Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line

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Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line

Legend All distances and timings are cumulative from Mangotsfield railway station. Distance Station (Notes) Timings MR (Bristol and Gloucester Railway to Bristol) 0km Mangotsfield (Interchange) 0hours MR (Bristol and Gloucester Railway to Gloucester) 2.01 Warmley 0.04 Oldland Common 0.08 5.63 Bitton (Principal station of Avon Valley Railway) 0.11 River Avon Avon Riverside (Opened in 2004) River Avon 9.25 Kelston 0.16 River Avon River Avon 14.48 Weston (Bath) 0.22 River Avon Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (To Bournemouth) Bath Goods Depot River Avon 16.09 Bath Green Park (Terminus; formerly Queen Square) 0.26

The Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line opened in 1869 to connect Bath to the Midland Railway network at Mangotsfield, on the former Bristol and Gloucester Railway.

The line was used by through trains from the Midlands and the North of England, such as the Pines Express, which reversed at Bath Green Park railway station and then proceeded southwards over the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway to Bournemouth. But the main passenger traffic was local, with trains to Bath from Bristol Temple Meads, the St Philips Midland Railway station in Bristol, and from Clifton Down on the Clifton Extension Railway.

In its latter years, train service cuts reduced and then eliminated the number of passenger trains using the line from the north, and, though serving different communities on route, the line was in direct competition for the traffic between Bath and Bristol with the more direct and faster Great Western Railway route. As a feeder to the S&DJR, the line's fortunes were inextricably linked with those of the Somerset and Dorset line, and it closed on the same day, 7 March 1966, as part of the Beeching Axe, though freight services to Bath's gas works continued to 1971.

Today, a section of the line between Oldland Common and Avon Riverside has been reopened as the Avon Valley Railway. The disused line also forms the route of the Sustrans cycleway and footpath, the Bristol & Bath Railway Path.