The bridge continued to be used for freight and passenger services until 1960, and saw temporary extra traffic on the occasions that the Severn Tunnel was closed for engineering work.

A number of incidents took place at the bridge over the years, with vessels colliding with the piers due to the strong tides.

[9] The river, with its large tidal range (the Severn bore) and strong currents, made construction difficult.

The long beams were hoisted in place first, followed by the vertical bracings, and then the outer and inner plates of the top chordal trusses and the diagonals.

When it came into service, it took approximately 30 miles (48 km) off the journey from Bristol to Cardiff, with trains no longer having to pass through Gloucester.

[16] During construction, it was anticipated that the Severn Bridge Railway would mainly receive its revenue from carrying coal from the Forest of Dean.

[17] However, the company ran into financial difficulties as coal was not carried in the volumes that had been anticipated, nor had tourist travel risen to the expected levels.

Miners in the Forest of Dean went on strike about low pay and poor conditions and the coal trade there continued to be depressed.

Only a few days after the bridge's opening, a rowing boat trying to pass underneath was caught in a giant eddy and capsized, one occupant being drowned.

In 1938, a tug and two barges got into difficulties and were carried along broadside by the tide into the bridge; a connecting hawser snagged one of the piers and the vessels capsized, with several fatalities.

[20] In 1943, a flight of three Spitfire fighter aircraft was being delivered by ATA pilots, including one woman, Ann Wood, from their factory in Castle Bromwich to Whitchurch, Bristol.

[21] These were not the only instances of pilots buzzing the bridge, and on one occasion a Vickers Wellington bomber, a much larger aircraft, was seen to fly under it.

The practice became so common that RAF police were called in and tasked with the recording of serial numbers of offending aircraft.

The remaining line from Berkeley Rd Junction to Sharpness Docks remains and on the north side of the Severn estuary, the line from the former Otters Pool Junction at Lydney to the Severn Bridge has long been lifted but a short section of the track exists as part of the Forest of Dean Railway network.

[25] There were plans by British Railways to improve the bridge in order to provide additional capacity for diverted main line trains.

[25] On 25 October 1960, in thick fog and a strong tide, two barges (named the Arkendale H and Wastdale H) which had overshot Sharpness Dock, collided with one of the columns of the bridge after being carried upstream.

[10] As they fell, parts of the structure hit the barges causing the fuel oil and petroleum they were carrying to catch fire.

Local people favoured repairing the bridge as it was an important community link, in particular used by children of Sharpness to travel by train to their school at Lydney on the opposite side;[10] they now had to be taken on a 40-mile (64 km) detour via Gloucester.

[29] In May 1968, another firm, Swinnerton & Miller, completed the main demolition work with the help of explosives, but clearing of the debris took another two years.

[10] A large stone arch also remains on the landward side of the canal, the original abutment to the swinging section.

Some piers reduced to their stone foundations and the wrecks of the petrol barges that caused the original damage are visible at low tide.