Portishead Railway

The Portishead Railway is an English branch line connecting Portishead in North Somerset to the main railway network west of Bristol. It was built by the Bristol and Portishead Pier and Railway Company and was always operated by its larger main line neighbor rather than run as an independent operating railway. The line opened in 1867 as a broad gauge route to serve new docks at Portbury, extending to the docks themselves by 1879, though those docks were always overshadowed by the larger facilities at Bristol and Avonmouth. Passenger traffic declined through the twentieth century, and the line closed to passengers in 1964 and to all traffic in 1981. It was rebuilt and reopened to Royal Portbury Dock in 2002 once a large freight terminal opened there, and the MetroWest programme has since secured funding, agreed in February 2025, to restore passenger service along the whole route. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/