Trains at: Bristol Temple Meads, GWML, 12/08/23
184An excellent afternoon spent at Bristol Temple Meads on the Great Western Mainline where we see plenty of services from Great Western Railway and Cross Country with freight from Freightliner.
Bristol train station was built in 1840 by the Great Western Railway and it wasn't to long until the station went through some redevelopment with the platforms being extended in 1871-1878 to accommodate the longer trains as the need and demand for them started to increase. And again it was lengthened in the 1930's with bizarly the original platforms being closed in 1965. Slightly odd in the sense that the station kept growing.
The station was designed by none other by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and was the western terminus of the Great Western Mainline from London Paddington, however this was closed in 1965. The structure still stands to this day but it isn't a part of the current operational station, however the whole site has been listed as Grade 1 which means that no work can take place that would mean taking away some of the structure, renovation work is allowed but the station building must be the same. The station consists of 15 platforms but you'll only ever find 8 in use by passenger trains, however all the stations serve as doubles ultimately with 2 numbers at either end. The exception being platform 1 which is a bay platform.
The station name comes from 2 sources. The first being 'Temple' which refers to the nearby church which was called Temple Church. This was subsequently bombed and gutted by the German Airforce during WW2, the term 'meads' comes from the various water meadows that came from the River Avon. So in turn it was decided that the station would be known as Bristol Temple Meads.
To avoid flooding the original station was built on a grade 1 listed viaduct over the then floating harbour and Avon river, Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed it so it would operate on his 7ft broad gauge network, at the time it was the first station to be built in the city. Standard gauge running was brought into the station by the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway and this was achieved by adding a third rail to the line which meant that the rest of the UK network co up now run into Bristol and work alongside the Great Western Railway company. Eventually standard gauge became the norm throughout the UK which meant that Brunels terminus was no longer needed.
My next station is Cardiff Central.
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