Tucked away in a little corner of South Gloucestershire, just fifteen minutes from the outskirts of Bristol, is the village of Charfield – home to just over two thousand people, three pubs, two churches, a village hall and a handful of shops. The sleepy suburb has a railway running through it, but nowhere to board a train. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charfield railway station opened on the Bristol and Gloucester Railway in 1844, at the height of the British train boom.
It served the village for over 120 years and was, perhaps most notably, the site of a rail disaster in 1928 which claimed fifteen lives. At 5.20am on the morning of October 13, a night mail train was travelling southbound towards the station. Due to fog and an error by the driver, the train overran signals and smashed into a goods service in the sidings, being pushed into the path of an oncoming freight train. Gas used to light the mail train’s carriages ignited and 16 people were killed in the blaze.
The driver and fireman of the mail train were both charged with manslaughter, but were later acquitted. They both maintained that they had seen a green signal on their approach to the station, but an investigation deemed this to have been impossible.
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A book about the disaster called Red for Danger , written by prolific engineering author L. T. C. Holt, claimed that many of the victims could not be identified and that the remains included two children whose bodies were never claimed. Charfield railway station was closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts but, almost a century on from the unfortunate events which made the village famous, plans are afoot to build a new station for it.
Designs submitted to South Gloucestershire Council by Network Rail include two platforms, seating, shelters, a pedestrian footbridge, lifts, ticket machines, cycle parking, car parking and a bus stop. The new station is intended to provide a minimum hourly service in both directions, with the aim of improving access to jobs, education and a range of services and facilities while reducing congestion on local roads.
Facebook group Re-open Charfield Railway Station has almost a thousand likes, attracting comments like “Charfield should have been opened years ago” and “scrap HS2 and get on with Charfield”. Group members call the plans “a fantastic idea” which should be “supported by the wider community”, pointing out that “with the village expanding the transport should be improved”.
But there is disagreement around what the station should be called, with supporters for both “Charfield” and “Charfield for Wotton-under-Edge”. Some commenters are sceptical of the county council’s motives, with one posting: “Amazing, every time someone wants to build more houses in our village we get tempted by a new school, doctor’s surgery, and that old chestnut Charfield Station.”
The plans have also been met with scepticism by members of Charfield Parish Council, who have raised concerns with South Gloucestershire Council, Network Rail and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), which is set to fund the project. Concerns include an increase in vehicular traffic to the station, overspill of rail users’ cars onto nearby streets and the possible demolition of the previous station’s historic, Brunel-designed buildings.
The parish council also notes that, with South Gloucestershire Council’s project timetable declaring their intention to submit planning applications in “late summer 2022”, the results of a public consultation carried out in January have still not been published.
A spokesperson for SGC said: “A new station in Charfield will support sustainable travel to and from the village and surrounding area. The station will also improve access to jobs, education and a wider variety of services and facilities and help mitigate some of the impacts of recent development in the area."
They added: “The planning application for the Charfield Station development is expected to be submitted to the Local Planning Authority (LPA) later in the summer for determination. Once submitted the LPA will run a consultation with the public and statutory consultees providing opportunity for people to have their say on the application.
“Information about the scheme can be found online at www.southglos.gov.uk/charfieldstation. People who are interested in the scheme are encouraged to sign up for the project newsletter so they can receive updates on the project when they are announced. This can be done via the webpage.”
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