Clifton Rocks

ABOUT US! - Outside Visits
Visit to CLIFTON ROCKS RAILWAY

This page provides some additional Photos taken during our visit.
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General view from suspension bridge - lower entrance can be seen in cliff face next to road.

Making our way down the first steps to the upper station.

Preparing to go down the ‘tunnel’. Hard hats a must for this trip.

Making our way down towards steps that will run the full length of the track, down to the roadside at the bottom. The passageway was built alongside the railway track, over one of the four original lines

The remnants of the BBC radio underground studio, used in the last war.

Cifton Rocks Railway

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[LEFT] View of upper portion of track, with model of a tram-car. There were originally four tracks, but the outer two have been partially built over.
[RIGHT] The top of the railway, just inside the upper protective wall, seen behind the model tram.

The original turn-styles are still in place at the top station, where we entered the complex.

At the lower station. Debis was tipped down the tunnel by the “Clifton Rocks Hotel”, who owned the complex. A lot of this has had to be cleared out to enable us to have a first glimpse of this part of the railway

Finally at the bottom, with the main road right outside. An old photo of how it used to look is hung in the BBC radio studio.

The railway was opened to connect the trams in Clifton to the ships on the river below. A pontoon can still be seen. But, with the decline of city ships; many terminating at Avonmouth, and also the closure of tramways, it became little used. It was a risky venture that never paid its way.

Whether it will ever be re-opened is very much in doubt. Not only cost, but the sheer complexity of operation. But, if it were, then only two tracks would be used, and the railway would need to finish a little higher up, to allow space to alight, probably with a bridge over the road.