(This post was written in 2014)

This was the first day I properly interacted with the Bristol Harbour Railway. It had always been there, I vaguely remember riding it and visiting Bristol Industrial Museum when I was a child. In 2005 I had helped a friend take vehicles to the WW2 event, and in 2006, I remember sitting on a well wagon outside the silent museum as the clock struck midnight. In 2008 I recall driving by and seeing a fox running through the exposed interior of the building.

In 2009, I was fresh out of University and looking for jobs in Bristol centre. On my way back to the Whapping Wharf car park (Itself soon to become a thing of the past) I happened across ‘Henbury’ in the barn (The museum was closed and under redevelopment) and outside, a ship’s boiler on a wagon. There was a young man working on it, and I enquired as to how I could become a volunteer. He pointed me in the direction of the platform and told me to speak to the loco crew. I did so and was promptly invited aboard for a footplate ride on ‘Portbury’!

Whilst I had been aboard a steam loco before, I had never ridden on the footplate whilst it was under way, and it was at this moment that I knew this was something I wanted to get involved with.

Henbury out of use in the barn

Riding ‘Portbury’ into the yard

Very exciting

Portbury at SS Great Britain

M Shed during rebuild

The nearly-completed frontage

The yard

Construction everywhere

‘The Cathedral’ not yet fitted out

The old coal depot

The ex-WFC compound with tracks still in situ

Back of the barn

Overview of the site, now covered by housing

Rear of the Olive Shed

This building became the Mud Dock Deli

Former crane base

More old track

A photostitch showing the (at the time) empty car park