[otd] 12 May 1986, Tiverton Parkway opens. Other GWR Park and Ride stations

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From Wikipedia

The Bristol and Exeter Railway opened on 1 May 1844 but it ran south of Tiverton, so a station known as "Tiverton Road" was opened to serve the town. This station was renamed "Tiverton Junction" on 12 June 1848 when the Tiverton branch line was opened to a station in the town itself.

By the 1980s the branch to Tiverton had closed and Tiverton Junction station only saw a couple of trains in each direction each day so a decision was taken to relocate the station a short distance to the east, close to the motorway junction where traffic from Barnstaple and Ilfracombe from the A361 joined. Tiverton Junction closed on 11 May 1986 and the new station was opened the following day by David Mitchell MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context), the Minister of Transport at the time. It was built by British Rail on the site of the former Sampford Peverell railway station that had closed on 5 October 1964.

An additional car park for the station was opened in late 2007 as the original car park was too small when FGW^▸ (First Great Western) increased the services to the station.

Other Parkway Station openings in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) area:
1 May 1972 - Station opened at Bristol Parkway
4 November 1983   - renamed to Bodmin Parkway
3 December 1984   - renamed to Port Talbot Parkway (its fifth name!)
29 July 1985 - renamed to Didcot Parkway
?? April 2002 - opened Portway Park and Ride - trains not yet calling
25 October 2015 - Opened, Oxford Parkway
23 February 2020 - Opened, Worcestershire Parkway

Which other stations would you christen as "ParkWay" or "Park and Ride"? Where woud you open new stations under those monicas? Should we now be calling them "Gateway" stations to indicate wider use (buses, trams, ferries)?

[CyclingSid]

Should we now be calling them "Gateway" stations to indicate wider use (buses, trams, ferries)?

I think that would really need more in the way of coordinated timetabling etc. Various stations are known by the Local Authority as Transport Interchange, but get little idea that the different modes speak to each other.

[Red Squirrel]

...

?? April 2002 - opened Portway Park and Ride - trains not yet calling

...

By my calculation, Portway Park and Ride opened on the 7792th April 2002

[eXPassenger]

I have always understood that the 'Parkway' name did not initially refer to a park and ride station.

When the M32 was designed and built in the late 60s / early 70s it was named Parkway based on the similar naming of American urban freeways in the 50s / 60s.  Bristol Parkway station was named because it was close to Parkway.  Subsequently the name has been used to identify a park and ride station.

[Red Squirrel]

That’s right. Bristol Parkway station was named after the M32, which is also called the Bristol Parkway - though hardly anyone uses that name now. The road was so named because it ran through Stoke Park. It cut through this landscaped parkland, destroying the original Duchess Pond and wrecking the peace of what is now, rather belatedly, a listed landscape.

I think it is time we stopped using this term, at least for new stations. ‘Hub’ makes more sense when the station offers multiple modes of transport.

[Red Squirrel]

Incidentally, can anyone explain why it is that we park on driveways, but drive on parkways?

[grahame]

Incidentally, can anyone explain why it is that we park on driveways, but drive on parkways?

Ah - and we could ask why we want a railway at a railway station, a bus at a bus station, but we don't want a fire at a fire station ;-) ...

[Red Squirrel]

That’s right. Bristol Parkway station was named after the M32, which is also called the Bristol Parkway - though hardly anyone uses that name now. The road was so named because it ran through Stoke Park. It cut through this landscaped parkland, destroying the original Duchess Pond and wrecking the peace of what is now, rather belatedly, a listed landscape.

I think it is time we stopped using this term, at least for new stations. ‘Hub’ makes more sense when the station offers multiple modes of transport.

Actually, maybe 'Interchange' is better...

[Chris from Nailsea]

Incidentally, can anyone explain why it is that we park on driveways, but drive on parkways?

Ah - and we could ask why we want a railway at a railway station, a bus at a bus station, but we don't want a fire at a fire station ;-) ...

I'm retired now, but I could never understand why I was expected to work at a work station.