Redland railway station
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Redland railway station is on the Severn Beach Line and serves the districts of Cotham and Redland in Bristol, England. It is from . Its three letter station code is RDA. it is managed by
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 ...
, which is the third franchise to be responsible for the station since
privatisation 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 1997. They provide all train services at the station, mainly a train every 30 minutes in each direction. The line through Redland was opened in 1874 by the Great Western and
Midland Midland may refer to: Places Australia * Midland, Western Australia Canada * Midland, Albert County, New Brunswick * Midland, Kings County, New Brunswick * Midland, Newfoundland and Labrador * Midland, Ontario India * Midland Ward, Kohima, Nagal ...
Railways as part of the
Clifton Extension Railway The Clifton Extension Railway was a joint railway in Bristol, owned by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and the Midland Railway (MR) companies. Description of line The railway ran from a junction with the GWR at Narroways Hill, just north of Sta ...
. The station itself was opened in 1897 following a petition by local residents. There were two platforms, with the main station building on the Bristol-bound platform and smaller facilities on the opposite platform. No goods facilities were provided. The main station building, although no longer in railway use, is the only original station building left on the line. In 1903 the station had 11 staff. The Severn Beach Line declined over the latter half of the twentieth century, with passenger numbers falling significantly. All station staff were withdrawn in 1967, with the line through the station reduced to single track in 1970, with the second platform taken out of use. Services had decreased to ten per day each direction by 2005, but have since increased to a train every 30 minutes in each direction.


Description

Redland railway station is on the Severn Beach Line, serving the areas of Cotham and Redland, Bristol. The surrounding area is mostly residential, with some commercial premises to the east. A park and tennis centre are directly to the south. The station is located along the line from , and from .Railways in the United Kingdom are, for historical reasons, measured in miles and chains. There are 80 chains to the mile. It is the fourth station from Temple Meads. There is a single -long platform which serves trains in both directions, situated on the north side of the track and angled at 062 degrees. The station's southern platform was abandoned in 1970 and is overgrown. Facilities at the station are minimal – there are a few chairs and timetable information is provided. Help points, giving next train information, were installed in 2010. There is no ticket office, but a self-service ticket machine is available. The
Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...
-era station building is the only original station building left on the line, decorated with a mural painted by local students, it is used as an upholsterer's showroom rather than for railway purposes. Access is step-free from South Road, through an area containing residents' garages. The platform backs onto the gardens on the south side of the road. At the west end of the station are two bridges, neither directly accessible from the station: the first is a footbridge carrying the Lovers' Walk footpath, then some beyond is a road bridge carrying Redland Grove. The line crosses over Redland Road just beyond the east end of the station. There is no car park or taxi rank. Cycle storage is available on the platform. There is a bus stop on South Road, and another on Redland Grove.


Services

All services at Redland are operated by
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 ...
using ''Turbo''
DMUs 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 ...
. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 2 tph to of which 1 continues to * 2 tph to of which 1 continues to On Sundays, there is an hourly service between Bristol Temple Meads and Severn Beach with one train per day to and from Weston-super-Mare. Services previously ran every 40 minutes in each direction but were increased to half-hourly in the December 2021 timetable change.


