Portbury Dock

[p.pillcreek@virgin.net]

I continually get ú21 million quoted for the cost of renewing rail link to

Portbury dock in 2002.

I know the Port Authority recieved a government frieght grant of

ú15.66million, where did the rest come from !!

thanks all.

[jules]

It would have come from Port of Bristol Company themselves, or probably as part of a consortium with some of their rail using customers.

Network Rail (or Railtrack as it was then) might have contributed too, as well as maybe EWS/Freightliner etc.

I believe the maximum that was awarded under what were called Section 8 grants, to help get freight onto rail, was 80% of total project costs. So the figure you quote would be about right.

I am not sure, but I heard this scheme has now been ended and companies can't get these grants anymore.

Note that Bristol Port Company is a private company - they are not a Port Authority. After 150+ years of incompetence and losses, Bristol City Council gave up and sold/leased the docks about 20 years ago. The private company took about six months to get it into profit

[stopblock]

The portbury line was a joint operation between Railtrack Port of Bristol company and E.W.S. Freightliner didnt help in anyway with the reopening of the line because they had no work to Portbury.
Many within E.W.S belive it was through bad managment of drivers diagrams causing late running etc that let freightliner in to portbury.