Uphill station would be on line to Weston-super-Mare
Campaigners say the reopened station should be on the loop line(Image: PA)
Councillors have been urged to press for the reopening of a forgotten railway station in Weston-super-Mare.
After the Bristol to Exeter main line passes through Worle, a loop line forks off and stops at Weston Milton and at Weston-super-Mare railway station in the town centre. But there is a fourth long since forgotten railway station which once served the town and that campaigners are now suggesting should reopen.
The Bristol Rail Campaign said that a reopened Uphill railway station could serve Weston Hospital, the Weston College’s Loxton campus, the nearby estates, and provide access to Uphill Beach and local walks. The group’s campaigns lead Christina Biggs suggested to a North Somerset Council scrutiny panel on February 26 that the council should press the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) for the funding to reopen the station if it becomes a member.
The original Uphill railway station opened in 1871, just south of the cutting through the hill crossed by Devil’s Bridge. It was followed in 1884 by Uphill Junction railway station, which opened just north of the cutting. The Bristol Rail Campaign are suggesting that a new Uphill station should be in a slightly different location so that it is on the loop line serving Weston Milton and Weston-super-Mare.
Ms Biggs said: “The idea then is that you are not holding anything up on the mainline. You are just using the local trains that would stop at Weston Milton, Worle, and Weston-super-Mare.”
North Somerset Council is expected to join WECA by the end of the year or early 2027, with a public consultation on the plan currently running until April 10. WECA has millions of pounds of transport funding and Ms Biggs said the council should press for some of this to be spend on a feasibility study on opening a new Uphill railway station. She said: “It’s something you could quite reasonably ask of WECA as an introductory thing/taster.”
WECA is already helping to fund the reopening of the Portishead Railway at the other end of North Somerset, which after a decades long campaign is expected to reopen in 2028. Ms Biggs said: “Uphill is pretty minor because its on an existing line. You don’t have any of the problems of the Portishead Line.”
North Somerset Council is yet to debate or decide whether Uphill railway station is a project it wants to pursue.