The Bristol Railway Archive

Watched programme with Ian Hislop on BBC 4 discussing this very issue. The problem was as far as he could see was that Beeching just looked at finances not the operation of a railway from a social or functional basis. If a line made a loss it was closed even if it was supplying the passengers to ...

It is, for some reason i got my canals and railways muddled. it should of read Wilts and Hamps line.

Normally the only thing that passes along my local line is is 3 coach FGW and SWT trains on their way from Bristol to Salisbury and the Odd maintenance train. Well this weekend is a Joy. So far as well as the usual we have HST's every hour that actually cross right where I live, Freightliner ...

I don't know, but I know a guy that may.
On the photographic site Flicker is a guy that goes by the name of Fray Bentos, he is a fellow Staple Hill Secondary school boy. I am sure that somewhere in his photographic archive, the Bentos archive as he calls it he has mentioned this. He knows this ...

The carriage sidings at north junction were always full of carriages at the times i visited there. It always struck me as a strange place to keep carriages, is there any indication of why they were kept there.

I note we have another anomaly with names, the north curve as it was called, was straight ...

I spent many an hour wandering around about charfield station when i lived there. Many a sleepless night was made interesting by the throb of an engine waiting in the passing loop. Mind you although i am now about 50 miles from there i still live with a busy railway less than 25yds from my house. I ...

Unfortunately my mapping runs out at Westerleigh junction. If you are after info though try the OS old maps site.

http://www.old-maps.co.uk/index.html

you can work your way up the line using their old maps, its a bit of a pain doing that way and you cant down load them, but you do get to see ...

Having re examined my 1946 map, the shortwood brickworks box is shown on the up side, I did not spot it earlier as it is obscured by geological info, my map is a geological map. That would fit as by then some of the ones i listed from the 1888 maps had gone.
Got there in the end, confirming your ...

The mystery deepens, there was another box on the upside opposite the siding and line into shortwood brickworks.

Therefore the boxes going up from mangotsfield are as follows,

Mangotsfield North Junction, on downside

Shortwood brickworks, on upside

Parkfield colliery south(brandy bottom pit ...

1950's map of Tewell hill area, all evidence of siding now gone apart from the curved boundary at that location.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mao_zhou/8476343309/

The wall in this picture I believe is the same wall as is shown in the picture on the link above. I have now posted an extract from a 1888 map
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mao_zhou/8477493656/
which shows all the sidings. They were actually located at parkfield colliery itself. There is another ...

Nice picture of parkfield colliery here clearly showing rail sidings.

http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/bhr/Main/coal/7_coal.htm

Another two maps, one showing the Bristol end of Mangotsfield station and the other showing another siding that rarely gets a mention, the one into the old quarry at Charnhill. The other aspect that may be interest to one person in this thread is i believe the location of his childhood home.

http ...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mao_zhou/7 ... 4369146983

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mao_zhou/7 ... 4369146983

Mangotsfield North and South Junctions 1915

Problem solved, I think, plate 44 in Pete Lawsons book walking the dramwway shows the sidings at parkfiled colliery, there were quite a few sidings etc. Parkfield colliery closed in 1936. My mapping of this area is dated 1946 and shows the colliery as closed with no sidings. But just down the line ...