Charfield railway station

Charfield railway station served the village of Charfield in South Gloucestershire, England. The station was on the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, originally a broad gauge line overseen by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but later taken over by the Midland Railway and converted to standard gauge.Charfield station opened with the Bristol and Gloucester line in 1844 and had substantial Brunel designed buildings on both platforms. There were sidings to the north and the south, and those to the north were converted to loops to allow slow trains to be overtaken by faster trains.In 1928, the Charfield railway disaster occurred when a southbound night-time mail train overran signals into a goods train manoeuvring into these sidings and in the collision the mail train was diverted into the path of a northbound freight train. Gas from the mail train ignited and 15 people died in the blaze. According to some accounts, among them were two children whose identity was never established.Passenger services were withdrawn from Charfield in January 1965 with the removal of stopping services on the Bristol to Gloucester line. Goods services were withdrawn in the September of the same year. The main station building and the station master's house remain in residential use.Services between Bristol and Birmingham pass through Charfield. There have been discussions about the viability of re-opening the station. The costs of re-opening would be shared between Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire Councils since, although the station would be in South Gloucestershire, the nearby town of Wotton-under-Edge would be a principal beneficiary.

Tags: Train Station