page_title: Sea Mills railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sea Mills railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: First Great Western 143611 at Sea Mills.
context_page_description: Sea Mills railway station is on the Severn Beach Line and serves the district of Sea Mills and nearby Westbury on Trym in Bristol, England. It is 6 miles from Bristol Temple Meads, situated at the confluence of the River Avon and River Trym and near the A4 Bristol Portway. Its three letter station code is SML. The station has a single platform which serves trains in both directions. As of 2015 it is managed by Great Western Railway, which is the third franchise to be responsible for the station since privatisation in 1997. They provide all train services at the station, mainly a train every forty minutes in each direction between Bristol Temple Meads and Avonmouth.
  The station was opened in 1865 by the Bristol Port Railway and Pier, and had a single platform. It later became part of the Clifton Extension Railway, and had a second platform built. The station was expanded over the years, and at one point had four porters staffing it. However the Severn Beach Line declined over the latter half of the twentieth century and by the 1970s the station had no staff and only one platform. Services however have increased since 2000.
context_section_description: The station was opened on 6 March 1865 when services began on the Bristol Port Railway and Pier (BPRP), a self-contained railway which ran along the north bank of the River Avon to a deep water pier on the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth. The route was 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm) standard gauge single track, with Sea Mills initially the first station along the line, 2 miles 01 chain (3.2 km) from the southern terminus at Hotwells. A single 150 feet (46 m)-long uncovered platform was provided on the north side of the line, with a wooden building containing the booking office and porter's office. The station staff consisted of a stationmaster with a porter being brought in from Hotwells when needed. A south-facing goods siding was provided, but the station mostly dealt with passengers and parcels. The initial service was six trains per day in each direction.
  The BPRP ran into trouble by 1871 when the terminal pier at Avonmouth became difficult to use due to a build-up of silt. With no prospect of a proper dock being funded without a connection to the national rail network, the Clifton Extension Railway (CER) was approved. This was a joint venture by the BPRP, Great Western Railway and Midland Railway which ran from Sneyd Park Junction, 21 chains (420 m) south of Sea Mills, via Clifton Down, to join up with the national network at Narroways Hill Junction. The link opened in 1877, but only for goods trains: Colonel William Yolland, the chief inspector of British railways, considered the platforms at Sea Mills to be too short for passenger interchange, as they were 250 feet (76 m) shorter than at any station on the CER. Rather than build a new interchange station at Sneyd Park Junction, the platforms at Sea Mills were extended to 300 feet (91 m) at the expense of the BPRP. The goods siding was also removed at this time, as Yolland had expressed concern that the points were not interlocked. The route from Sneyd Park Junction to Clifton Down was subsequently cleared for passenger use on 3 August 1878, but the Midland and Great Western Railways did not think the BPRP track was in a suitable condition and so refused to run any passenger trains beyond Clifton Down. Services along the BPRP however increased to eight trains per day in each direction from 1877, and then to ten each way by 1887. From 1 September 1885, when passenger services along the link finally started, the Great Western offered six trains per day each direction between Avonmouth and Bristol Temple Meads. Fearing competition, the BPRP did not allow passengers to use GWR services between its stations. The Midland Railway did not run any passenger services beyond Clifton Down, apart from a one-month trial service in September 1885. Despite the increased traffic, the BPRP suffered financially, and was taken over by the CER in 1890.
  Following the takeover, a new stationmaster's house was built at Sea Mills, at a cost of £240. The stationmaster is recorded as having kept a variety of farm animals and sold eggs to passengers. Increased levels of traffic saw the line through Sea Mills doubled in the early 1900s, and the opportunity was taken to rebuild the station. A second platform opened on 6 January 1907 to the west of the tracks to serve northbound trains. The original platform now exclusively served southbound trains, and was lengthened to 330 feet (100 m), the same length as the new platform. A station building was constructed on the original platform in a domestic style, with an arched terracotta entrance, spar-covered walls and a high-pitched tiled roof. The building contained a booking hall, booking office, toilets and a ladies' waiting room. A smaller building on the northbound platform contained a general waiting room. The subway under the bridge over the River Trym was also built at this time, with the porter's job being expanded to include washing the rubbish out of the subway after high tide, for which the railway provided a hosepipe and Wellington boots. By 1910 there were 17 trains from Bristol to Avonmouth and 15 back, increasing to 21 and 19 respectively by 192
caption: A First Great Western Class 143 Pacer DMU calls at Sea Mills with a train for Bristol Temple Meads in 2008.
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