Portishead Branch Line Reopening Consultation

[TheNewNo2]

The first stage of consultations into reopening the Portishead Branch line to passengers begins on Monday. The consultation leaflet is quite an interesting read, there are some good diagrams and 3D mockups (interestingly they chose a 4-car Desiro as the passenger train), plus general information on the project.

Consultation website

We are consulting the community, stakeholders and interested parties on our plans to re-open the Portishead line and reintroduce passenger train services, as part of a wider project known as MetroWest Phase 1. Re-opening the Portishead line requires an application for development consent to be submitted to the Secretary of State. The
geographic extent of the application is shown on the plan below, this is known as the red line boundary. MetroWest Phase 1 also entails upgrading the frequency of trains for the Severn Beach line and the Bath Spa to Bristol line, however this does not require any planning consent. This consultation is about our proposals to reopen the Portishead line.

The purpose of the stage 1 consultation is to set out in broad terms what the re-opening of the Portishead line entails and to seek views from the community and stakeholders on these works before the detailed engineering design is undertaken. We will use stage 1 consultation responses to inform the engineering design process and then proceed with stage 2 consultation, in autumn 2015. The purpose of stage 2 consultation is to seek views from the community and stakeholders on the detailed proposals (including engineering design), before they are finalised so that there is an opportunity to make final adjustments to the proposals before the application for development consent is submitted....

 

[Pinza-C55]

It's interesting how , compared to many modern reopening schemes which seem to squander money willy nilly, that they say at Pill station they will "resurface the existing disused platform" I like that.

 

[MarkyT]

Note that due to the ORRs absolute insistence on no new level crossings, all pedestrian and cycling passengers who live to the west of the new station, even those parking in the further reaches of the station car park, will be forced to cross the busy Quays Avenue road in order to access the station. WHEN the first pedestrian injury or god forbid death of a passenger occurs on this busy pedestrian crossing, I hope the decision makers who ruled on Metro West's initial station proposal closer to the town centre the other side of Quays Avenue (and involving a low speed level crossing) will be held to account. The nonsense is if this had been a tram or a tram-train proposal equally lengthy trains could have crossed the road no problem and then even proceded along it. I'm all for removing as many high speed and very busy level crossings as possible on main lines, but this absolutism on reopened low speed branch lines is as foolish as the attitude of Mick Cash who, with his union's stance on crossings, logically should be campaigning for all tramways to be closed down as well. There are many old branches throughout the country where if level crossings are not allowed full stop, then reopening would be completely unviable, even when much of the rest of the alignment survives, because lengthy diversions to avoid such crossings might be impossible due to topology or settlement patterns, and any alternative bridge or tunnel solution either too expensive or completely unacceptable from a visual intrusion point of view. Also such diversions, often well away from the traditional alignment and station sites could take a line far away from the very markets it is trying to serve. Finding ways to allow safe low speed rural crossings could be crucial to allowing any further reopenings at all. Designating such operations as tram-trains and fitting a few side skirts and road legal light clusters could be the key to this, even if the tram trains actually travel mainly on segregated infrastructure elsewhere.

 

[Gathursty]

My concern with all attempts at re-openings is how do you deal with the NIMBYs who will attempt go all the way to Strasbourg to stop these projects dead in their tracks?

I find there are always some vociferous objectors who will never be appeased.

 

[HSTfan!!!]

It's interesting how , compared to many modern reopening schemes which seem to squander money willy nilly, that they say at Pill station they will "resurface the existing disused platform" I like that.

The platforms that remain along the line particularly Pill aren't in that bad a condition.

 

[rf_ioliver]

My concern with all attempts at re-openings is how do you deal with the NIMBYs who will attempt go all the way to Strasbourg to stop these projects dead in their tracks?

I find there are always some vociferous objectors who will never be appeased.

The usual way is to suggest repealing the Human Rights Act, removing juries, removing the right to appeal etc... </irony></humour>

But seriously, I really don't understand sometimes the sheer complexity of getting a train to run down a track for peoples' benefit.

Then this particular project I remember being "seriously" discussed and proposed 15-20 years ago as being almost imminent, ie: next year there'll be trains...what actually happened since other than the reopening for freight trains along the Avon Gorge IIRC...?

Or, is the statement "next year" just like the statement "free beer tomorrow"?

t.

Ian

 

[HSTfan!!!]

Clifton No.2 tunnel has finally had the 10mph TSR removed I noticed yesterday, that's certainly an improvement, had to do a double take when I drove past the SPATE board.

 

[TheNewNo2]

It's interesting how , compared to many modern reopening schemes which seem to squander money willy nilly, that they say at Pill station they will "resurface the existing disused platform" I like that.

I drove past Pill station the other day, it's no surprise they need to implement parking restrictions, the area is pretty tight.

I do like the canopy of the Portishead mockup.

