I don't suppose you'd have bibliographic details? As noted in the first paragraph, I'm not in the same hemisphere as Bristol.

Cheers
Dave

This from 'The Annals of Bristol' by John Latimer, published in 1887.


“Much local interest was created in 1883 by the introduction into parliament of a bill for authorising the construction of a railway to connect the London and South Western line, near Andover, with the North Somerset line at Radstock, and thus to open out a new communication between Bristol and London. The capital of the proposed company was £1,866,000. The contemplated works in Bristol were of a gigantic character, the projected line being intended to run through a dense mass of property between St.Philip’s Marsh and the stone Bridge, while a site for the city terminus was to be obtained by covering over the float from the Stone Bridge to the Drawbridge. The scheme met an amount of approval rarely accorded to local plans of improvement, the provisional committee formed for promoting the bill comprising a majority of the council and of the leading mechantile firms, while the merchants' society made a liberal grant towards the expenses; the Chamber of Commerce forwarded petitions in favour of the scheme, and meetings in its support were held in every ward. In fact, as was observed at the time, Bristolians presented the rare spectacle of being unanimous. The Bristol satisfaction was visibly diminished by an announcement that the proposed station was to be indefinitely postponed. The junction with the North Somerset line was also abandonded through the opposition of the Midland company, and the promoters had to fall back upon a proposed railway to join the Midland system at Bath, thus diverting Bristol traffic by way of Mangotsfield. After a long struggle with the Great Western Company before a committee of the House of Commons, the bill was rejected. Shortly afterwards the Great Western and South Western boards entered into a compact, by which they mutually undertook to refrain for ten years from an aggressive policy towards each other. The agreement raised an insuperable bar against the revival of the above scheme.”

Kevin.