The Bristol Railway Archive

Many of you may already be aware that Highways England has infilled an S&D Bridge at Chilcompton, thereby reducing an opportunity to extend the section of line so far re-established at Midsomer Norton.

According to https://www.railstaff.co.uk/2021/01/06/ ... king-ball/ Highways England is the government-owned company which has a ┬ú10 million budget for managing the Department for TransportÔÇÖs Historical Railways Estate (HRE) ÔÇô a collection of around 3,200 bridges, tunnels and viaducts. The story seems to be that Highways England is claiming that the bridges it has infilled and those it plans to infill are structurally at risk.

The HRE campaign group (engineers, cycling groups and ÔÇÿgreenwayÔÇÖ groups) say that bridges which are perfectly strong enough, or which could inexpensively be repaired, are being infilled, thus closing down routes future use. HRE has a Facebook pagehttps://www.facebook.com/theHREgroup/

There is a petition at https://www.change.org/p/highways-engla ... cking-ball

I have some difficulty in getting worked up about this subject for a number of reasons.

Firstly there is a lot of politicking in the stance being taken by Highways England. There have already been cases around the country where a bridge has been ÔÇ£threatenedÔÇØ and others, usually local authorities, have stepped up and taken over maintenance responsibility. Clearly to Highways England, if there are people around who are so concerned about keeping ÔÇ£whatever it isÔÇØ then the more of them that can be offloaded to others is no bad thing from their point of view.

The second point is that the statement: ÔÇ£they did this to make damn sure that the station/ railway line would never reopenÔÇØ Is one of the biggest myths ever perpetuated by the railway fraternity upon itself. The evidence is there for all to see and examples are not far away:

Those who were around at the time of Beeching may recall that the closure of Yate caused a good deal of controversy at the time, not least because Yate New Town had just started to be built. My father, who hindsight now tells me was wrong much more than he was right in his rune-reading skills (but thatÔÇÖs another story...), was incensed by the speed at which the platforms were removed and the station building sold off, clearly, in his view, to make damn sure that the station would never reopen. The last time I checked Yate had indeed reopened with a far better service than it ever had pre-1965, and the new up platform is on the site of the old one.

Coaley Junction has not reopened, but a new station at Cam and Dursley is about 300 yards away. Similarly the old Puxton and Worle station has been replaced by a new Worle station.

The removal of a bridge at Stapleton Road 50 years ago did not scupper the re-quadrupling of Filton bank; they simply put one back again.

There is quite an impressive new pskew bridge on the Borders Railway where it crosses a new dual carriageway that was not there when the line originally closed. Some older members may also recall the ructions between the local council and the Severn Valley Railway in the 1970s when the council wanted to punch a hole in an embankment for the Bridgnorth bypass and not provide the SVR with a new bridge.

Finally as regards the S&D, I would imagine that maintenance costs of Chilcompton tunnel, a factory built on the trackbed south east of Chilcompton, a house built on the trackbed at Binegar and the bridge out over the main A39 at Old Down/ Moorewood, are going to be far more significant than replacing what is little more than an occupation bridge at Chilcompton.

If we are referring to the girder bridge on the up and down Filton main lines at the north end of Stapleton Road, strictly speaking it was not removed, just taken out of use until it was replaced a few years ago. My understanding is that when the M32 Motorway was ploughed through the suburbs there, the River Frome was diverted and culverted causing the ground to dry out and the foundations of the bridge to be compromised. The sturdy old stone bridge on the up and down relief lines was not affected thankfully, otherwise the history of Bristol's railways might potentially have turned out rather differently, even if only in the short term.

Regarding Chilcompton Tunnel, I understand there is also an issue regarding one of the bores being leased to a rifle club.

Roy

It is true that one of the bores of Chilcompton tunnel is used by a rifle club.

AIUI their lease expires about 2030 and I doubt very much that the S&DRHT will be in position to need to use the tunnel much before that date. I am sure that, as/when the needs arises, a sensible discussion between all parties could result in the rifle club being found a new home thereafter.

Thanks Roy, you are right about Stapleton Road bridge. It does, however, make the point very well that even if a bridge is still in situ it doesn't necessarily mean that it is good enough to take the weght of trains after long periods of disuse

As regards Chilcompton tunnel and the rifle range, presumaby the S&DRHT would only need one bore anyway. As far as I know the club are only using one bore, so the fact they are there might not be an issue. I was thinking more in terms of the costs of maintaining the tunnel, which I suspect has not been touched in 55 years.