Nailsea and Backwell railway station

Nailsea and Backwell railway station, on the Bristol to Exeter line, is in the village of Backwell, close to the town of Nailsea in North Somerset, England. It is west of Bristol Temple Meads railway station, and from London Paddington. The station, opened in 1841 by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, has two platforms but little in the way of facilities. It is managed by Great Western Railway, the seventh company to be responsible for the station, and the third franchise since privatisation in 1997. The company provides all train services at the station, mainly hourly services between and , and between and .

Description

The station sits atop an embankment about high, and spans the main road between the towns of Backwell and Nailsea, which narrows to a signal-controlled single lane to go under the railway. The station is on the Bristol to Exeter line, from London Paddington and from .Railways in the United Kingdom are, for historical reasons, measured in miles and chains. There are 80 chains to the mile. It the third station along the line from Bristol. Nailsea is a short distance to the north, while the outskirts of Backwell are right against the south side of the station. The two settlements are primarily residential, and are, for large proportions of their residents, dormitory towns for Bristol.

The station has two platforms, separated by two running lines. The line runs on a slight curve through the station, at an angle of roughly 067 degrees, and has a linespeed of . The northern platform, platform 2, is long and serves eastbound trains; the southern platform, platform 1, is and serves westbound trains. Access to the two platforms is by steps from the road on either side. There is a ramp to the eastbound platform, but it has a gradient greater than 1 in 12, and there is no ramp access to trains. There is no ramp access to the westbound platform. Access between the platforms is either by a footbridge, or by walking along the main road under the line. There are metal and glass waiting shelters on both platforms – three on the eastbound platform, one on the westbound. Two ticket machines are situated on the north side of the station, which can also be used to collect pre-bought tickets. These machines are supplemented by a small ticket kiosk on the eastbound platform which is open during the morning peak. "Next train" dot-matrix displays and an automated public-address system announce approaching services.

To the north of the station is a pay and display car park with 285 car parking spaces, six motorcycle spaces and a number of cycle racks. Cycle storage is also available. The car park is run by North Somerset Council. There is a bus stop adjacent to the car park, with services between Bristol and Nailsea.

Services

The station is managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates all rail services from the station. As of the May 2016 timetable, the basic service from Monday to Saturday consists of two trains in each direction per hour. One is the to service, calling at all stations; the second is the faster to service, non-stop between Bristol Temple Meads and Nailsea & Backwell. All trains call at , the next station westwards. A greater proportion of services continue beyond Weston-super-Mare in the evening, but fewer services continue to Cardiff. There is one evening service to via the Severn Beach Line. Sunday sees roughly one train per hour, with services again alternating between Bristol Parkway to Weston-super-Mare and Cardiff to Taunton, with two services to and from the Severn Beach Line: during summer months these terminate at ; the rest of the year only one does, the other terminating at Avonmouth. The typical journey time to Bristol Temple Meads is 11 minutes. The local services described above are formed using , , , and diesel multiple-unit trains.

Services between London Paddington and Weston-super-Mare call at Nailsea and Backwell in the early morning and evening, running non-stop between Bristol Temple Meads and Nailsea and Backwell, also stopping at Yatton, but not always at or . From Monday to Friday there are five morning services and one evening service to London, with seven services from London, all in the evening. Saturday sees three services to London, all in the morning, and four services from London, all in the evening. There are seven services to and six from London on Sundays, spread throughout the day. These intercity services are formed of Class 800s, which are longer than the station, so passengers in the front carriage have to move to a different carriage to get out. Passengers are prevented from getting out onto the tracks by a selective door-opening system. The typical journey time to London is roughly two hours.

In 2008, one morning northbound CrossCountry service would make a stop at Nailsea and Backwell to serve as a morning peak service, but this operation has ceased. CrossCountry services still pass through the station, but do not stop. Occasional Great Western Railway intercity services between London and Weston-super-Mare or Taunton and Exeter also pass through non-stop.

The station has adjacent bus stops, served by the First West of England number X7 bus between Bristol bus station, Nailsea and Clevedon, with an hourly service in each direction.

History

The first section of the Bristol and Exeter Railway's (B&ER) main line opened on 14 June 1841 between Bristol and . Opened as "Nailsea", it was for a while the first station on the line west of Bristol, the next being Clevedon Road (which was renamed in 1847). The line, engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was built as broad-gauge but it had been reconstructed as a mixed-gauge line to accommodate local -gauge traffic by 1 June 1875. Services were operated by the Great Western Railway (GWR) on behalf of the B&ER until 1 May 1849. The B&ER then took over its own workings until the company was amalgamated into the GWR on 1 January 1876. Broad-gauge trains ceased operation on 20 May 1892.

Due to its being built on an embankment, lightweight building materials were used for the station: the platforms originally rested on timber supports for most of their length. Station buildings, including a goods shed and a combined ticket office and waiting room, were built on the eastbound platform in the 1860s. There was a signal box on the eastbound platform by the 1880s which controlled a crossover between the two tracks; sidings at the west end of the station were controlled by a second signal box, and had a connection to the Nailsea Colliery. A footbridge, built by E. Finch and Co. of Chepstow, was erected in 1907; until then access between the two platforms was by a track-level crossing. This wooden footbridge was replaced by a metal one in the 1950s. The station was renamed "Nailsea and Backwell" on 1 May 1905.

When the railways were nationalised in 1948, the GWR became the Western Region of British Railways. Goods traffic from the station ceased on 1 June 1964. The main station buildings were demolished in the 1970s, but their foundations can still be seen behind the shelters on the eastbound platform. The shelter on the westbound platform was still present in 1986. In the 1980s the car park was expanded, and new metal and glass shelters were provided. The station reverted to the name "Nailsea" on 6 May 1974, and was still known by that name at the end of 1994.

British Rail was split into business-led sectors in the 1980s, at which time operations at Nailsea and Backwell passed to Regional Railways. Local services were franchised to Wales & West when the railway was privatised in 1997, which was in turn succeeded by Wessex Trains, an arm of National Express, in 2001. The Wessex franchise was amalgamated with the Great Western franchise into the Greater Western franchise from 2006, and responsibility passed to First Great Western, a subsidiary company of FirstGroup

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