Great Western Coffee Shop

With the imminent opening of Bristol Parkway's new platform it will further cement it's place as Bristol's 2nd station.
But wait (pedantry alert) Parkway is in South Glos. The soon to be 4 platformed Filton Abbeywood is, I believe also in same county.
So does that mean Bristol's 2nd station is:

Clifton Down? Due to footfall figures but only 2 platforms.

Stapleton Road in the future? After the proposed 3rd platform being built as result of 4 tracking there.

Lawrence Hill? After his proposed 3rd platform due to same reason as above.

That's the first I've heard of a third platform for Stapleton Rd and Lawrence Hill! I thought the plan was for two slow, stopping lines, to call at those two, and two fast, direct to FAW lines?

Anyways, Parkway is Bristol's second station regardless of being administratively in Greater Thornbury.

Well I might be relying on old news there although I'm sure early Network Rail press releases referred to it.
My comments about Parkway and Abbeywood were tongue in cheek though and I do agree Parkway is firmly Bristol's No.2 with an expanding future.
I can however see a future need for expansion at Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road, one day.

At last! A name to match the quality of North Somerset Parish Council.

Joking aside though: Bristol's second busiest station is Bath Spa. With over 6 million entries and exits in 2016-17, BTH is more than twice as busy as Thornbury Road.

Thank you! I'm half tempted now to go out monkey wrenching their signs with a can of paint, but it would be too energetic, too cold, too ugly and I can't stand the smell of spray paint. Instead, I shall content myself with using the name on these august electro-pages and wherever else appropriate!

On old maps of Bristol (up to the 19th century, I think), what's now known as Gloucester Rd is marked "Road to Thornbury".

Well he's a funny old stick, ole man Gloucester Road; he starts off (depending on where you start) as North Street - all very sensible; then he's Stokes Croft (why?), then he veers round in the general direction of Chepstow and becomes Cheltenham Road. After that he makes a beeline for Thornbury and becomes Gloucester Road, before reining in his ambitions and becoming Filton Road. After that with renewed resolve he strides forth once more as Gloucester Road North (presumably with a black pudding under his arm, though I've never seen it) before reverting to Gloucester Road in Patchway.

After all that, 'Road to Thornbury' seems a much more sensible name...

There was a croft and it belonged to a bloke called Stoke. Fact.

We have to look after facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAXQyqqWChA

Ahh the memories. The Day Today. Providing 'water cooler moments' before they were a thing.

Unless someone does a lot of digging, there will be four platforms at Stapleton Road, being the existing infrastructure, but only two will be used. Lawrence Hill has three existing platform faces, but again only two will be used. Nevertheless, the forecast of good times to come for dear dear Larry and especially Stapleton Road should prove accurate. Why should the new MetroWest Rail (no relation to MetroBust) not have trains from Severn Beach and / or Yate to Bath without going via Temple Meads, with passengers changing at Stapleton Road as appropriate?

In the numbers game, the 2016-17 user figures show that the second busiest station in actual Bristol was Clifton Down, with four times as many passenger movements as the runner up, Stapleton Road. Filton Abbey Wood is almost up there with Weston super Mare. Parkway's figures fell just short of 2½ million, under a quarter of Temple Meads, but impressive.  As to whether that makes Parkway Bristol's second station, I suppose it depends on whether you think of Luton as being a London airport.

I know you are busier than I am, so I extracted the detail regarding the putative MetroWest Rail area from the ORR figures, and present them in an unclickable JPG:

(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4557/38956473082_99e0deb14f_b.jpg)

The clickable version of my spreadsheet is  here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rYftnTHX2MHbezPFkSGCAGaM5IyuXj07/view?usp=sharing), and the original ORR document can be viewed [http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates]here.[/url]


Guilty, m'lud, in re NSPC, although I always use lower case out of respect.

Off topic, but than ORR analysis had me looking at stations by ticket type.

Percentage reduce rate
Percentage full rate
Percentage season ticket
Three letter code
Number full rate
Number reduced rate
Number season ticket journeys
Total number
Stations name

"WomanWithCat"  ???

Thank you, clicklessly!  :)

We name all our computers and it comes up as the operating system prompt.  Saves the embarrassment of rebooting / halting the wrong machine when maintaining network systems.

At the time I wrote that, it was early and WomanWithDogs was still asleep in bed.

And in Devon, WomanWithBoneToPick was catching up on her beauty sleep, and plotting the next move.

That Severn Beach is top of the season ticket list in the Greater Thornbury (thanks Bmblbzzz!) area is probably because, at £9.00 per week, it has to be the cheapest £/mile commute around. The length of the journey to Avonmouth means that train managers will be able to take fares from all passengers, which seldom happens after Sea Mills, making a free trip very unlikely.

As an aside, when I ride from Montpelier into Temple Meads I am almost always sold a ticket with Clifton Down as the originating station. I imagine the same to be true for those who get on at Redland, Stapleton Rd and Lawrence Hill... be interesting to see how much CFN usage 'drops' when the new ticketing system goes live. Will it be offset by the introduction of 'fares' for those who get off before BRI?

It will also be interesting to see how the figures look when - if - everyone has to buy a ticket. Between Clifton Down and Temple Meads at peak times the staff struggle get through the carriages, let alone sell tickets

I got the odd free trip from Shirehampton back in the day. We'll, until I got to the gateline at Bristol TM. Then the freeness was time of day dependent. Unless I was bailing at Clifton Down, Redland, Stapleton Road... if so, then FGW/GWR were very kind to offer regular complimentary travel.

I have heard staff asking for anyone wanting tickets beyond Temple Meads, which is a good idea. Better to get those tickets sold first, then the £2 and £3 customers who can pay on the way out. I once saw someone get on at Redland (before 2008) and ask for two first class returns to Dover, to the delight of the TM, who must have been on commission.

Bristol Parkway, So there.