Years ago, I remember a press release trying to drum up excitement about the fact that a new consortium of insurance companies trading as The Mall Company had bought The Galleries shopping centre in Bristol, and that to be consistent with their corporate branding they were going to rename it 'The Mall' - something that would make perfect sense were it not for the fact that there was already a well-established and popular shopping centre called 'The Mall' some 11.5km to the north. They were adamant that this would not cause confusion. It did. The name only reverted to 'The Galleries' when they flogged the property to HSBC a few years later.

On their website, NR are referring to the new Portway P&R station as 'Portway Parkway'. Please tell me this name isn't going to stick! Apart from the fact that it's somewhat tonguetwistular, it is within 15km of another popular Parkway station. This way lies madness.

 
An acquaintance used to make weekly journeys between Doncaster (or thereabouts) and Exeter. Being a Yorkshireman who'd never encountered the Parkway concept, he always misheard it as "Bristol Partway". Which is how I think of it now! Though it is, AFAIK, the original Parkway station, taking its name from the M32 which was under construction at the same time, rather than any connection to Park & Ride.

 
Yes, it was the original parkway station. In my opinion the subsequent use of parkway has been somewhat devalued, where the only station in a town is given the Parkway treatment purely because it happens to have a big car park and is used by motorists as a railhead (Port Talbot and Didcot being the obvious examples).

After all, Kemble has just had a big expansion to its car park, and I suspect the majority of passengers don't hail from Kemble, so why not call that Kemble Parkway too?

 

Or take a lead from Ryanair and call it Cirencester Parkway!

 
Wouldn't Ryanair just call it Cirencester though?

 
No, it would be Kemble-London.

 
I've never really understood the sense of "parkway". Take the former Bodmin Road. Driving to Bodmin Parkway and catching the train to Bodmin wasn't possible because when the station was renamed, there was no service into Bodmin. Encouraging people to take the car from Bodmin and surroundings to Bodmin Parkway for travel elsewhere implies a big car park à la Tiverton Parkway.... which there isn't. Besides, if they want to catch the train, they have no choice, anyway.
 

 
 

 
Much easier to name it Avonside Park&Ride Station.

 

To my mind that makes sense, though the good burghers of Kemble might feel somewhat slighted.

I think 'Parkway' is actually a pretty good brand for a big out-of-town station, though as a concept (and notwithstanding the apparant car-bias of the current Western Super Mayor) its days are almost certainly numbered. With over-use, it becomes more like the (real) GWR's amusing habit of calling a station nowhere near the place it purports to serve '...Road', as in 'Bodmin Road'. What's that called these days? Oh.

 
Was the parking at Bristol Parkway actually free when it first open as part of the attraction of using it?

 
Don't think it matters what they call the station unless they manage to massively increase both frequency and reliability on the line, considering Shirehampton station is so close (10 minute walk) and how much more frequent and reliable the P&R bus service is, the station could well end up being a disaster anyway.

 
Confused by also naming stations 'Something Road' because they're on 'Something Road', like Stapleton Rd and St Andrew's Rd. Has anyone ever ended up at the latter expecting a Scottish university or a round of golf?

 

Certainly was. I knew at least one person who used it as a handy place to store untaxed cars - which was fine for three months or so, and then BR would come along and tow them away.

 
Bristol Parkway is so named because the M32 was, at the time of construction known as "The Bristol Parkway"  http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_7767000/7767453.stm.  The station is named after the road and its name has nothing to do with car parking.  "Parkway" was originally an American term applied to scenic roads designed from the outset for motorcars and placed through parkland or countryside which could be driven on for pleasure.  When it came to the UK, the term lost some of the scenic connotations, but retained the idea of being a new road cut through the countryside into the city.  Only later did the surfix "parkway" come to mean either a station with a large car park (what we would call Park and Ride today) or alternatively a station which is some distance from the town it serves (not the case with Didcot)

 

If this was Wikipedia, I'd put one of those irritating {{citation needed}} tags next to that... do you think it possible that the folks who named it realised that 'park' can mean more than one thing?

As an aside: Why do we drive on parkways, but park on driveways?

 

If "parkway stations" had to be named after the town they served, wouldn't they nearly all have to be named London Parkway?  Be a bit confusing on the way back...

