If you were to compile a list of the most boring and unglamorous places around these parts, then Bristol Parkway railway station would be somewhere near the top.
Many Bristolians will also tell you that if you’ve had to drag yourself there to commute or take a work trip to London at 7am on a Monday morning, it can be the most depressing place on Earth. (All the more so, old-timers will add, if you had to do it before the smart new station building opened in 2001.)
Before 2001 you could either wait for the train on a windswept platform looking like an uncompleted tin shed with a few bus shelters with uncomfortable seats in, or you could sit - more likely stand - in a cramped, yellow-lit waiting room with a small snack bar and newspaper stall in one corner.
