CELEBRATING 50 YEARS SINCE BEECHING

Baron Beeching of East Grinstead -whose's name is to this day
associated with the mass closure of railways

Friends Of Suburban Bristol Railways (FOSBR)

www.fosbr.org.uk

 

Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FOSBR) invite you to join us on Saturday 23 March to celebrate 50 years since the Beeching Report.

Rail Future and FOSBR will subsidise train tickets, hire a meeting room and provide refreshments at Halo Bar, 141, Gloucester Road, BS7 8BA. . If you live in Exmouth, Falmouth, Barnstable, Dawlish or near a station in Wales, your challenge is to find a train which arrives in time to catch the 13.16 from Bristol Temple Meads Station.

We hope you will join us on the scenic round trip from Bristol Temple Meads on Bristol’s only surviving branch line (which is also in Thomas Cook’s wonderful rail journeys) to Severn Beach and back to Montpelier Station. There we will stage a public demonstration on the platform with banners, placards and enlarged maps of the Bristol Metro and the Great Western Franchise areas. From there we will walk to the Halo Bar.

This celebration is an opportunity to show the world that local lines, such as AVOCET, Tarka, the Falmouth and Ebbw Vale, have flourished with community and local authority support. Travelling on the train and meeting at the Halo in a spacious room will give each group a chance to talk about their campaigns and future opportunities. We hope to finish by issuing a joint statement for the media.

Train times 13.16 depart Bristol Temple Meads Station / 14.21 alight at Montpelier Station / 16.50 depart from Montpelier Station/ 17.07 arrive at Temple Meads Station

Train tickets  Group save tickets - four for the price of two –from the same station make train travel more affordable. Please reply to Julie and Tina asap to let us know how you would like to be involved and how many tickets we need to budget for so that we can plan at the FOSBR committee meeting on 20 February. 

Invited:- rail groups, rail unions Bristol RMT,  ASLEF, TSSA, Devon & Cornwall Rail Future, Friends of Bridgwater Station, Portishead Rail Group, Severn Tunnel Action Group, Saltford Rail Group, MPs and councillors near stations, the Mayor of Bristol, Bristol Youth Mayors, Bristol Civic Society, representatives of political parties, Way out West, Secretary@travelwatchsouthwest.org, Pints West Bristol Pubs Group, Ramblers Wessex Walks'

FOSBR campaigns organiser       Julie Boston     julieboston17@hotmail.co.uk

FOSBR secretary                             Tina Biggs    cmbbiggs@googlemail.com

Bristol’s only surviving branch line celebrated 50 years of avoiding the Beeching cuts at its AGM on Saturday 26 January 2013.