Paul

 
I think there's a difference between parkway and park & ride, in that a parkway station is mostly used to take passengers away from one town to another, whereas a park & ride is used to take them into the centre of an urban area. A parkway disperses, a park & ride collects and concentrates. It's quite possible I imagined the difference in order to explain the different names before I knew of the M32 origins of parkway, but even after learning that (I think I only learned it earlier this year), I still like to try to see this difference, aware that I'm partly kidding myself. Though I also think that the way we use park & ride stations might have changed over the last decade or so.

 

That's a very Metropolitan centred comment if I may say so. 

Us out in the 'provinces' do go to other places by train you know.

 
There's no reason why a word can't evolve in meaning a bit at a time, from what Parkway meant, via a single example at Bristol, to become a recognisable marker for a station outside a town, suitable for people arriving by car, so they don't need to flog their way into the town centre. Now, I get the mental image from it of parkland (green fields) and a car park. The "way" bit does nothing to the meaning, but in Parkway as a label it needs to be there because Park is already in use for stations - you wouldn't like to confuse Worcester Parkway with Worcester Park.

The Portway half is not so very different. I understand Bristol Portway is recent, and was built for access to the new port facilities at he mouth of the Avon. The name Portway is old, and (while Wikipedia is uncharacteristically silent of the subject) I'm sure it comes from "port" as in portage, porterage, and porter - a road or route used for goods. Mind you that fits for the Bristol one too.

 

I was taught at school that Portway meant the way (Anglo Saxon word meaning road) to the market (town).  There is a Portway along the bottom of the escarpment of the Berkshire Downs - that is nowhere near the sea! 

 
Judging by the squeals of the wheels on the Class 166's, the name Porkway Partway is very apt. Perhaps it could be marketed as the Oink, Oink, Stuffing and Crackling railway ??

 

I think you've missed Bmblbzzz's point - Bristol Parkway was never "a station outside a town, suitable for people arriving by car, so they don't need to flog their way into the town centre"; rather, it was and is a station where Bristol (or should I say 'West of England' - pah!) people catch trains to other faraway places. So quite the reverse of a park-and-ride. As to the etymology of 'Parkway', I think it is at least in part a portmanteau of Park (as in 'ditch the tinwork') + Railway.

 
Bristol Parkway was the winning name in a competition held jointly by BR and the Bristol Evening Post to name the new station when it was being built. The winning entrants comment was he chose the name to reflect the fact that you would drive your car to the station car park and use the railway. It was, as has been stated, the first of the Parkway stations, the next one being Mansfield and Alfreton Parkway.

It was built on part of the former Stoke Gifford marshalling yard.

At one time I was told that the farebox take at the station exceeded that of Temple Meads.

 
Tiverton and Bodmin Parkway strike me as being the modern equivalent of adding "Road" onto the end of a station name, to indicate that it's not an easy walk to the town centre, and with the added "flag" that it's easy for private car use. Others such as Warwick Parkway and Thame Parkway fall into the same camp.

Others such as Didcot Parkway are actually close by the town that they serve, but have a significant car to / from rail role - and we can add Wilton Parkway to that at soe stage.

Perhaps some other "Road" stations could be renamed? There are 50 stations with "Road" in their names, but many of those are named after a specific road - such as Navigation Road, London Road, Ferry Road, Victoria Road.  However, there's a ring to potential names like "Clarbeston Parkway", "Morchard Parkway" and "Llanbister Parkway", isn't there?

 

And I think you've missed my points - that the word's meaning has changed from what is was initially (before Bristol had one), via the first examples, to what it is now. And also (though I didn't make this as clear as I might have) that without Wherever Parkway, the alternative station was in a town centre (Wherever or somewhere else), and that's where drivers would have to go to get a train.

 

For fear of a quibble too far, 'before Bristol had one' points to a time when the word had no rail-related meaning. But I do indeed take your point that whilst there was once a clear distinction between a Parkway station (for people leaving Wherever) and a Park and Ride (for people travelling into Wherever), that distinction has become blurred. Which is a shame, because it was a useful one.

 
Portway Parkway sounds too rolled off the current station naming machine conveyor belt. Plain 'Portway' would probably be better. Surely there must be a more inspiring name for a new stop on the line that carries the majesty of the Severn Riviera Express at the gateway to the Avon Gorge?

