Rebuilding the Branch | Bristol Harbour Railway Blog

Thankfully we have been lucky with the weather recently and have done more work on repairing and rebuilding the branch to A Bond.

EVEN MORE concrete sleepers have arrived and were stashed on wagons. These deliveries have almost finished now with enough in stock to relay the majority of the running line. Bob caught these photos of Crane 32 doing the honours with Henbury ready to tow them away.

A thankless task has been moving the stacks of concrete sleepers which were left on the trackbed in the new station area. The contractors employed to fix the wall of the New Cut and the Chocolate Path were meant to have installed these in ‘the gap’ but for some reason this was not done before the work site was cleared. We need to re-grade this area due to the height difference in the old running line and the new yard area, so the laborious work of moving all the sleepers had to be done by Larry and a few volunteers. Frustrating, but necessary to allow work to continue.
Chris cleared the last few earlier last week leaving the platform road clear.

At the weekend we were then able to drag another 30-foot rail into position at the railhead and begin to hammer keys into every other rail chair to give the track some rigidity. Then, using a turfer ratchet chain thingy we slewed the 60-foot panel to begin making a gently curve towards the station.
The view at the end of the day shows the new curve as well as the height discrepancy between the new track and the old. The old railhead will need jacking up and re-packing underneath once it’s been connected to the new panel.

The long journey back to the Bonded Warehouses at Ashton Avenue Bridge took another step in the right direction last weekend.
The last train ran here in 2015, when the station was closed to make way for the Metrobus route over the bridge. Since then, progress has been hampered firstly by the delay in building the bus route, followed by the collapse of the wall along the New Cut in 2020. This has now been fixed, but Vauxhall Bridge was then closed for refurbishment for 2 years, which has resulted in the track under the bridge being blocked by scaffolding.

The railway has been stockpiling assets to return down the branch, with multiple deliveries of concrete sleepers over the past year.

Staff and volunteers have been putting the time in, prepping the area around the station now that the contractors have moved out. Track that had been stored alongside A Bond has been pulled out, sleepers sorted into no-hopers vs. reusable ones, and roughly laid along the trackbed.

Last Saturday we were able to take another step forward. More sleepers were moved into position and lined up from the stub of track remaining on the West side of the slip, then Larry dragged two 60-foot rails out of the pile and with much lifting, levering and a gentle tap from the bucket, managed to drop the rails into the chairs.

It may only be one track panel so far, but it gave an immense feeling of satisfaction and progress. The next one is likely to be another 60-footer. The aims here are to build a single line from the railhead to the platform in the first instance, for works trains. This will be followed by relaying the area outside A Bond to allow access to the Barn and the run-round loop. There is some re-grading to be done as the platform area is much higher than the running line, and the old railhead is lower than the new yard, so will need to be built up.
Several passers-by had positive comments while we were working, with the best one being “Does this mean we’re getting our train back?”

Whilst the trackwork was going on, the jungle that had grown in front of the shed was cut back, revealing the track underneath! Also a rare view of the Fox, Walker steam locomotive, LMS Brake Van and Ruston inside the shed. This was the victim of a break-in which resulted in every window being smashed and all the side panels taken off and thrown on the floor. Another fixer-upper!