown from a passing train and smashed against the signal box's woodwork. A
platelayer A platelayer (British English), fettler (British English – UK, Australia, NZ) or trackman (American English) is a railway employee who inspects and maintains the permanent way of a railway, usually under the charge of a foreman called (in UK ...
was hit by a train in 1908, suffering a broken arm; and in 1942 track worker George Daniel Garland was killed while spreading ashes – witnesses stated that there was no
lookout A lookout or look-out is a person in charge of the observation of hazards. The term originally comes from a naval background, where lookouts would watch for other ships, land, and various dangers. The term has now passed into wider parlance. ...
and that high winds prevented the train being heard. Two staff are also known to have died at Pilning from natural causes: train driver James Winnicombe, who collapsed on the
footplate A footplate provides the structure on which a locomotive driver and fireman stand in the cab to operate a British or continental European steam locomotive. It comprises a large metal plate that rests on top of the locomotive frame, usually it is ...
in 1929; and track worker John Holbrook, who died in a workmen's cabin in 1932. Passengers have also been the victims of accidents. On 31 May 1874, a seven-year-old child, Arthur Edward Claypole, and a nurse, Maria Hall, fell from an express train. Claypole had been leaning on the door when it came open causing him to fall out, with Hall jumping out after him. Claypole died from the injuries sustained. An insufficient door fastening was cited as the cause of the incident. A major incident occurred in 1933, when a London, Midland and Scottish Railway
excursion train An excursion train is a chartered train run for a special event or purpose. Examples are trains to major sporting event, trains run for railfans or tourists, and special trains operated by the railway company for employees and prominent customer ...
from to caught fire after passing through the Severn Tunnel. The fire, which started in the restaurant car, spread to two other coaches. The train was stopped at Pilning, where the three burning carriages were removed to a siding and allowed to burn, also setting fire to the grass on the embankment. There were no injuries among the passengers; an attendant was injured while attempting to rescue property from the burning carriages. The rest of the train continued to Barnstaple and arrived an hour late, but 70 passengers from the affected carriages had to be carried by a later train.


Future

Service improvements at Pilning are supported by both the Pilning Station Group and Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways. While Severn Beach railway station is nearby, Pilning potentially offers much quicker access to Bristol and Wales. The campaigners note that 25,000 jobs are due to be created in the area as part of the Westgate development, and that a new junction on the
M49 motorway The M49 motorway is just long and forms a link between the M5 motorway west of Bristol at junction 18A and the M4 motorway at junction 22 before the Second Severn Crossing (now officially renamed the Prince of Wales Bridge). It was constructe ...
could allow for a
park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system ( ...
-type station "Pilning Parkway". Requests for extra services have however been rebuffed, with Great Western Railway stating that Pilning's location on the main line means that stopping trains negatively impact journey times for long-distance services. The South East Wales and West of England Business Link, a plan to improve connectivity between and , proposes replacing the existing station with one further west where the B4055 Cross Hands Road crosses the railway. This site is within the village of Pilning, offering better road access and bus interchange. The railway at this point is four-track, allowing stopping trains to be overtaken by fast trains. The plan won the Oliver Lovell Award for best new group at the 2018
Railfuture Railfuture (formerly the Railway Development Society) is a UK advocacy group which promotes better rail services for passengers and freight across a bigger rail network. The group's national policies are determined by its national board of dir ...
awards. There are expected to be increases in the number of trains passing through Pilning in the years to 2043, with a predicted service of ten passenger trains and up to two freight trains per hour in each direction. Network Rail estimate that 15 trains per hour in each direction could use the route if
European Train Control System The European Train Control System (ETCS) is the signalling and control component of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). It is a replacement for legacy train protection systems and designed to replace the many incompatible ...
signalling was implemented.


Notes


References


External links


Pilning Station campaign group



South East Wales and West of England Business Link
{{Closed stations Gloucestershire Railway stations in Bristol, Bath and South Gloucestershire Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1886 South Wales Main Line Railway stations served by Great Western Railway Low usage railway stations in the United Kingdom DfT Category F2 stations