 
Gadarene Gorge or Gadarene Gate might do. One might have a  problem deciding who the swine are ...the passengers or the TOC staff ! They will all be asked to avoid phrases like 'chop chop', 'I could murder a bacon roll', or 'we were crammed in like sausages' to so not to offend the aural sensibilties of our porcine neighbours.

 
Any reason this topic is headed Partway and not Parkway?

 
Just a bit of fun swapping the t and k around. Rumour has it that the latest train crew are called Harris & Walls, Richmond & Bowyer !

 

Yes. I thought it was funnier.

 
I get it now, don't mind me, I was getting confused with all the pork related discussion.

For some reason I rather fancy a fry up, that might wake me up a bit.

 

Crackling idea, Gromit !

 
Don't gorge yourself!

 
Now if they every brought the railway back to Calne...

Calne Pork and Rind?
Calne Inter-rashernal?

 
Found a Parkway new to me, Bishops Parkway - Wells.

 
Doesn't count if there's a space between 'park' and 'way'!

 
Please cure yourself of these puns, you silly sausage

 
Is RS 'nuts' or just simply ir-rasher-nal ?

 

I think it was Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways who suggested building the Park and Ride next to Shirehampton station all those years ago. Nonsense, said the powers that be. The car park isn't currently very busy. I'm not sure that the station will change that enormously.

Could this catch on in Cornwall? We could have the Parkandillack Parkway Park and Ride.

 
There is apparently a sort-of plan by Wokingham Borough Council to clear the site of Twyford station for development, and create a new Twyford Parkway a bit to the east (but only as far away as Ruscombe). This has only come to light in a leaked ITT for doing a "masterplan", so the details are a bit sketchy. The Wokingham Paper reports did mention a guide figure of £100M for a new station, plus £30M more to "move the Henley branch line" (!).

It's not even clear at this stage whether the "Parkway" label was picked by WBC, to make it an attractive feature of the new Ruscombe development proposal, or by the opponents as a dismissive "making it like ..." tag. And if so, like where? Is Didcot (the nearest example) so undesirable, seen from Twyford?

 
Hadn't picked up on that in the plans. I'd assumed they were talking about a Park and Ride to the current Twyford station. Considering WBCs plans would double the size of Twyford moving the station seems a minor point.

 
No thank you. I'm not sure Clarbeston Road station even has a car park (I've been dropped there to catch a train once, and can't recall noticing a car park). Also, a number of houses have been built around the station over the years so that, looking at it on Google Earth, 'Clarbeston Road' now seems to be a bigger village/hamlet than 'Clarbeston' itself. I think I've seen an address for a property in Clarbeston that gives it as Clarbeston, Clarbeston Road as well.

 
Source: Bristol 24/7

Nice of them to credit FoSBR for the photo..!

 
The original plan, costing £400,000 and opening in 2013, seems nearly as long ago and far away as FoSBR's suggestion to build the park and ride by Shirehampton station.

In other news, still no sign of Glenn Miller...

 
This in today from WECA.https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/seven-projects-share-13-7m-as-the-west-of-england-gets-building/.

 

There's something of the Trump about that Western super Mayor. That's a lot of spin on not very much.

 
I thought the PP station was already fully funded even before the recent announcement of funding or is it a blinder to mask the inflation since the last funding package was announced. How much of the present funding package will WECA/Mayor Bowles actually sign cheques for since the project has already been through the GRIP process. Mayor Bowles has to me an irritating habit of being foted at the completion of projects many of which were conceived before WECA existed.

 


In today's Bristles local daily there is an article on the PP Station which cites MP Darren Jones commenting on the very subject of the funding being re-cycling of old funding as new money, this saga goes on, why does it take so long for anything to get done in Bristol where a public body is involved ?

 

This one breaks new records, then, having been announced for the first time by the LibDem administration and/or the LEP as long ago as 2010, then again at regular intervals thereafter.

 
Now, last I heard, shovels are supposed to be in ground next month.  I'm wondering what odds a competent bookie would put on that actually happening.

 

Wasn't WRECA supposed to get rid of all this inertia in transport projects. At this rate, Ashley Down will still be at the announcement stage at the beginning of the next century.

 
I am posting this as a news article, though there seems very little new in this news. From the BBC

 

That is absolutely ridiculous. Either the station was designed without lighting, walkways and shelters, and the drainage somehow didn't matter until the station was built, or somebody is finding excuses for the cost going up, when the probable reason is the delay. Even for WRECA, £1 million seems a bit steep for a couple of bus shelters and a light.

