And I'm mildly surprised it's acceptable to have lifts on an unstaffed station.

A couple of comments, one frivolous, others less so. To get the frivolous one out of the way: Will there really be IETs calling at this station as the video suggests?!

And the others:
Opening in 2023 seems optimistic compared to the experience of other local stations.
They mention services to Henbury but nothing to Parkway. If this is correct, this will substantially reduce the usefulness of the station.
The design includes lifts for the footbridge rather than ramps. I take the point that this is less visually intrusive and also takes less platform space, but it will presumably incur increased maintenance costs. And I'm mildly surprised it's acceptable to have lifts on an unstaffed station.

I'm still a little surprised that a bridge/lift is needed and that an access ramp from Station Lane on the Muller Road side is not possible.  I'll probably have a gander down there tomorrow to try to see why it's a non-runner.

Ah, I think I can see the trap you've fallen into. It would probably be quite feasible to build a ramp from Station Lane up to the level of the station, but unfortunately at that point you'd still have to get across the main lines to reach the platform...  Blame TonyK!

Ashley Down station
To facilitate the earlier delivery of Ashley Down station during the national COVID19 emergency, funding from the 'New Stations Fund' has been requested to accelerate the detailed design and construction including the preparation of the full business case. Ashley Down station's location on the Filton Bank lines means it should be possible for it to be served by existing services. This means it could be separated from the Henbury Line MetroWest Phase 2 works. The construction of the station would provide access to the rail network to a large number of people due to the residential area in which it will be located, noting there are significant challenges to be overcome with the location and gradient.

As a result of the additional trains to service the Proposed Development, the predicted increase in noise is approximately 1 dB during the day and night periods. This increase in sound is predominantly due to the full power operation of the diesel locomotive which forms part of the Class 255 train as it pulls away from the station. This change in level is classified as ‘negligible’ under the criteria used on the most current rail projects in the UK.

Class 255 trains

What are these?

Present
Great Western Railway's short formed HST sets have been designated the Class 255 Castle classification, though this is not a TOPS classification as they are still InterCity 125 trains

I always wondered why Ashley Down was two words but Totterdown only one. But given the acronym that would result if it were called Ashleydown, perhaps it's for the better.

Looks to me like an inspection cover that gives access to a small well or borehole. Probably too small to be a useful water source, more likely to be for survey purposes in order that the height of the water table table may be ascertained.

Looks to me like an inspection cover that gives access to a small well or borehole. Probably too small to be a useful water source, more likely to be for survey purposes in order that the height of the water table table may be ascertained.

Some good news I think.  I've just received the notification below as an email attachment concerning approval for the reopening of Ashley Down Station by Bristol City Council.

It will give Station Road a station, something which I think will be unique among the Station Roads in the area.

...It will give Station Road a station, something which I think will be unique among the Station Roads in the area...

Now you wouldn't expect me to let that go unchallenged, would you?

By my reckoning Bristol has 15 Station Roads.

The nearest to Station Road, Ashley Down is in Montpelier, 1.5 km to the south-west. That leads to Montpelier Station, which is very much open.

Station Road, Filton is just under 3.5 km to the north. This was named after Filton (Junction) Station, which is no more, but it leads reasonably well to the station at Filton Abbey Wood which replaced it.

Fishponds, 3.5 km to the east, has a Station Road along with a New Station Road and a New Station Way. The latter opened long after the station closed. Given that it occupies the site of Fishponds Station, it would perhaps would have been better named 'Old Station Way'!

Patchway Station, 4 km north of Ashley Down and open, is served by another Station Road.

Henbury has a Station Road, about 5 km from Ashley Down. There is a plan to open a new station near here, but it will be over 400m away from Station Road. Arguably this could confuse some!

5 km to the south is Station Road, Brislington. No station here!

The closed station at Staple Hill, 5.5 km to the east, was served by a Station Road

Shirehampton's Station Road is just over 7 km west of Ashley Down, and leads to another open station.

