Mangotsfield railway station

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Mangotsfield
Mangotsfield railway station in 1973
Location
Place Mangotsfield
Area South Gloucestershire
Grid reference ST665753
Operations
Pre-grouping Midland Railway
Post-grouping London, Midland and Scottish Railway
London Midland Region of British Railways
Platforms 6
History
1 May 1845 Opened
4 August 1869 Rebuilt 805m south
7 March 1966 Closed
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain
A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z
Portal icon UK Railways portal
Taken from the station today, looking towards Bristol on The Bristol & Bath Railway Path

Mangotsfield railway station was a station on the Midland Railway Bristol and Gloucester main line and was situated about five miles to the north east of Bristol in what is now the suburb of Mangotsfield.

The station was the junction for the Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line that led to Bath Green Park railway station and on southwards over the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway to Bournemouth. It had six platforms, including a bay platform used by the passenger service to Clifton Down using the Clifton Extension Railway. The latter services were discontinued in 1940 following the outbreak of war and were never reinstated. Part of the line to Bath now forms the Avon Valley Railway, which has its headquarters at Bitton.

The line to Bath was strengthened in the 1930s so as to take heavier locomotives and the station was very busy until the 1960s, when the Beeching Report recommended closure. The station closed in 1966 when services between Bristol and Bath on the line were withdrawn; stopping services between Bristol and Gloucester on the Midland line had been withdrawn in 1965 and the last regular through passenger train to use the third side of the triangle, which connected Bath and Gloucester but bypassed the station itself and did not have platforms, had ended in 1962 with the re-routing of the Pines Express away from the Midland and Somerset & Dorset lines, though some freight used it later.

Carson's chocolate factory occupied the centre of the triangle (along with its own cricket pitch) and had its own siding which saw chocolate trains until the early 1960s. The station also handled a lot of racing pigeon traffic, the birds being loaded into special vans. The mail train, which in the days of the Travelling Post Office always had to have the mail catcher on the left, was turned every day on the triangle until the mid-1960s.

The station was the inspiration behind Arnold Ridley's play The Ghost Train after Ridley found himself stranded there one evening. The sound of a train on the curve bypassing the station (used by non-stopping trains between Bath and Gloucester) gave the impression of a train approaching, passing and departing but not being seen.

The station is now on the route of the Bristol & Bath Railway Path, part of National Cycle Route 4.

Services

Preceding station Disused railways Following station
Staple Hill
Line and station closed		   Bristol and Gloucester Railway
Midland Railway		   Yate
Line closed
Terminus   Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line
Midland Railway		   Warmley
Line and station closed

References

  • Passengers No More, by Gerald Daniels and L A Dench (Ian Allan, 2nd ed, 1974)

External links

Coordinates: 51°28′33″N 2°28′59″W / 51.4757°N 2.4830°W / 51.4757; -2.4830

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