 

[w1bbl3]

Note that due to the ORRs absolute insistence on no new level crossings, all pedestrian and cycling passengers who live to the west of the new station, even those parking in the further reaches of the station car park, will be forced to cross the busy Quays Avenue road in order to access the station. WHEN the first pedestrian injury or god forbid death of a passenger occurs on this busy pedestrian crossing, I hope the decision makers who ruled on Metro West's initial station proposal closer to the town centre the other side of Quays Avenue (and involving a low speed level crossing) will be held to account.

Over dramatic much? the road in question is not that busy being a feeder road to the ashlands housing development, at peak times local congestion means that traffic speeds are very low which is incidentally when the bulk of demand is predicted for the station. Cabstand is far busier as a traffic junction and there hasn't in nearly five years since redevelopment been a pedestrian injury. Plenty of vehicle accidents but that's a different story.
The current plan from the residents consultation is for a toucan (traffic lights) crossing on quays avenue.

Barrier down time required per hour for option 1A alone made the concept unviable, also the report submitted to the ORR contained a response from North Somerset Highways indicating they would object to any DCO application to insert a level crossing. In terms of road crossings option 1A would have required virtually all passengers on foot to cross either harbour rd, quays avenue or station rd/cabstand. Live in the vale? your crossing quays avenue, live in the former docks? harbour rd for you. Live in ashlands? quays avenue or harbour rd. Live in the old town? cross at cabstand.

Trams or tram trains wouldn't use full barrier crossings to go over a roadway rather simple traffic lights and a sufficiently slow speed to allow the tram to stop if blocked. This location had been deemed to need a full barrier crossing for heavy rail trains to avoid issues with vehicle and foot traffic jumping the barriers. All foot crossings are being provided as either over bridges or underpasses and Sheepway gate farm crossing is getting a overbridge.

Anyway the consultation report on a level crossing stated the below in relation to traffic:

When the level crossing barriers are raised the queuing traffic on Quays Avenue would only be able to advance a limited distance southbound due to the remaining queue backing from the junction with Wyndham Way. The effect of this would be a queue extending across the level crossing, towards the Harbour Road / Phoenix Way junction.
Traffic queuing across a level crossing would increase the safety risk, particularly in relation to the risk of a vehicle or pedestrian becoming trapped between the barriers. It would also increase the train performance risk, arising from vehicles obstructing the safe operation of the level crossing barriers, resulting in late running of train services. The southbound queue on Quays Avenue would take some time to diminish to a point where traffic no longer queues across the level crossing. However, this would be interrupted by the next cycle of the level crossing, (assuming four cycles of 3 minutes each). This is because two of the cycles occur consecutively within approximately 10 minutes, in order to achieve the required train service pattern.

 

[MarkyT]

Over dramatic much? the road in question is not that busy being a feeder road to the ashlands housing development, at peak times local congestion means that traffic speeds are very low which is incidentally when the bulk of demand is predicted for the station. Cabstand is far busier as a traffic junction and there hasn't in nearly five years since redevelopment been a pedestrian injury. Plenty of vehicle accidents but that's a different story.
The current plan from the residents consultation is for a toucan (traffic lights) crossing on quays avenue.

Barrier down time required per hour for option 1A alone made the concept unviable, also the report submitted to the ORR contained a response from North Somerset Highways indicating they would object to any DCO application to insert a level crossing. In terms of road crossings option 1A would have required virtually all passengers on foot to cross either harbour rd, quays avenue or station rd/cabstand. Live in the vale? your crossing quays avenue, live in the former docks? harbour rd for you. Live in ashlands? quays avenue or harbour rd. Live in the old town? cross at cabstand.

Trams or tram trains wouldn't use full barrier crossings to go over a roadway rather simple traffic lights and a sufficiently slow speed to allow the tram to stop if blocked. This location had been deemed to need a full barrier crossing for heavy rail trains to avoid issues with vehicle and foot traffic jumping the barriers. All foot crossings are being provided as either over bridges or underpasses and Sheepway gate farm crossing is getting a overbridge.

Anyway the consultation report on a level crossing stated the below in relation to traffic:

Yes I overreacted there, and thank you for that detailed understanding of the decision making. The Rolls Royce solution to getting near the old station site might have been a road overbridge but that could have been very expensive and obtrusive, so the current proposals look the best value and most realistic. The scheme's a good one overall and in addition to the new stations it will improve the service greatly at Bedminster and Parson Street.

With retrospect it is lamentable local authorities deliberately planned that new road in to cross the rail alignment on the flat seemingly without any thought or passive provision for rail reinstatement, but then that scenario is by no means unique and the new station site is close walking to a lot of newer housing on the Bristol side of town, which could become popular with Bristol commuters, even those going further afield by changing at Temple Meads.

Low speed automatic open and half barrier crossings are no different really from the tram crossings you describe and are supervised by the train driver just like the tram version. They also usually have significantly lower road closed time for each train than an interlocked full barrier. In Portishead one of these would still be prone to the road traffic block back effect however. With single line sections surrounding Bristol on both this and the Avonmouth/Severn Beach branch, frequent service will demand slick operation to timetable, so adding to uncertainty by introducing a chance of extra crossing delays is undesirable.