Station Road at Pill, a little further to the west and over the River Avon, will hopefully soon lead to a station.

A similar distance in the opposite direction, Warmley's Station Road leads to quite a pleasant station, but it's rather unlikely to see another train.

Keynsham's Station Road, 9 km to the south-east, leads to a busy main line station.

Don't get me started about Station Road, Portishead - 13 km to the west. Suffice to say that a new Portishead Station will be some way away from here.

Further afield, Coalpit Heath and Winterbourne also have Station Roads. There are no current plans to reopen either station, though FoSBR would like to see Coalpit Heath reopened.

So 5 of Bristol's Station Roads currently lead to stations still served by trains; 2 more will be served once MetroWest is complete. In addition, 2 Station Roads will not serve a station because it has been moved from its original location.

The A-Z, on the other hand, has an index which lists every street. Just the job... except that, oddly, it indicated a Station Road in St Annes Park. A beer to anyone who can tell locate it for me! I concluded that it was a Trap Street.

Things now seem to be happening around the proposed Ashley Down railway station. Here is a message from the Ashley Down Station Project Partnership

"We are contacting you about progress with the new railway station in Ashley Down, which will improve the public transport service in the area.

Our project partnership includes the West of England Combined Authority working with Bristol City Council, Network Rail, Great Western Railways and contractors BAM Nuttall. Works will be carried out by accredited contractors on behalf of Network Rail and Bristol City Council.

We are in the final stages of securing funding for the project and hope it will be confirmed by the end of January 2023. We will then be able to begin delivering a new railway station at Ashley Down, with construction set to take place between early 2023 and 2024.

This means we expect to start engineering works towards the end of February 2023.

Ahead of work starting, we’ve set up two online meetings in January so we can speak with local residents and stakeholders about the works.

The sessions are a chance for us to answer questions and for the project team to set out what the works will involve. Details of these events are below:

Session 1: Tuesday 31 January 2023 from 6.30pm to 8pm – book now [no link - Red Squirrel - maybe try https://travelwest.info/projects/ashley-down-station. ]

Session 2: Thursday 2 February 2023 from 6.30pm to 8pm – book now [no link - see above]

The construction of the new station, and improvements to public land surrounding the entrance to the station, will involve a temporary closure and diversion of a section of the Concorde Way walking and cycling route.

The new station is being funded by the West of England Combined Authority, in conjunction with Bristol City Council, South Gloucestershire Council and Bath & North-East Somerset Council as part of a wider programme of railway improvements funded by the West of England Combined Authority, known as MetroWest. This aims to improve connectivity, de-carbonise our transport network, and support economic growth across the region.

Following on from the consultation phase in 2020, we are keen to keep lines of communication open with you and local residents – both now as we prepare to start work in your area, and throughout the project.

In the meantime, you can find more information about the project at https://travelwest.info/projects/ashley-down-station.
 
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Transport Engagement at Bristol City Council by emailing transport.engagement@bristol.gov.uk or phoning 0117 903 6449 and leaving a message on the answerphone.

Ashley Down Station Project Partnership"

By 2030 MetroWest 2 is expected to be remove 3 million kilometres from the road network, based on an average petrol car today this is equivalent to 500 tons of C02 each year.

Construction of new railway station to begin early 2023


Construction work on a new train station in Bristol is due to begin early in 2023.

The station, at Ashley Down, will be between Temple Meads and Filton Abbey Wood, with services eventually running to the new YTL Arena in Filton.

It will be built on Station Road, just south of the Ashley Down allotments and should be completed in 2024.

The start date for the works should be announced next month at a West of England Combine Authority meeting.

The site used to be home to Ashley Hill Station, which closed in 1964 as part of the Beeching cuts, which saw roughly 5,000 miles of track closed and more than 2,300 stations axed in the 1960s, mainly in rural areas.

Ashley Down station is part of the MetroWest Phase 2 project, which will also see new train stations built at North Filton next to the new arena, and at Henbury.

