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Mark, Tony, Richard, Tim, Reuben, a gentleman who had walked from Caldicot, a gent who had cycled from Parkway stopping on the way to use “The Wave”, and I met at the station to catch the 15:32 train from Pilning on Saturday. Quite a gathering on the platform, and 2 people got off too.

Old history

Pilning is one of the most unusual stations operated by GWR. The railway line there was initially (station opened 1863) the line to New Passage, from where the ferry left for South Wales. When the Severn Tunnel was opened, the new line branched off (or rather became the main line) and the line to New Passage was no more - that was in 1886. In 1928, the old trackbed almost to New Passage was re-opened with the line turning left just before New Passage and running to Severn Beach, where the line had arrived in 1922 (excursions) and 1924 (public service). That late addition was lost to passengers in 1964 - after just 36 years of service.

As well as it's complex history, Pilning is unusual for other reasons. It was the start (or end) station for earliest motorail services - offering car carrying by train through the tunnel under the Severn to Severn Tunnel Junction prior to the opening of the first Severn Bridge. There were also ferries that would take cars, but the car by train service persisted in a very limited way. Pilning was also - and as I understand it remains - an emergency evacuation station from the Severn Tunnel.

In old GWR terms, "Pilning" would have been called "Pilning Road". It's around a 2 kms walk from the village centre to the platform gate, out of Pilning Village, past a straggle of houses, a school and a new church build on the disused Severn Beach line, past the station to double back up a driveway to the station which approaches it in the "wrong" direction from Pilning. Little wonder that passenger numbers over the years shrank, and the train service shrank, and of course that meant that passenger numbers shrank further and the train service shrank further. By the early 2010s, there was just one service each way per week - on Saturdays.

Recent History

Pilning Station is on the main London to Cardiff line, and that line was to electrified. A very sensible thing to do. But Pilning Station presented a problem. The platform that trains from South Wales call at is level access off the car park / yard, but the platform that trains called at as they were headed into the tunnel and Wales was only accessible via a footbridge, built long before there was any thought of electrification and with modern (this was 2016) standards needed replacing / rebuilding higher, and for level access needed long slopes as you have at Ashchurch, or lifts as have been added at the next station along at Patchway.

So - what happened? There was no economic case made to replace the footbridge, no economic case made to close the station (an expensive procedure) and no case made to remove the Severn Tunnel evacuation role such as and if it still exists. So the footbridge was removed, and in November 2016 the one train each way on Saturdays became two trains from South Wales to Bristol and none the other way. With the removal of return opportunities (and the majority of local rail trips ARE people going out and back the same day) - this blow removes one of the final vestiges of local usefulness from the station.

The Station today

Prior to yesterday, I caught the train from Pilning in April 2023, September 2024 and again in May last year 2025. Between those visits, not much changed. But for the Saturday just gone, there's a marked change. The old stones and gravel platform has been replaces and re-edged with modern concrete edging, tarmac, and a yellow line we should keep behind. The old waiting shelter has been replaced by a new one - very disappointingly on the site of the old footbridge, without (it appears) passive provision for any way to put the bridge back. All along the fencing of the platform are what I'm pretty sure are fluorescent lights, each with a little green glow to confirm that they's working. A great deal of new signage too.

The train itself is now a modern bi-mode one, pulling away from Pilning once we all piled on with impressive acceleration, and with other unexpected bonuses such as the ability to reserve a seat. There's no way to get back to Pilning, of course. Had we caught the 08:32, there's a ticketing easement that lets you get back from Bristol doubling back via South Wales, but all the notices at the station tell you are how to get to Bristol, or to Cardiff, and no help about how to get home again if you live in Pilning.

