Cost of railway station parking
Can’t quite believe that the cost of parking at Weston-super-Mare station is rising from £2.50 a day to £6.00 a day from the 17th May.
That’s not quite an inflationary increase is it?
So there I was thinking that the was an increase effort to get people to use trains, this is a bit of a disincentive.
Even at Worle Station it’s rising from £2 a day now to £3.
Guess who will be walking to the station now….
Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2016
Across this blog I wrote fifteen posts in 2016. As might not be expected most of the top ten posts that year were from 2016, and I was pleased to see how popular my 1990s photographs of the Bristol Harbourside were.
I visited Legoland in 2013 and felt that it was A bit tired and this was the tenth most popular post, dropping one place from last year.
Also about Legoland Miniland was the ninth post.
The eighth post was about Time travelling by train which was a post on the newly painted GWR High Speed Train in the classic 1970s blue and yellow.
The seventh popular post was inspired by a newspaper article and talked about the many Changes at the railway station in Weston-super-Mare.
The sixth placed post was from my 2012 series of Cinematic Advent Calendar posts, this one was #07 – The Eagle has Landed. There were quite a few films in the advent calendar that have significant memories over and above the film itself. Queuing for Star Wars was significant for example. With The Eagle has Landed I went to see it at the Aldeburgh cinema with my grandparents.
When I used film, I didn’t take than many photographs, but I did take a fair few of the Bristol Harbourside, so the fifth post was of the Bryan Brothers’ Garage Demolition, Bristol, circa 1999.
Three of the next four posts were similar and all contain photographs from the Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s.
Fourth was this post Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s and third was this one: Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s (second part).
The second most popular post was a comparison of Trenchard Street, Bristol, circa 1970s and the view today.
The most popular post of the year on the Stuff blog was a series of photographs of Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s.
So quite a few posts from 2016 in the 2016 top ten.
Changes at the railway station
Though I am more likely to spend time at Worle station, I have been known to catch trains from the main station in Weston-super-Mare. Despite being a smallish town, Weston has three railway stations. The main station which opened in 1884 replacing the original station which opened in 1841. Weston Milton opened in 1933, a small halt to serve the then expanding Milton area. Worle station was opened in 1990 and unlike the other two stations, which are on the Weston loop, Worle is on the main Bristol to Plymouth line.
Over the years the railway station at Weston-super-Mare, well in terms of tracks, has changed quite a bit, even if the buildings and platforms have remained as much as they have since the line was built. This photograph from the local paper reminded me of how much has changed.
Back then there was an up and down line on the Weston loop. There was also multiple sidings for good and carriages. I suspect a lot of the coal wagons for the local gas works were stored there awaiting return to the Welsh collieries.
By the late 1970s (the BR HST is still in blue and grey), when this image was taken on 28th March 1978, most of the sidings have now been taken away and replaced with a coach park. Lots of visitors to Weston-super-Mare were now coming by coach. The light brown building on the right of the photograph in the background is the Odeon cinema which is still there today, but Weston is getting it’s own multiplex at Dolphin Square.
You can see a lot of the points had been removed too.
By the time of this Google Street View image, the sidings have all been removed and replaced with a Tesco store and car park (which was the focus of the story in the local paper). Hildesheim Bridge was built in 1991 and crosses the eastern end of the platforms.
Hildesheim is the German town which Weston is twinned with.
Change happens and over the next few years I suspect we will see more change.