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.
READ MORE: Forgotten moments come alive in long lost pictures from 1970s Bristol
But dull old Bristol Parkway, which is 50 years old this week, played a very important role in the development of Bristol over recent decades. What’s more, its opening was a hugely important turning-point in the development of the UK rail system ever since.
When Bristol Parkway was built at a shoestring cost of £200,000 and opened on May 1 1972, it was the first completely new railway station in England after years of railway closures. The notorious Beeching cuts of the 1960s had given way to a more nuanced idea of how people could, should or would travel and Bristol Parkway would become the first in a whole new generation of stations integrating car and rail travel.
According to a letter in the Feb 5 edition of BT, the idea of turning the former marshalling yards at Stoke Gifford into a station was “sold” to British Rail bigwigs and a government minister and his entourage by taking them on a train trip past the area and ensuring they were liberally supplied with booze. That’s the story, anyway …
It came complete with 600 free parking spaces (parking charges didn’t come in until the 1990s) and was deliberately designed to take traffic off the M4 and induce people to travel to London by train instead. The car parking suggests that’s how it got its “Parkway” name, though that’s not the case.
“Parkway” was suggested by a member of the public in a British Rail contest to find a name, and came from an early designation of the nearby M32 motorway which was then being built to run from the M4 into central Bristol.
Since then, a number of other stations around the country have had the suffix “Parkway” added to their names to intimate that they perform a similar function. But Bristol Parkway was the first.
And love it or hate it, Bristol Parkway also played a huge part in the massive development to the north of the city that followed in its wake, because whether you’re building offices or houses, the fact that there’s a station close by that’ll get you to London in well under two hours is a major selling-point.
So we thought we’d take a nostalgic (if that’s the right word) trip through Parkway’s past with some of the Post’s archive photos. Enjoy!
Local railway historian Mike Oakley is marking Bristol Parkway’s 50th birthday with a booklet featuring a brief history of the station and some black & white photos, both of the original station and the current one. It costs £3 (inc UK P&P) and to order a copy you can call Mike on 01179 692351 or email.
