Mangotsfield railway station

First station The first railway through Mangotsfield was the Bristol and Gloucestershire Railway, which opened in 1828. The line, which was horse-drawn, was built to convey stone and coal to Bristol Harbour. The line was built as single track standard gauge, but with space for double track. A connecting branch, known as the Avon and Gloucestershire Railway, was built from Mangotsfield south towards the River Avon in the 1830s. The Bristol and Gloucestershire Railway was purchased by the Bristol and Gloucester Railway in the early 1840s, as part of a plan to connect Gloucester with the Great Western Railway at . The line was converted to locomotive operation and broad-gauge, with services beginning in July 1844. There was initially no station at Mangotsfield, which was a small village in an area of farmland. In March 1845, the Railways Board resolved "that a station on the cheapest scale be established at Mangotsfield". Less than two months later, on 1 May 1845, the station was opened. It was located east of the village, just south of what is now the B4465 Main Road in the hamlet of Shortwood, at the junction with the Avon and Gloucestershire Railway. It took until 1866 for another station – , to the west – to be opened between Mangotsfield and Bristol. Facilities at Mangotsfield were very limited. When the station opened there was nothing apart from a platform either side of the two running lines. The western "up" platform served trains towards Gloucester, and the eastern "down" platform served trains towards Bristol. The station had an initial passenger service of six trains per day each way between Bristol and . Following the conversion of the line to dual broad and standard gauge in 1854, passenger trains were all standard gauge, which allowed direct services to . Occasional broad gauge goods trains operated until 1882. In 1888, a station was opened at , west of Mangotsfield. The station as built was sparsely furnished: there was a small building on the centre platform in a standard Midland Railway style, which housed the booking office and two waiting rooms, and also a shelter on the Bristol-bound branch platform. The initial service along the Bath branch was 9 trains per day each way, increasing to 18 each way by 1910. In 1874, services began on the Clifton Extension Railway, a joint railway operated by the Midland and Great Western railways to connect to the Bristol Port Railway and Pier. The Midland initially operated 13 trains per day between and Mangotsfield, terminating in the bay platform. Significant enhancements were made to the station in 1883, designed by Midland Railway architect John Holloway Sanders and built by John Garlick of Birmingham. The original station buildings were deconstructed and sold to local tradespeople, with new stone buildings erected. The Western Daily Press described the new building on the centre platform in extensive detail: A Carson's Chocolate factory was opened in the middle of the Mangotsfield railway triangle in the early 1910s. Served by a private siding; and with its own cricket pitch, tennis courts and bowling green; the factory became a well-known landmark for rail travellers, as well as an extra source of passengers for the station. The station also became the site of regular releases of racing pigeons. Mangotsfield's peak usage came in the inter-war years, when the station staff consisted of a station master, two booking clerks, two foremen, and three porters; however, Mangotsfield itself never saw the large amounts of traffic it had been built for, and was considered a somewhat desolate place. Passenger traffic declined following the war and when the railways were nationalised in 1948 – following the passage of the Transport Act 1947 – Mangotsfield came under the aegis of the London Midland Region of British Railways. The eastern side of the Mangotsfield triangle closed on 18 September 1962, and, with the Great Western Main Line providing an alternative route from Bristol to Bath, the Beeching Report of 1963 recommended closure of the branch from Mangotsfield to Bath Green Park. Goods facilities at the original site of the station were withdrawn on 10 June 1963, and local stopping services between Bristol and Gloucester ended on 4 January 1965. The trackbed through Mangotsfield was disused until the late 1970s when cycling charity Sustrans began to convert the route from Bristol to Bath into a cycle path. The path, built between 1979 and 1986 and known as the Bristol & Bath Railway Path, was the first major project undertaken by Sustrans, and is the oldest part of the National Cycle Network. Part of National Cycle Route 4, the path now handles over a million travellers per year. The platforms provide a resting point for pedestrians and cyclists, and replica railway tickets are inlaid in the platform surface. The station and cycle path are now owned by South Gloucestershire Council and Sustrans. The rest of the Mangotsfield railway area has mostly been built over. The eastern part of the Mangotsfield triangle is now part of the A4174 Bristol Ring Road. The chocolate factory in the centre of the triangle was demolished in 1998 and the area, including land directly south of the station outside the triangle, is now a housing estate with chocolate- and railway-themed road names. == Incidents ==

