The future railway station in Bristol where Concorde crossed over the tracks

It is almost 37 years to the day when the last train called at North Filton Platform - and there’s a grainy colour image online showing it.

A three-carriage train sits at the shabby platform as workers from Rolls Royce and British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) trudge down the ramp to board just before 4pm on May 9, 1986.

That was last train to stop - yet interestingly, little appears to have changed in almost four decades on. The signs and walkway may have gone, but the platforms, although overgrown, are still clearly visible and the rusty lampposts remain upright.

However, ask anyone where the station, first opened as Filton Halt in 1910, is and you’ll undoubtedly be met with blank faces. This is despite thousands of motorists passing it every day on the busy A38 Gloucester Road in Filton.

The station, later renamed North Filton Platform in 1926, sits on a railway line hidden from view which goes under the A38 and up along the boundary of Filton Airfield, heading from Patchway toward Avonmouth.

The station closed to regular passenger services in 1964, before finishing for local workers in 1986 - but it is set to reopen as North Filton railway station, albeit several hundred yards down the line from the old stop.

Serving the huge Brabazon development, and YTL Arena, it will open in 2026 along with a new Henbury Railway Station as part of the Henbury Spur. Hourly trains will run to and from Bristol Temple Meads as part of the MetroWest 2 project.

When we searched out the old and new station locations last week, we discovered a freight train concidently positioned at the location of the new stop, which once served as a crossing point for planes like Concorde.

Stood on a bridge overlooking the line, it was hard to imagine the artist’s impression of the new station at the site, as well as the thousands of new homes and arena on the surrounding lanscape.

But with plans in motion, work will soon start on the neighbourhood, venue and station, which will feature two platforms connected by a footbridge, ticket machines and covered waiting areas.

This part of north west Bristol is about to change in a big way.