Bristol Parkway Railway Station - History

History

Bristol Parkway was built in the 1970s to give Bristol a station on the railway from London to South Wales, which passes just north of the city. There were several reasons for positioning a new station at Stoke Gifford: trains to London were quicker than on the longer route from Temple Meads, via Bath and Chippenham before reaching Swindon; a larger car park than at Temple Meads could be provided; the population on the northern fringes of the city was growing, especially with the building of a new town at Bradley Stoke; and it was within easy access of the M4 and M5 motorways. The name "Parkway" has since been applied to other out-of-town stations of a park and ride nature despite its presumed original reference to the Bristol Parkway, the nearby M32 motorway running through parkland.

The station opened on 1 May 1972 with temporary buildings. When a permanent station was built, it was architecturally unimpressive: a single low building on the north side of the tracks at the far west end, with footbridge access over the "goods loop" tracks to the two long platforms. The east-west layout of the platforms and the fact the station is at the top of a low rise from prevailing winds from the west, together with the original 2 platforms being shuttered in from the goods loops meant that passengers were left standing in a 'wind tunnel'. The original waiting rooms were located some way from the footbridge and were very small.

On 1 July 2001, a new building and footbridge opened, still on the north side but near the middle of the platforms, with lifts for disabled access to the platforms and a larger refreshment and waiting area on an upper level. The redevelopment cost Network Rail over £4 million. In January 2007 construction started on the third platform, opened as platform 4 in May 2007

On 6 August 2007, platform 1 was renumbered platform 3 to allow for a new platform to be constructed as an island with platform 2. This included a new heated waiting room, a help desk and electronic travel information screens on platforms 3 and 4. In December 2007, First Great Western changed the services operated at Bristol Parkway, introducing a new service to Westbury and Weston-Super-Mare in place of the service to Taunton, but a few services a day still operate to Taunton.