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Local use of the station

Truth be told, Pilning has rather turned its back on its station. And who can blame them? Many years of campaigning for a useable service and they have kept seeing steps in the reverse direction. An hourly bus runs through the village from Severn Beach and carries on to Bristol Parkway Station, taking 40 minutes for a journey that takes 18 minutes by car and for drivers goes when the driver wants it, right from their own driveway. Driving to Bristol (Temple Meads) takes half an hour ... by public transport, an hour and a quarter is the fastest - or 19 minutes on the train next Saturday. Not much good for work, college, or a night out bearing in mind the only train back is at 14:32, change at Severn Tunnel Junction and taking 59 minutes.

The estimated population of Pilning is 1500, plus perhaps another few hundred in Redwick and New Passage giving a station "catchment" of perhaps 2,000 - except it's not a catchment - the station is "Pilning Road" and there's no more than a hundred residents within 1km.

The station is a long walk from the village and not welcoming when you get there:
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National - what the future might bring

Our Government said when elected "Our plan will include introducing mandatory planning targets to aim to deliver on our ambition to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years" and they have thus far stuck with their ambitious target. That's around 2,500 per constituency but realistically and practically it can't and won't be spread evenly. Houses need to go in areas that people want to live in, and in places near enough to business hubs and with existing facilities such as transportation - rail and road - that can be beefed up. It strikes me that Pilning has many things going for it, whereas Plockton (for example) does not. We are already seeing advancing plans for additional local trains on the Cardiff - Bristol line with additional stations - curiously all on the Welsh side. A new Station just into England from the Severn Tunnel - let's call it "Severnside", and a new station for Aztec West (and with a nice walkway to Cribbs Causeway)

So what may the future be for Pilning

How do these development thought fit with Pilning? Whilst the fields around the current station look sorely tempting for houses, the problem of how to access the westbound platform - especially with the recent "uncaring" changes - remains. A second approach slope up on the far side and a second station entrance (as is done for disabled travellers at Bradford-on-Avon) is impractical because of the active loop line on that side. I suppose a new outer platform could be built there. But there may be a better alternative to provide a resited station on the Cross Hands Road B4055.

"Severnside" station would actually be on edge of Pilning village - so a really good commuting station with the two-train-an-hour (not two-trains-a-week) that Transport for Wales are suggesting, and it would be just across from the Severnside business area which now comes right up to the field next to the railway, and at that bridge. With a bridge already "in situ", slopes down to platforms on the outer lines would mean that the issues from Pilning Road are solved.

Property value increases when there's a station with a credible train service offered, and if I were a Pilning Villager, I would give some of these plans a cautious welcome. I would want to protect the road through the centre of my village, perhaps with a connection from the M49 that you see on the map to the B4055. There is already a junction there with slip roads, roundabout, etc, for the business parks. And the station would be then an enabler for planned residential growth - not around the current station as a bubble of houses, but outward from the new station to be an integral part of the community of Pilning for the future.

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Opinion

A handful of people have fought over the years to retain Pilning station, as a latent opportunity. Within the residents of the parish there have been calls for much better services, but at the exclusion of development opportunities which would fund and support that service.

My personal view is that a resited station, served by local trains from Cardiff to Bristol and situated on the boundary of village / parish would provide extra mobility, reduced journey times and congestion, bolster business and help controlled and supportive business growth, and would raise the affluence and values locally, including those of existing owners.

Were I a resident, I too would be concerned as to what might be going on or about to go in my “back yard”, and I would be rather more inclined to explain and support it to my fellow residents, rather than putting on a frosty and unresponsive exterior. There would be a danger, I fear, that is I buried my head in the sand, I would look up in five years and discover so many things had been done – and not very sympathetically – because I had failed to engage and encourage.

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* Where a station building once offered shelter from the rain, it no longer does
* Where once there was a footbridge to access trains to Wales, it has gone
* Where once there was a scheduled bus service, it has gone (sign remains!)
* Where once cars were loaded onto trains to go through the tunnel, gone as well
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First picture - A class 33 diesel locomotive passes through Pilning railway station in Gloucestershire in 1986 Creative Commons 2.0 License by BoxBrownie3
Other photographs - licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by Graham Ellis