The former station, which closed to passengers in 1970, was located on the Great Western main line between Oldfield Park and Keynsham. The site is undeveloped and in recent years has been used as a compound by railway infrastructure companies.
Part of a 1946 Ordnance Survey map showing the location of Saltford station (view entire map). Source: National Library of Scotland.
Saltford Environment Group is campaigning for the reopening of Saltford station. A reinstated station would be served by Great Western trains on the Cardiff – Bristol Temple Meads – Bath – Westbury – Southampton Central / Weymouth routes.The scheme has the support of Bath & North East Somerset Council and West of England Combined Authority.
If the reopening of Saltford station reaches fruition, it will form part of the MetroWest network that is being developed by West of England Combined Authority. We prefer the following map to the official MetroWest map, even though reinstated passenger services over the Thornbury line and the entire Henbury Loop have been ruled out.Saltford is included as a potential new station in the West of England’s draft Joint Local Transport Plan 4 (JLTP4) 2019 to 2036 because WECA recognises it has a role to play in tackling existing and future transport challenges particularly around Bath. As with all our new station proposals, they must be feasible, deliverable and demonstrate a good business case with funding identified and secured. The current costs for Charfield station (which is comparable to Saltford with requirements for two platforms, accessible footbridge, shelters and access routes) are put at between £14m and £20m.
There are major network capacity issues on the railway line between Bath and Bristol and finding the capacity to stop trains at a new station is going to be challenging. The Greater Bristol Area Rail Feasibility Study (GBARFS) commissioned by the Department for Transport and WECA looked at future services and stations and the infrastructure/capacity required to deliver them. The study found that the new infrastructure required to deliver enhanced MetroWest services on the line to Bath Spa could provide the additional capacity required to enable additional stops at Saltford. It also suggested that it may be possible to introduce a skip-stop pattern (i.e. miss out stops at Keynsham or Oldfield Park) to facilitate a stop at Saltford. This would, however, create an irregular service pattern at each of the stations.
The findings of GBARFS will now be used to draw up a 10 Year Delivery Plan and 25 Year Strategic Outline Business Case with Network Rail for rail investment in the West of England. Saltford will be part of this work as a possible future station site. In terms of station location previous work has focused on the previous station site. As part of the work on the 10 Year Delivery Plan and 25 Year Strategic Outline Business Case we may need to consider other possible locations for Saltford.
Duncan Hounsell, B&NES Councillor for Saltford (LibDem), cited on on Saltford Environment Group website (view).
Some challenges
- Poor access from the A4.
- A cramped site with limited parking potential.
- A lack of alternative sites, given that most of the line towards Keynsham is in a cutting.
Click on a proposed station symbol 
to view the corresponding Reopen page.
Original map published by Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence. Reopen is a nonprofit venture and is not affiliated with FoSBR.
Further reading
Reopening of Saltford railway station could finally become reality, on SomersetLive website
Saltford Railway Station, on Bath & North East Somerset Council website
Saltford railway station – Wikipedia
Saltford Station Campaign, on Saltford Environment Group website