RAIL chiefs have given new hope to campaigners in Portishead.

Tuesday's publication of Network Rail's 10-year plan to expand rail services in the West has been welcomed by the Portishead Railway Group.

The 190-page report makes extensive mention of Portishead and shows rail bosses' thinking on how services from Portishead would fit into the network.

Portishead Railway Group chairman Alan Matthews said he is encouraged by the report.

He said: "It is another piece in the jigsaw towards reopening the line.

"There is still a long way to go but the position has changed an awful lot in the last 18 months.

"I think back to then and the language used by the rail industry was very much 'if it will ever happen', whereas now they seem to be planning for 'when it happens'."

He said North Somerset Council making the decision to promote the line had given the campaign credibility within the industry.

Network Rail, the owner and operator of the tracks, signals and other rail infrastructure, has produced the report, Great Western Route Utilisation Strategy, on behalf of the whole rail industry.

The report presents various options for services to Portishead if the Government decides to meet the cost of reopening the line.

The report doesn't just look at a service between Portishead and Bristol Temple Meads, via Pill, Ashton Gate, Parson Street and Bedminster.

It also considers cross-Bristol services such as options for Portishead to Gloucester or Yate, to Temple Meads, Filton Abbey Wood and Bristol Parkway, or Portishead to Westbury, Wiltshire, via Temple Meads, Bath and Trowbridge.

Other elements of the report look at major schemes at London Paddington, Reading and Swindon to cope with a 31 per cent increase in passengers on the Great Western in the next 10 years.

It also suggests longer trains on services between Cardiff and Taunton, increasing space on overcrowded trains serving Yatton and Nailsea and Backwell.

Reopening the Portishead branch line is now being promoted by North Somerset Council, which earlier this year commissioned Network Rail to carry out a separate £164,000 feasibility study into reopening the line.

North Somerset executive responsible for transport, Elfan Ap Rees, said that report was 'about a month' from completion.

He said: "Network Rail have certainly been carrying out very detailed work on this."

It is stage three of an eight-stage process to reopen closed railway lines, but stage six is actually physically laying tracks, so the key stages are three, four and five when decisions are made on funding and route options.

The scheme is part of a wider West of England Partnership bid to secure government funding under the government's Transport Innovation Fund.

The South West Regional Development Agency has also submitted a bid for £25 million as a contribution to the scheme as part of its medium term commitments for 2014 – 2019.