After a hiatus of over a year, steam tug ‘Mayflower’ is back cruising the harbour this weekend!
Following a series of repairs and refreshed parts, she was lit up and went for a test sailing today whilst Henbury and Crane 30 were on ‘Have a Go’ duties.
Sailings are due to take place Saturday and Sunday and trips can be booked from the ticket office.
Thanks to Bob for the photos!
Due to unforeseen circumstances trains are sadly cancelled this Sunday (11th October). Have-a-go week is still going ahead as planned.
Some wonderful pictures of my favourite weekend of the year. Thanks to Katie Richards and Bob Edwardes for the photos.
Activities on the quayside:
People:
L Shed contained Bob’s excellent M Shed model with working trains and cranes, displays about the docks, The Friends were selling cake, and of course Hook-A-Duck was very popular.
Ned also came by with his cute steamboat.
Unfortunately due to the rainy conditions we are not going to be running passenger services on the BHR today. Hopefully back tomorrow and Bank Holiday Monday.
Local railwayman and Author Paul Stanford is giving a talk all about the Imperial Smelting Co. At Avonmouth, which was served by the Port of Bristol Authority railway lines.
Portbury’s sister locomotive No. 1798 worked there (now based at the Avon Valley Railway).
The event is being hosted at Bitton Station on June 10th at 6:30pm and you can reserve tickets here:
Due to the current heatwave, Plimsoll Bridge (at the Cumberland Basin end of the Harbour) ran into difficulties. The swinging section of the bridge had expanded in the heat and couldn’t close!
Avon Fire and Rescue were called out to hose down the upper surface of the bridge, while the Harbour Master put in a call to M Shed, who scrambled a crew to get the 92-year old Fire Float ‘Pyronaut’ in to spray the underside with water.
It was ‘Pyronaut’s first shout in 54 years!
Thanks to David Stagg for these photos:
This coming weekend (28th and 29th March) is the start of the operating season on the Bristol Harbour Railway.
Over the past few weeks, volunteers have been putting in the graft to get everything ready after the winter shut-down.
The last few loads of concrete sleepers are cleared off the dockside and onto waiting wagons to be taken to the stack at SS Great Britain Halt.
The flangeways on the inlaid track have been thoroughly cleaned.
And of course, Henbury has been given a good clean and polish. The first fire was tentatively lit on the new firebars, badly needed after the old ones became warped.
Hopefully see you at the weekend for a train ride!
Back by popular demand are the HAVE-A-GO experiences at M Shed.
YOU can have a go at driving steam locomotive ‘Henbury’ as well as one of the electric cranes.
For just £80 you receive 20 minutes one-on-one tuition on each machine as well as a certificate of achievement (you might even get a free cup of tea!).
Have-a-go is running from Monday 13th to Friday 17th October 2025
Click here for more information.
or
Click here to book your driving experience.
Last weekend more preparation for the relaying of the New Cut branch to A Bond warehouse took place along with track maintenance ahead of the first running weekend of the year this coming Saturday and Sunday.
The sleepers were unloaded on to one of the flat wagons earlier in the week. The Coles Crane was to be used but needed to be on the East side of the wagon, so Larry was used to push the truck up the quayside and enable the Coles to couple up. The Coles then propelled the wagon up the branch to the siding alongside Cumberland Road bridge.
We put our cargo handling and crane direction training as seen at Docks Heritage Weekend to good use. Using the brothers (dual chain hooks) enables 2 sleepers to be loaded at a time and stacked neatly on the siding.
With that done and the wagon returned to the yard, in the afternoon the team were jacking and packing sleepers on the running line by the steam crane, as well as slewing the rails to ease the curve either side of the rail join. This required multiple jacks and a lot of sweat!
HENBURY will be in steam tomorrow morning so come on down and enjoy a train ride in the sunshine.
