The Bristol Railway Archive

Does anyone know of a photograph of the frontage of the now demolished main Warmley station building (i.e.a view taken from the A420 London Road)?

Matt Thomas

Although in those days the 1540 ex-Bournemouth was booked a 10-minute stop at Mangotsfield, and the Mail a 5-minute stop, I never saw any vans being transferred. Mail and other parcels (manually) yes, vans no..

A van was certainly transferred in the years before closure; an engine was sent up ...

(backing up my argument that the mail train used to turn anti-clockwise).



Matt
Following on from the debate on this crucial point, do any submitters have information on the mail's itinerary between Mangotsfield, where it picked up a van from the 3.40 Bournemouth, and Newcastle?

Were there any ...

And don't get me started, as they say, about Templecombe's strange rites



Just wondered what happened at Dorchester South; I believe eastbound trains had to reverse into the platform here as well before the station was rebuilt in 1970.

But was a pilot engine mandatory in steam days, as at ...

Ah, but the real challenge was the ascent of Park Street on a 1950s bus!

This involved an interminable series of down changes through the "crash" gearbox, after which "the forward motion was barely perceptible" (to adapt Peter Smith's description in "Mendips Engineman" of Evening Star's signal ...

I think that in those days perhaps we put up with these things far more than we do these days.

I'm sure this is right; we are all less tolerant of poor service nowadays.

I can remember trains being very, very late when I was trainspotting at Mangotsfield in the fifties, sometimes by as much as ...

O.K. yes, on the "showcase" routes like Bristol-London, the service on the whole is excellent. But if you look at some cross-country services (the Bristol-Portsmouth one may be a case in point) I think you'll find the picture is much less rosy.

Matt

Interesting discussion on BBC breakfast ...

Today's services are not "often late" : they are, in fact - usually on time (like 90%+ within 10 mins of scheduled time" - that is hardly "often late" by anybody's standards.

Do these figures include trains that are cancelled? I have used Parkway since it opened. On several occasions, the ...

All that said, it matters very little after all these years which way the mail was turned on the triangle at at Mangotsfield :).

Quite!


But the main reason for posting this afternoon is to respond to these comments:


But, even if it were still open today, how many of the local residents ...

I expect a lot of contributors will be familiar with this site, but here's the reference anyway (backing up my argument that the mail train used to turn anti-clockwise).

http://semaphore.avonvalleyrailway.org/html/chronology.html

A lot of people (although fewer who access this site) are probably ...

P.S.

Thanks to Robin as well for the link to pre-war maps, which I had no idea were so readily available on line.

Matt

Thanks a lot for posting this; I'd no idea there was an extant picture.

As regards the turning of the mail train, I'll post the reference if I can find it, but if turning anti-clockwise, it would have come down the Bath leg first, set back over the crossover, and then reversed up the up line to ...

Thanks for the tip on formatting, Robin

A long shot - is there any information out there about the Mangotsfield South Junction signal box?

I understand that before its closure in the thirties, after which the junction points were power-controlled (I am not sure if this was from North Junction box ...

Re Mangotsfield, Robin Summerhill wrote:

[Does anyone know why only the up main line platform was removed?]

I was never quite sure if it was "up" or "down" to Bristol.

I did read that it was in order to improve visibility round the curve, during the last three years of the line's existence. Sorry ...

Does anyone have information about the Princesses' post-war visits to Bristol? I'm surprised these magnificent machines' occasional forays into the West Country aren't better documented and depicted.

I seem to remember seeing a shot of one passing Kingswood Junction or what was left of it (just as ...