Mangotsfield and Bath
Branch Line
miles
km
Time in
minutes
0
Mangotsfield
0
2¾
Warmley
4
Oldland Common
8
Bitton
(AVR)
11
Avon Riverside
Kelston
16
9¾
14½
Weston
22
Coal gas Works
Bath Goods Depot
River Avon (from Bath)
10½
16¾
Bath Green Park
formerly Queen Square
26

The Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line opened in 1869 to connect Bath to the Midland Railway network at Mangotsfield, on the former Bristol and Gloucester Railway.

The line was used by through trains from the Midlands and the North of England, such as the Pines Express, which reversed at Bath Green Park railway station and then proceeded southwards over the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway to Bournemouth. The main passenger traffic was local, with trains to Bath from Bristol Temple Meads, the St Philips Midland Railway station in Bristol, and from Clifton Down on the Clifton Extension Railway.

In its latter years, train service cuts reduced and then eliminated the number of passenger trains using the line from the north, and, though serving different communities on route, the line was in direct competition for the traffic between Bath and Bristol with the more direct and faster Great Western Railway route. As a feeder to the S&DJR, the line's fortunes were inextricably linked with those of the Somerset and Dorset line, and it closed on the same day, 7 March 1966, as part of the Beeching Axe, though freight services to Bath's gas works continued to 1971.

Weston station, September 2007

Present

The northern section from Mangotsfeild to Warmley been greatly used by the dual carriage development of the A4174 road, although both station sites presently still exist. The remainder of the line was passed from the British Railways Board to Sustrans, who in co-operations with the local councils developed the Bristol & Bath Railway Path.

The Avon Valley Railway based at Bitton came to an agreeent to run a single track alongside the bicycle path, from Oldland Common to Avon Riverside Further development of the preservation railway is wholly dependent on a useage agreement with Sustrans.

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