Thornbury Branch Line

Thornbury Branch Line
Legend Thornbury Tytherington Quarry Tytherington Iron Acton Frampton Cotterell freight line Cross Country Route towards Birmingham Yate Cross Country Route towards Bristol

The branch departs from the main line at Yate.

The Thornbury Branchline is a railway line from Yate to Thornbury in the West of England. It is now closed to passengers, and only remains to serve a quarry at Tytherington.

Opening

The 7.5-mile (12 km) branch of the Midland Railway line between Bristol and Gloucester opened on 2 September 1872, and started at Yate and finished at Thornbury, with stops at Iron Acton and Tytherington.

Train services

The Line's services first consisted of two trains in each direction per day, connecting at Yate with mainline trains. Later trains appeared to be running from Thornbury down to Bristol Temple Meads, although the services were infrequent. By 1910, there were four trains in each direction every weekday.

Partial closure

On 19 June 1944, the line was closed to passenger traffic. In the 1960s, the stations were demolished, apart from Yate, which was closed with other stations on the Bristol to Gloucester line in 1965 and then re-opened in 1989. The section of track from Tytherington Quarry to Thornbury was dismantled.

Continuing goods traffic

The rest of the line remains open to goods traffic, as the line goes to Tytherington Quarry, which means it is now used for occasional freight services to and from the quarry. Nowadays there is usually only one train in each direction per week.