History

The Clifton Extension Railway was opened from Narroways Hill Junction to as a joint venture between the Great Western Railway and
Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...
, to connect their main lines to the
Bristol Port Railway and Pier The Bristol Port Railway and Pier (occasionally referred to as the Bristol Port and Pier Railway) was a railway in Bristol, England. Route The Bristol Port Railway and Pier company (BPRP) ran from a main terminus at (originally called Clifton), ...
in the
Avon Gorge The Avon Gorge () is a 1.5-mile (2.5-kilometre) long gorge on the River Avon in Bristol, England. The gorge runs south to north through a limestone ridge west of Bristol city centre, and about 3 miles (5 km) from the mouth of the r ...
. Passenger services to Clifton Down began in 1874, and through services to started in 1885. There was not initially a station at Redland, but there was local support, with several petitions submitted to the line's Joint Railway Committee. The first was received in October 1885, but was rejected due to the estimated cost of £3,410 to provide the station. A second petition was rejected eighteen months later. The Bristol
Chamber of Commerce A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ad ...
petitioned for a station in 1892, but the committee again rejected the request, stating that estimated traffic levels would not justify the expense. It took until 1896 until a revised plan was accepted by the committee. Construction of the station was complicated by the need to keep the line open: trains ferrying materials were unable to stay on-site for long, and frequently had to switch from one track to the other, necessitating trips to nearby
Montpelier railway station Montpelier railway station is on the Severn Beach Line and serves the district of Montpelier in Bristol, England. It is from . Its three letter station code is MTP. The station has a single platform, serving trains in both directions. it i ...
, where the nearest crossover points were located. The station finally opened on 12 April 1897. The first train was the 7 am service: 94 tickets were issued to Clifton Down, and an estimated 550 passengers bought tickets from the station the same day. Some local writers were sceptical, claiming that many of those first day passengers were not new passengers, but would previously have travelled from Montpelier or Clifton Down. Construction took nine months, and cost £2,000. The station as built had two through lines, with platforms on either side. The southern "down" platform was for trains towards Clifton Down and Avonmouth, the northern "up" platform for trains towards Montpelier and Bristol. The main station building, comprising the station master's office, general waiting room, ladies' waiting room and cloakroom, was on the northern platform. A smaller building was built in the same style on the southern platform, and was used as a general waiting room. No goods facilities were provided. A footbridge at the west end of the platforms, between the preexisting Lovers' Walk and Redland Grove bridges, allowed access between the two platforms. The ticket office was situated at the north end of this bridge, on South Road. In September 1899, a Midland Railway-style signal box was opened at the east end of the northern platform. Services were provided by the Great Western Railway and the Midland Railway. Midland trains worked between Clifton Down and or , where passengers could change for services to
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 ...
,
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
and other Midland destinations. The Great Western provided services from to Clifron Down and , many looping back to Temple Meads via or . Bristol Temple Meads was the city's major station, where passengers could change for trains to
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...
and
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, among others. There were also occasional through services to . In 1910, Redland saw 20 Great Western trains each day to and from Clifton Down, a further 17 from and 15 to Avonmouth, and 13 Midland trains in each direction between Clifton Down and Mangotsfield or Fishponds. Midland services were suspended from 1 January 1917 due to 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 ...
, but resumed in May 1919. In 1903, the station employed 11 men, but the post of station master was abolished on 27 August 1909 as a cost-cutting measure, with responsibility passing to Clifton Down. There were six staff by 1938. In 1923,
grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...
resulted in the Midland Railway being absorbed into the
London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...
(LMS), and the line continued in a joint arrangement between the Great Western and the LMS. Services to Fishponds ended on 31 March 1941. When the railways were
nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
in
1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...
, when it 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 ...
. The signal box closed in 1950, and by 1958 there were only three staff members: a booking clerk and two porters. Through services to Pilning and Henbury ceased with the
Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...
in 1964, with services terminating at , and from December that year the station was unstaffed after 2 pm. Staff were withdrawn completely on 17 July 1967, a fate shared by most of the other stations on the Severn Beach Line. The southern running line was lifted on 19 October 1970, and the adjacent platform abandoned and its shelter demolished. The ticket office and footbridge were also demolished, with a replacement entrance opened through the South Road garages.
British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
was split into business-led sectors in the 1980s, at which time operations at Redland passed to
Regional Railways Regional Railways was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982 that existed until 1997, two years after privatisation. The sector was originally called ''Provincial''. Regional Railways was the most subsidised (per pas ...
. All trains ran to Severn Beach, but the service pattern was irregular. This was changed in the mid-1990s, with a more frequent service to Avonmouth but very few on to Severn Beach. Local tourism expert Bernard Lane described the line's state as
... the line the railway wished was not there. It was the line that got bus substitution whenever they were short of trains or queues, when a rugby match in Cardiff needed a special. It has a problem in that the route is slow and not very direct; for years it was invisible, short of marketing and lacking a regular interval timetable.
By 1995 there was no Sunday service, and there was even talk of the line being closed completely. When the railway 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 1997, local 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 ...
, 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. Following action by Friends of Severn Beach Railway (FOSBR) and a string of protests, services had increased to 10 per day in each direction by 2005, with
Bristol City Council Bristol City Council is the local authority of Bristol, England. The council is a unitary authority, and is unusual in the United Kingdom in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Bristol. Bristol has 34 wards ...
providing a subsidy to Wessex Trains. 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 FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland. A minimum service requirement was written into the franchise agreement, ensuring an hourly service along the line. In 2007, the Council unanimously agreed to pay £450,000 per annum to fund extra services from May 2008 for three years, which resulted in a 60% increase in passenger numbers along the line, and a 25% year-on-year increase between June 2009 and June 2010. Sunday services to Severn Beach were restored in 2010. Passenger numbers at Redland were further boosted by a marketing campaign by the
Severnside Community Rail Partnership The Severnside Community Rail Partnership is a community rail partnership covering the network of routes radiating from Bristol, bounded by Gloucester, Bath/ Freshford, Weston-super-Mare, Taunton, and the Severn Estuary. It was founded in 2004, ...
to attract more people, especially students, to use the station. The work won a Department for Transport Community Rail Marketing Award in 2007. The Severnside CRP also formed a support group for the station, and improved the provision of timetabling information through the use of simplified departure timetable posters. In 2008, they helped to renovate and repaint the station building. It was decorated in 2009 by students from
Fairfield School Fairfield School can refer to: *Fairfield Grammar School, a closed school in Bristol, England *Fairfield High School (Bristol), a state secondary school in Bristol, England *Fairfield School (Dunedin), a school in Dunedin, New Zealand {{disambigua ...
, who created a
mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...
of
Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...
characters with incongruous details such as mobile phones, sunglasses and funny hats. The work won a Community Rail Award. Customer help points with next train information screens were installed during 2008/09, paid for by money from the Department for Transport's "Access for All" fund and local councils. The help points were stolen in early 2010, but have since been replaced. Ticket machines were installed in early 2011, following complaints that passengers were unable to pay their fares. A small coffee stand and snack bar began operating at the station in 2014.


