The Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line was a railway line opened by the Midland Railway Company in 1869 to connect Bath to its network at Mangotsfield, on its line between Bristol and Birmingham. It was usually referred to as "the Bath branch" of the Midland Railway.
The line never achieved great importance, but for many years it carried heavy summer holiday traffic from Midlands cities to Bournemouth over the Somerset and Dorset line, which connected to it at Bath. In the 1960s these trains, and the daily "Pines Express", became famous among railway enthusiasts, as did the station at Bath, by then named "Green Park".
The line closed in 1966 except for a minimal coal delivery to Bath which continued until 1971.
Much of the route now forms the Bristol and Bath Railway Path, and the Avon Valley Railway operates a heritage steam railway activity at Bitton.
Read more about Mangotsfield And Bath Branch Line: Beginnings, The Route, Train Services, The Somerset and Dorset Line Arrives, Later Years, After Closure
Famous quotes containing the words bath, branch and/or line:
“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)