Stapleton Road railway station
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Stapleton Road | |||
 |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Stapleton Road railway station in 1972 | |||
| Location | |||
| Place | Easton | ||
| Local authority | Bristol | ||
| Operations | |||
| Station code | SRD | ||
| Managed by | First Great Western | ||
| Platforms in use | 2 | ||
| Live departures and station information from National Rail | |||
| Annual Rail Passenger Usage | |||
| 2004/05 * | 73,202 | ||
| 2005/06 * | 86,977 | ||
| History | |||
| Key dates | Opened 8 September 1863[1] | ||
| National Rail - UK railway stations | |||
| * Annual passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Stapleton Road from Office of Rail Regulation statistics. | |||
|
|||
Stapleton Road railway station lies in the inner city area of Easton, Bristol, England.
It is a railway station on the Severn Beach Line, although it has some services to the south west of England and Gloucester, mainly in the morning peak.
The station platform has a long mural by local artist Bill Guilding, which features characters illustrating local and historical themes.
The station is considered a "Railway Crime Hotspot" by the British Transport Police[citation needed].
Contents |
[edit] History
Stapleton Road station was opened on 8 September 1863, when the Bristol & South Wales Union Railway was opened. The BSWUR (absorbed by the Great Western Railway in 1868) ran from Temple Meads to New Passage, where a ferry took passengers to South Wales.
The station became a junction station in 1874, when the branch to Clifton Down, now part of the Severn Beach line, was opened. Express trains started calling at Stapleton Road in 1887, when trains from London to South Wales started using the Severn Tunnel. The London to South Wales trains passed through Bristol until 1903, when the direct line through Badminton was opened. Trains from Cardiff to Portsmouth continued to stop at Bristol (Stapleton Road) instead of Temple Meads until the 1960s.
In December 2007 the service towards Temple Meads doubled with the introduction of trains that previously did not stop at the station.
[edit] Future
In March 2007 First Great Western, published details of the improvements they plan to undertake over the next three years[2] , at Stapleton Road they are;
- CCTV
- Help and information points
- Public address system
- Rename station to Easton
- Community garden
- Maintain mural
There are also plans to improve services along the Severn Beach Line from 1 to 2 trains per hour.
[edit] Services
Monday to Saturday there is a roughly half hourly service towards Bristol Temple Meads.
There is currently an hourly service to Avonmouth via Clifton Down along the Severn Beach Line, with certain journeys extended to Severn Beach in the peaks and on Saturdays. To reach Severn Beach it is necessary to change to a connecting bus at Avonmouth during the day on weekdays. There is currently no service on Sundays.
From Sunday 18 May 2008 an improved service will be offered[3]. Trains will start earlier in the morning and finish later in the evening, with three trains to/from Avonmouth in every 2-hour cycle during the daytime in addition to those on other routes. This will have the unfortunate side-effect of trains not being at the same times past each hour.
Services to Severn Beach will be reduced overall, with only one train every two hours Mondays to Fridays, as opposed to the current service provided by a bus every hour connecting with every train. However, overall journey time is shortened by 8 minutes by removing the need to change at Avonmouth. The bus continues to run on Saturdays to provide one journey per hour to/from Severn Beach. For the first time in recent history, there will be a Sunday service, with hourly departures between 10am and 6pm from Bristol to Avonmouth, running until September only. St Andrew's Road and Severn Beach itself continue to have no Sunday service.
Services to other destinations, such as Bristol Parkway, Cardiff, Taunton and Cheltenham Spa will remain largely unaffected.
| Preceding station | National Rail | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawrence Hill | First Great Western Severn Beach Line |
Montpelier | ||
| First Great Western Cardiff - Taunton |
Filton Abbey Wood | |||
| First Great Western Great Malvern/Gloucester - Westbury/South Coast |
Filton Abbey Wood | |||
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ History of the Severn Beach Line
- ^ First Great Western improvement plans
- ^ http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Documents/Custom/DC%20MAY%202008%20TIMETABLE/Bristol%20Temple%20Meads%20to%20Severn%20Beach.pdf New timetable from First Great Western
- Maggs, C. (1981) Rail Centres: Bristol Ian Allan ISBN 0 7110 1153 2
[edit] External links
- Train times and station information for Stapleton Road railway station from National Rail
|
|||||||||||