These two stations have been hit by delays and the North Filton station is expected to open in 2026, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.


Ashley Down Station is part of Phase 2 of the MetroWest public transport plan

Bristol mayor, Marvin Rees, said: "This will be the first time in almost 60 years that residents in the Ashley Down area will be able to catch trains locally, helping to better connect people to employment, education and leisure opportunities, while tackling congestion and pollution, and reducing social and economic isolation."

Green councillor, Lily Fitzgibbon, also welcomed the plans, but said a residential parking scheme should be brought in when the station opens.

"People from further out may use the residential streets around the station as a free park-and-ride, and so we will continue to put pressure on the administration for a residents' parking zone," she added.

Will the opening of Ashley Down station signal the start of half-hourly running to Yate and Gloucester, or is that dependent on something else?

The official line is that services terminating at Filton Abbey Wood will call here, and that these services will be extended to Brabazon and Henbury when these stations open.

It would seem very sensible for a 2TPH Bristol - Gloucester service to stop at Ashley Down, but no-one is committing to that at the moment. Whether that service goes ahead in May 2023 is another question, what with the funding gap and potential lack of suitable units to run it.

5. Cllr Heather Mack, Councillor for Lockleaze

Question 1

When will the Ashley Down, North Filton and Henbury stations open and trains start running on the Henbury spur? What are the risks of these timelines being pushed back?

Response from Mayor Dan Norris:

The current programme shows a target date for Ashley Down Station to open in 2024 and North Filton and Henbury in 2026. As we know from local experience of building new railways over the decades, that delays are always possible and indeed likely in projects of this size and complexity. Passenger services on the Henbury Spur are planned to be introduced as soon as North Filton and Henbury stations have been built and are ready for operation. Once ready to open, Ashley Down station has been timetabled as a stop on the existing Bristol Temple Meads to Filton Abbey Wood hourly service. This service will subsequently be extended to Henbury.

It is essential that funding is agreed in January 2023 for Ashley Down Station so there is time to secure key materials which are on specific lead-times, such as station platform units, in time for them to be installed during a 16-day “blockade” of the railway in June 2023. Here we really are at spade in the ground stage!

North Filton and Henbury station projects, are only at outline design stage and remain subject to planning approval (which the West of England Combined Authority has no powers to speed up). Officers continue to work closely with adjacent developers to ensure that respective designs and construction programmes are integrated, so as to try to minimise delays.

Works compound at Ashley Down station site, Station Lane

IMPORTANT WALKING AND CYCLING ROUTE TO BE CLOSED FOR AT LEAST ONE YEAR

By MARTIN BOOTH, Friday Mar 3, 2023

Concorde Way between Ashley Down and St Werburgh’s is set to close for at least a year, leaving walkers and cyclists having to take a long and potentially dangerous diversion.

Part of the popular route is expected to close from Sunday [5 Mar 2023 - Ed], with a diversion via Boiling Wells Lane and Muller Road.

The closure of the path is to enable the building of the new Ashley Down railway station, part of a project which will reopen the Henbury Line between Bristol Temple Meads and Henbury to passenger traffic.

The new Ashley Down station entrance will be located on Concorde Way where the path meets Station Road.

This imminent closure of part of the Concorde Way comes at the same time as the closure of another traffic-free stretch of the route in Lockleaze between Constable Road and Bonnington Walk is set to continue for a further eight months until the end of August 2023.

Bristol Cycling Campaign say that it is “disappointing” that Legal & General Modular Homes have exceeded their own estimated duration of “a maximum period of six months” or managed to “do our best to open earlier” as they originally stated.

The pressure group are also disappointed that the diversion between Ashley Down and St Werburgh’s is a narrow road to Watercress Farm and then “a muddy, sloping footpath” that joins Muller Road close to Fairfield School.

The cycling campaign says that the proposals for Muller Road are “very unsatisfactory for all path users and (are) not considered to be a comparable route for cyclists with the need to dismount & walk or ride in the heavy traffic”.

