Electrify Severn Beach - Chippenham and Trowbridge/Henbury loop - Weston-super-Mare/Yate - Portishead and run a network similar to the Dublin DART (but with 15 min frequency on each line). Consider extensions via Bristol Airport and other areas when the system is established.
Will Severn Beach also get a train every 15 minutes?
It can't as it stands. Its too tight with the infrastructure available.
As a regular commuter on the line, an aboslute NO to tram-trains. A separate tram line up Whiteladies road and Gloucester road directly into the city centre would be far better service than buggering about with the existing lines.
Agree, although the tunnels in close proximity to stations may be awkward.
Messy, I think. Bristol TM east throat is a particular problem with conflicting moves. I think line capacity isn't too bad (1tph Filton, 2tph Bristol-Cardiff on the Reliefs on top of the severn beach services, with some other extras that would normally be on the mains but aren't for one reason or another).
It's pretty tight as it is - you can see when there are delays how quickly it propagates along the single line sections.
Not really the four track section, but the crossing over on flat, (no flyovers) outside Bristol Temple Meads.
You will definitely need infrastructure on the Severn Beach line. Clifton Down to Avonmouth is 11 minutes, add on single line reoccupation and its getting impossibly tight for 4tph. Same goes from St Andrews Jn up to Severn Beach.
Agree
Not quite true - I've regularly had at least 3 passing on adjacent tracks. There are 6 lines, and you regularly get an Up Relief departure, Down Relief Arrival, one train on the Filton Mains and one train on the Bath lines in either direction.
Isn’t the problem there the risk of scouring at the Sea Mills bridge rather than actual “track sub aqua”?
Whatever it is, it causes a lot of disruption on a regular basis and should be fixed.
Sorry I meant 3 parallel moves, (2 to/from Filton, 1 to/from Bath) not passing in opposite directions
Theoretically, a Filton relief line move into 1, a Filton main into (say) 7 and a down Bath line into 13/15 should surely all work at once.
I think the old layout before the Filton Bank was reverted to 4 track may well have had a lot of restricted moves due to the overlaps and so forth. The new layout is more flexible, although there are still a lot of moves that don't have parallel options and the way the planning geography is done (especially the route codes at Bristol East Gantry) doesn't help planners or signallers.
In most hours it’s only 2 in each direction, isn’t it?
It's generally 2 in each direction (i.e. 4 per hour) - the Cardiff-Portsmouths and the Gloucester-Westbury Axis (the exact origin/destination points vary somewhat). Terminating trains are a bit different although anything out of St Philip's Marsh east end can need a lot of crossing, as well as trains that are interworked (although this isn't too many of them). Trains that terminate and then go back on a return working of the same service aren't as bad, as they tend to stay on their pair of lines or close to it.
Under this plan, yes. It would require a reasonable amount of redoubling, but to make any significant changes you would need to anyway.
I think that’s quite feasible for a neglected branch line that has the potential to become a frequent urban commuter line.
Neglected is somewhat harsh. It has recently refurbed stock and stations, and a half hourly service. I think any of the commuter services in Bristol are only hourly, although would need to double check.
Is that even realistic, yet alone needed? The current 2 tph service (at least as far as Avonmouth) is the best service that the line has had for a long time and is probably adequate, as Bristol Temple Meads is very poorly sited for attracting passengers travelling to the city centre from suburban stations on the line. The only way that local rail-based transport could make a major inroad into transport modal share within Bristol, as distinct from tinkering around the edges, would be to construct an underground metro system, and the cost of such a scheme would be completely unaffordable for the UK. As for light rail, there really aren't suitable routes/alignments - the former Bristol tramway system was quite archaic, in terms of layout yet alone the open-top cars, by the time it closed due to enemy bombing damage in WW2.
Temple Meads is rapidly becoming less poorly sited than it once was, as lots of commuting-heavy land use pivots to the station for obvious reasons. It's poorly sited for the harbour, old town or Shopping district but that's not actually that unusual for major stations - they were built on the edge of the town as it was, and Bristol was already a big city hence getting an early railway! However, with offices all around the station and the new Temple Quarter development the potential for commuting is increasing.
An underground in Bristol would be incredibly awkward to build in Bristol given the topography of the wider city making station depth an issue and water conditions in the city centre. I disagree that there aren't suitable alignments for trams, and there are several busy bus corridors where trams would be a worthwhile investment to complement the commuter rail system. The alignments would be tight in places but Fishponds Road, Whiteladies Road, Gloucester Road and Bath Road could all justify a tram level of service, and the guided busway could be adapted for trams as well. Part of the old Midland Railway alignment (now a cycleway) could also be adapted. The big issue for light rail in Bristol is where you put the depot. However if you can fit trams in places like Croydon and Sheffield, Bristol isn't completely insane to try and design a modern tram system in.
Bristol has a bus system already called MetroBus and while it has improved bus transport, in my experience the buses were full in the peaks (in both directions on the m1) and they were slow.
The “some difficulties to overcome” would probably be enough to render the whole exercise pointless. In discussions on this line on this forum the emphasis always seems to be on the attractiveness or otherwise of Temple Meads as a destination and ignore the “destination traffic” for which the nearest station would be Clifton Down. Shame the station is so passenger unfriendly and the service so little promoted in the wider WECA area.
Part of the problem with Clifton Down for destination traffic is that most of it's potential destinations aren't that close to the station, and there are better alternatives from Temple Meads for inbound passengers (bus, rental e-scooter/e-bike, or walking). Clifton Village has the Number 8, and as is a 10 minute walk from Clifton Down station but a 35-40 minute walk from Temple Meads. Uni of Bristol is at the top of Park Street, the BBC Studios isn't that big a destination. Most people heading to Whiteladies Road shops/bars or the Downs Themselves will be from the general local area.
The obvious counter-argument to this is that if the trams are offering an alternative, traffic on the corridor will drop as people switch to the trams. Gloucester road is narrow in places and may even force single track or a divided route but if you look at global tram systems these aren't necessarily service-killing problems. I do accept that the modal shift argument is weakened in Bristol because of the nature of where journeys are going to being quite distributed.
Can you think of any comparable European city that runs trams down a road as narrow as Gloucester road which is also the main road access to such a large chunk of the city? In fact I doubt there are many European cities that have such terrible road infrastructure as Bristol - it's both very sprawled out and low density as well as having narrow roads
Terrible idea unless you're planning on paving the whole of Filton bank haha?
The station is attracting large amounts of commuter traffic these days due to a large proportion of offices now based in the area. It needs some sort of electric traction though as diesel fumes in the middle of a large city run between houses and suburbs regularly. Looking most likely that it will be BEMU's at this rate with no OHL. The temple quarter regeneration should also have a large impact on the passenger numbers. I don't know the last time you visited the area but it's rapidly growing with offices, flats and mixed use developments popping up everywhere.