 
Piss up and brewery spring to mind ...

 
Report in todays Bristles local daily of another delay to this project but confirms that the project is now fully funded. Yes fully funded at todays costs but how about the inflation that will occur between yesterdays projected completion date and the now newly delayed completion date together with the revelation that design work for the project has not been started yet. Let me put another damper on this project, do they know if they own the land on which the platform will be sited.    😗

 
Full story is here: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristols-new-train-station-delayed-4405716

 


But the article claims Filton Abbey Wood was the last station opened in the city when it is in fact in South Gloucestershire.

 
In the city but not the City. Or to quote Grahame Reading General, "the leech-like suburbs". 

Edited to correct attribution (see below!).

 

Hey ... those are NOT my words.   Used by member Reading General ((here)) last November referred back to by three other members, but never my words and probably not wording I would re-use or concur with!

 
I did think that sounded less diplomatic than the grahame I know..!

 
Sorry. For some reason I remembered it as being your phrase.

 
Not sure if we've heard this news ... I think I may have heard similar before?


from Bristol Live this morning


Oh ... scrolling down ... think it's a retelling of a story from a few years days back ...

 

Maybe you read it here? 

 
By means that I am unable to fully divulge, I can say with reasonable confidence that the name of the new station will be:

Portway Park and Ride

...which would seem like a very sensible choice!

 

Ah - you have been to the GBR Signmakers 

 
I can't say...

 
Just feeling my way around this most informative website. I am from the Cheshire East area. There was a discussion earlier in this thread about the use of the word "parkway" and in the south of Manchester, very many years ago, was a good quality road with the name of Princess Parkway, which in its later stages passed through parkland-type areas. That road now where it passes over the River Mersey now becomes the M56 which passes near to Manchester Airport.

Back on the subject of this thread, which I see has been given a "play on words" thread name, the last month that I heard as a possible railway station opening was December 2021.

 

The "pork" in the title is also a reference to the creatures we tend to see flying by whenever an opening date is mentioned - I was around on the campaigning scene when they were hoping to get it open by the end of the 2010s 

 
The full 20-year saga is here: https://fosbr.org.uk/timelines/portway-station/

This is to be a single-platform station, on straight and level track. You might very well think it should have been pretty straightforward to build it, XenophonPCDGS, but then you're not from around here!

'Portway Parkway' was mooted as the new station's name for a while. Aside from the obvious tongue-twister, there was also potential for confusing it with Bristol Parkway. 'Portway Station' was also mooted as a name, but given that many Bristolians refer to nearby Bristol Parkway as simply 'Parkway' (it's the original!) that too would have been confusing.

The only thing the new station really serves is the long-established Portway Park and Ride facility. It seems surprising it's taken the powers that be so long to reach the conclusion that it would make sense to name it after that...

 

Ooops on my part there - I actually meant to say "I was around on the campaigning scene when they were hoping to get it open by the end of the 2000s" 

One of the reasons that the naming process became such a saga was that the station was originally partly mooted as a replacement for the existing Shirehampton station, and a number of years passed with several variations of "Shirehampton and..." before that notion was wisely dropped.

 

You Johnny-come-lately! I was there when the Lib Dem cabinet member with the transport portfolio Tim Kent announced that it would be open by 2013 at a cost of £400,000. That confident asserrtion must have been made before the Lib Dems lost power in 2011.

 

I refer the honourable gentleman to the correction i made some posts ago 

 

I am obliged to my learned/noble/gallant* friend!

(*delete as appropriate)

 
FoSBR is told that work hasn't started yet at Portway Park and Ride station because of 'some additional delays' in getting GRIP5 (detailed design) completed.

Bristol City Council are now waiting for Network Rail to inform them when they will start on site. With an estimated 20 week build, the station 'should be complete by the end of March 2022'.

 

Sorry Team Reading Green Park, but I did say that Porkway Partway wouldn't give up their "longest time taken to open a railway station" lead easily!

 

I am sure I recall the sitting council cabinet member with responsibility for transport at the time (about 2010) saying it would be up and running by 2013, at a total cost of £400,000, right after MetroBust started running and paying back the cost through the charges on bus companies using it.

We've all passed a lot of water under the bridge since then.

