I first became acquainted with the Severn Beach railway line on my first visit to Bristol in 1975, a couple of years before moving here. Over the years, the rail services from and to my local station of Stapleton Road have become regular fixtures for shopping, going to meetings, meeting friends and travel further afield. It’s also much cheaper and more reliable than the alleged bus services provided by Farce Bus. However, the Severn Beach Line rail service has always suffered by being run only every hour or two hours and it doesn’t run at all on Sundays (shame!).
As you can see, it’s been treated a bit like Cinderella over the years: it was the only branch line in the area to survive the cuts under the Beeching Axe in the 1960s that emasculated Britain’s railway network; and last year one ugly sister, in the shape of Bristol City Council, withdrew its subsidy to the line – a mere £135,000 – in a fit of cost-cutting parsimony.
However, the line has many friends, one of whom, a group called Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FOSBR), has responded to Bristol City Council’s latest budget consultation by asking for £450,000 to pay for a half-hourly service between Bristol Temple Meads and Avonmouth and has written to all Bristol councillors and MPs to enlist their support. FOSBR has also written to South Gloucestershire Council, asking them to subsidise a half-hourly rail link bus service between Avonmouth and Severn Beach and is planning a big campaign to push for the improvement before council budgets are decided in February.
Bristol pays a heavy price for not investing in rail: road accidents and congestion cost Bristol over £2.8 million every week (to the accompaniment of constantly whining motorists on the correspondence pages of the Evening Pest) and the city compares unfavourably to others such as Birmingham, where half-hourly services are the minimum, and where 20% of those commuting into the city travel by rail (compared to 1.6% in Bristol).
In addition to FOSBR, the Bristol Green Party has also highlighted the present shortcomings of the local railways and has come up with some good ideas on rail.
Come on Bristol, get a transport policy on track!