There have been a number of collisions, derailments and fatal accidents at Mangotsfield. On 9 March 1853, there was a fatal collision between the morning mail train and another locomotive. The mail train from Gloucester – composed of a locomotive, passenger carriage, and mail van – had stopped at the station to allow the driver to adjust a loose pin on the locomotive. In dense fog, another locomotive, travelling from Gloucester to Bristol, crashed into it from behind at . The carriages of the mail train were smashed to pieces, with passengers thrown about. Two passengers – Thomas Jones and William Antill – were killed, while several others suffered severe injuries. At inquest, the deaths were attributed to neglect of duty by the mail train's guard, Abraham Perkins, and the under-guard, William Maycock, as the pair had failed to exhibit danger signals once the train had stopped. The two men were indicted on charges of manslaughter, but were acquitted at the Gloucester assizes. On 16 January 1861, a train derailed near the site of the second Mangotsfield station. A landslide, thought to have been caused by frost, dropped a large boulder to block the line towards Birmingham, causing the entire train — locomotive, luggage van and three carriages — to come off the tracks. There were no significant injuries, and the tracks were cleared within five hours. On 23 September 1861, another collision occurred at the station. A goods train, which was being shunted into the sidings north of the station to allow a passenger train to pass, broke down while crossing the southbound track. There was no electrical telegraph system at Mangotsfield and, although efforts were made to alert signallers at Yate, an excursion train returning from Liverpool and Manchester crashed into the goods train. Three of the goods train's wagons were derailed, and twelve passengers aboard the excursion train were injured, including one severely. Another collision occurred on 30 August 1886, at the site of the first station. A goods train from the north had shunted onto the line towards Bath, on the eastern side of the Mangotsfield triangle. An excursion train from Cheltenham and Gloucester, heading for Weston-super-Mare, was arriving from the north and heading west into the station. As it was passing the junction, the goods train began to back out onto the main line. The locomotive and first few carriages of the excursion train, which was heavily laden, passed without incident, however after this the rear of the goods train fouled the main line. The last goods van grazed the rest of the excursion train's carriages, smashing the coaches' steps and damaging the side panels. The guard's van of the excursion train however had a projecting observatory box, in which the guard, James Quick, was sitting, and this hit the goods train. The observatory box and rear of the guard's van were ripped off. Quick suffered severe head wounds, while two passengers received minor injuries. On 18 February 1926, a wagon examiner named Daniel Alway suffered a fatal accident in the sidings at Mangotsfield. Alway had been walking along the siding while a train was shunting, in the same direction he was walking, when he lurched towards the train "as though his ankle had given out, or that he had trodden on loose metalling". Alway was hit by the train and run over by it. He was rushed to the Bristol Royal Infirmary, where his lower legs were amputated, however he became septic and died from heart failure on 26 February. Another trackside worker lost their life at Mangotsfield in 1934: Albert Henry Noad, a platelayer of 35 years' experience, was clearing weeds from the side of the track when he was hit by a passing train. Coworkers stated Noad needed to be near the rails in order to do his job properly, but did not hear a shouted warning and misjudged the distance to the oncoming train. A verdict of accidental death was recorded. Further members of railway staff were hit and killed by trains in 1941, 1948 and 1949. In 1935, two teenage boys were convicted of endangering the lives of railway passengers after they put a fishplate weighing on the tracks. The plate was subsequently run over by a train, causing damage to a sleeper and a wall. Two passenger carriages derailed at Mangotsfield in 1936. The coaches were being shunted just west of the station when they became fouled on a set of points and derailed. Both coaches were empty, and there were no injuries. == Notes ==