 
Matthew 8:26

 

Genesis 7

 
I take it that's not a trick of a tail then!....

 

Or The Lamb Lies Down On Broadmead...

 

In the case of MetroBust, designed to overcome the problems of buses getting stuck in traffic, Proverbs 26:11 seems appropriate.

 
For some reason, a few lines from Act I, Scene III of The Merchant of Venice spring to mind...

 

Most kind. Antonio is indeed a good man.

 
Anyway enough of this gay banter:

Source: Network Rail, Bristol railway work update, December 2021

 

Hurrah, just as I beginning to find Father Christmas more believable than the notion of Portway ever opening!
I shall raise a little glass to the news later.

 

I shall keep the bubbly on ice for now, although now that Network rail are involved, it does look more likely than not that it will happen.

 

  

 
With Red Squirrel's talk of "gay banter" I thought the station had been renamed, Portway Park and Pride.

But it will always be Porkway Partway in our hearts! Good news from Network Rail, whatever they call it.

 
Some signs of activity here. A site compound has been established on the left (mostly out of shot!), and a blue track safety barrier has been erected alongside running line:

 
That's saved me a journey tomorrow. 
The blue safety barrier was there last week when I took a peek.  I think it's been there a while as it was also on a couple of pictures on other sites previously.
The compound definitely was not there last week.  When arriving that day, I noticed a number of people in high viz tabards but these turned out to be staff at the Covid if testing centre in the car park.
Perhaps significantly, the train I took down to Avonmouth to have a look there came to a brief halt just shy of the site of the new station.  I also noticed the following service slowing down on it's approach.
I was quite amused by a house, just the other side of the A4 Portway opposite the station site.  It had a "Portway" station totem on a post in the front garden and at the time, an illuminated Christmas train on the garage roof! ☺

 
Hmm, well now. These plastic barriers are presumably associated with the COVID test centre, but the site safes etc just visible on the left (and the dumper truck) are presumably for the station... I'll admit it's not as exciting as you might hope.

 
The compound picture looks new to me (from last week).  I wonder who the contractors are?  If they are the same ones who've just finished replacing the Ocean Railway Bridge at Stonehouse, then it should take long!

 


Edit to correct last sentence to give opposite meaning. My misspelling, sory!

 
Good to see that work is getting underway on the new station but I notice that they are building it at the Shirehampton end of the site. Apologies if this is a dumb question (I don't recall having seen the plans) but what is planned to be the route to enable pedestrians (either commuters for the nearby industrial units on West Town Lane and Portview Road or local residents) to get to & from the new station for commuting purposes? Will there be a footpath from West Town Lane or will such users simply have to walk through the same gate as that used by road traffic?

(Come to think of it is there still a live link to the plans for the new station?)

Dave

 

Perhaps not exciting, but at least that's the first million quid spent.


Whilst I didn't expect pedestrians to be considered in a plan for a park and ride, the initial plans do show segregated access from the bus stop within the site. I remember once walking into there to catch the bus, after dropping my car at a nearby garage for some reason, and I don't recall feeling trepidation, so I suppose there must be a footpath going in. The application number is 18/03830/F if this hyperlink doesn't work.

 
TonyK - I’ve never managed to link to a planning application like that (it works!). How did you do it?

 
In my experience only a minority of planning websites allow the use of links that bypass their front end search system.  On some sites that I’ve used even if links happen to work for a few hours they time out very quickly.

Paul

 
Thanks for that link Tony. I imagine that they may find people walking the vehicular access from West Town Lane to get to / from the industrial units over the other side of the level crossing as a means of convenience: the existing stations at Shirehampton and Avonmouth are not convenient stations for employees there. The Officers Report on those documents also does acknowledge that they anticipate that "a high proportion of foot traffic will come from the local area". Let us hope that the new station proves to be well used by Park & Ride customers and local residents alike.

Dave

 

I'm not sure I did anything you wouldn't have tried already, but I copied the link for the documents list rather than the details page. If it isn't that, then it must be my wrist action.


That seems at first unlikely, especially if your experience of Avonmouth is the bit from the M5 bridge to the M5 roundabout. It is only when you spend time visiting (or occasionally observing) people there, as I did, that you realise (a) how big it is, (b) how many homes there are, (c)how many people live in those homes. I'll leave (d) for now.