Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: rail railway docks steam tourist train British

The Bristol Docks Railway's embedded track goes pretty much all the way into the port, and you can see a tiny bit of it on the right. I took this photo, however, to document that steam crane in the middle. It hasn't been used since this part of the port was deactivated about 40 years ago, but it still runs and is steamed on special occassions.

There was quite a lot of preserved freight equipment in the yard, here you can see a freight van on the right (a boxcar in American terms), a brake van (equivalent to a caboose), and a gondola. You can see some of the embedded track in the foreground.

My sense was that the tourist rail route went back into the woods, but came out somewhere else. In any case, this line was clearly not open to the public, so I didn't follow it. Again, I was standing here in the pedestrian area.

Like most ports, Bristol acquired extensive rail connections in the 19th Century, and many if not most of these remain today. Much of it is ex-Great Western, as Great Western controlled most of the original rail services in and out of Bristol. Even the Bristol & Exeter was eventually taken over by them. However, due to the port's decline (with much of this having to do with its inability to take the largest, newest ships), these rail lines have either become dormant or been included in the Bristol Docks Railway, a steam tourist railway that uses the lines into the port. When I visited, I didn't catch a train in steam, but I found some of the equipment in the yard. Unlike most rail facilities in the developed world, tourists and trains have to share some of the same space, as several of the tracks are embedded into the pavement of docks that are now pedestrianised for tourism. As a result, although I didn't spot any moving trains, I was constantly looking over my shoulder. I was standing on the tracks here, for example, but in the pedestrian area.