Future

First Great Western declined a contractual option to continue the Greater Western passenger franchise (of which services at Redland are a part) beyond 2013, citing a desire for a longer-term contract due to the impending upgrade to the Great Western Main Line. The franchise was put out to tender, but the process was halted and later scrapped due to the fallout from the collapse of the InterCity West Coast franchise competition. A two-year franchise extension until September 2015 was agreed in October 2013, and subsequently extended until March 2019. With the coming upgrade to the Great Western Main Line, the main line from London to Bristol is due to be electrified by 2016. However, the electrification will not extend beyond the main lines, so Redland will continue to be served by diesel trains, with the current " Sprinter" units expected to be replaced by and "Turbo" units. Stephen Williams, MP for
Bristol West Bristol West is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2015 by Thangam Debbonaire of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. It mostly covers ...
, questioned whether electrification could continue to Redland. Then-
Secretary of State for Transport The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...
Philip Hammond Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede (born 4 December 1955) is a British politician and life peer who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, and Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014. ...
replied that it would have to be looked at in the future. The group
Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FoSBR) is a Bristol-based campaign group, calling for better rail transport in the Bristol area. Formation FoSBR was formed in 1995 as ''Friends of Severn Beach Railway'', to protest against the potential ...
supports the electrification of the entire Severn Beach Line. Improved services at Redland are called for as part of the
Greater Bristol Metro MetroWest, formerly known as the Greater Bristol Metro, is a project to improve the rail services in Bristol, England, and the surrounding region. It was first proposed at First Great Western's Stakeholder Event in March 2008. The aim of the p ...
scheme, a rail transport plan which aims to enhance transport capacity in the Bristol area. There is an aspiration for half-hourly services, with trains towards Bristol terminating alternately at and , however due to the large sections of the Severn Beach Line which are single-track and to the congested main line from Temple Meads, such frequency is not currently feasible. The scheme was given the go-ahead in July 2012 as part of the
City Deal City Deals are an initiative enacted by the UK government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , ...
, whereby local councils would be given greater control over money by the government. There are also calls for the reopening of the
Henbury Loop Line The Henbury Loop Line, also known as the Filton to Avonmouth Line, is a railway line following the boundary between Bristol and South Gloucestershire between the Severn Beach Line at Hallen Marsh Junction, Avonmouth and the Cross Country Rout ...
, which could allow a direct service from Redland to via . Plans for a loop were rejected by the West of England Joint Transport Board, however
Bristol City Council Bristol City Council is the local authority of Bristol, England. The council is a unitary authority, and is unusual in the United Kingdom in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Bristol. Bristol has 34 wards ...
lors voted to send the decision back to the board for further discussion.


See also

* Rail services in Bristol


Notes


References


External links

{{good article Railway stations in Bristol DfT Category F2 stations Former Clifton Extension Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1897 Railway stations served by Great Western Railway Severn Beach Line