...continues

Presumably that's going to auger some holes for the rebar assemblies on the right of your picture to drop into. As I understand it that's how the piling will be done - none of yer whacking columns into the ground with a big hammer!

Is the possession just the two lines? No bustitutions in RTT.

Yes; this one (27-28 May) and the later one (3-18 June) just involve the relief lines. Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Rd will only be served by Severn Beach line trains during these periods.

I was going to say that this work would have been much more disruptive if there were still two tracks here, but as it wouldn't have been possible to open a new station the work  wouldn't have been done!

I had reached the conclusion independently.

Presumably that's going to auger some holes for the rebar assemblies on the right of your picture to drop into.

Network Rail is set to begin a more intensive phase of the construction of the brand-new north Bristol station at Ashley Down, with a solid 16-day period from Saturday 3 June to Monday 19 June, when teams will be working around the clock to install two new platforms.

https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/work-on-bristols-new-railway-station-steps-up-a-gear-as-platform-construction-begins-at-ashley-down

Report on Network Rail website of an upcoming blockade to install platforms at future Ashley Down station:

PS  Filton Bank reverts to a two track railway for the duration. “Two Track Now” 

Paul

This summer also sees essential track maintenance work taking place within the Severn Tunnel, which will be closed from Friday 9 June to Sunday 18 June for vital track replacement. Passengers are advised to check before travelling between these dates, as a bus replacement service will be in operation between Bristol Parkway and Cardiff Central.

Trains will be diverted or replaced by buses between Friday 9 and Sunday 18, and on Sunday 25 June, as Network Rail works around the clock to renew the tracks in the Severn Tunnel.

Engineers will replace 3.2km of old track, as well as 5,200 sleepers (track supports) and 14,000 tonnes of ballast (supporting stone) over a ten-day period. 

Salt-water makes for a corrosive environment inside the tunnel and track that would usually last 25 years needs to be replaced every ten. The new sleepers will be coated in tin to extend their life. 

In 2022, Network Rail replaced 3km of track on the Monmouthshire side of the tunnel. This June, the track will be replaced on the South Gloucestershire side. 

PS  Filton Bank reverts to a two track railway for the duration. “Two Track Now” 

Paul

I didn't realize they were going to have to move the tracks. I thought they had been been put down with the potential platforms in mind when the four-tracking was done.

I didn't realize they were going to have to move the tracks. I thought they had been been put down with the potential platforms in mind when the four-tracking was done.

I think at the site of Ashley Down the tracks installed were the new mains on the east side.  It varied side to side in different areas along the whole length of the bank, but it’s possible the relief side was still in its original position prior to four tracking.

I won't bore you by republishing all the photos on the Network Rail Western twitter feed, but this one piqued my interest: Is this the packing material the platform sections came in, or the platform itself 

I heard that some new stations were being build using expanded polystyrene, but it's still a bit of a surprise to see it!

Let's hope nobody loses the Allan key...

Its ok most people now have draws full of them as you get one with everything now!

This sounds like a quick, economical and sensible way to build a station.....so it definitely won't be employed on the Portishead Line.

Actually it's more like Lego, so no Allen key required:

Ready painted, even. Which takes away some of the fun, doesn't it?

Yes, I was tempted to put that one up here. Impressive, isn't it?

I took the liberty of setting the width to make it a better fit on most devices.

Without wanting to denigrate the speedy performance, I wonder how much was a result of the Filton Bank re-quadrupling and NR knowing exactly where everything was, ground conditions etc. so there were few/no surprises?

I had intended to document the progress of this station for forum members, what with it being close to where I live, but it has proved very difficult to find a suitable vantage point. But NR(W) have been so good at providing almost daily pictures on their twitter feed, it probably wouldn't add much!

I've watched their latest video several times already!

I'm not sure how much audience the various NR twitter accounts actually have, or if anyone apart from us lot really pay much attention