(bird cawing)
You're early. I like that
Hello. Good morning
It is morning
It's just after 10 past five
I met Clifton Down in Bristol
Yesterday, 31st of July
Britain's newest station opened
That was 2577
That was Thanet Parkway down in Kent
But it's gonna hold that crown as
being the newest station for just one day, for 24 hours
Because today
station 2578 is opening up
Let's go and do Portway Park and Ride
There's some, there's people
on the train with some bright yellow T-shirts
FOSBR, Friends Of Suburban Bristol railways
I think I might have to have a chat with them
Where are we?
Approaching Shirehampton
Shirehampton, and then it's just a
little teeny distance, isn't it?
It's not long
The new station. Exciting
Yeah, it's quite a short distance
I mean there's already a short distance between Shirehampton
and Avonmouth and now they've gone and plunked Portway
And here it is, in between, arriving now
Oh, hello
Morning. Morning Geoff
Oh, hello
Hey! Morning
Can I talk to you in a bit?
In a bit
You're coming back right?
Right back, yeah
Sorry, there's no donuts left
You didn't get me a donut?
They're all gone
I'm sad by that
We gave the station donuts
Why didn't you buy extra donuts?
Want a badge?
A bag or a badge?
Well either, really
I need to collect the set
I've got the Reading Green Park one
and the Marsh Barten one
And now I've got, I've got the set
And a bag as well
And a bag
Thank you very much
It's Portway Park and Ride
No, it's not Parkway
There are 22 already existing Parkway stations
I'm flashing them up on the screen very quickly now
There's 22 stations that are Parkway stations
but this is Park and Ride 'cause it's been
a bus park and ride for many years
But what they've done for the new stations that
they've increased the amount of car parking spaces.
And there's a chap here called Lewis
Hello!
I've, I've pose you the question, how many parking?
'Cause my friend Dan, who likes to count car parking
spaces isn't here today 'Cause it could be several hundred
So rather than count several hundred parking spaces
is there somebody you can text
I definitely haven't just checked online
But you definitely - go on
I definitely have it
So off the top of your head Lewis
About 830 spaces
No don't say about eight hundred
830 spaces
If I did get Dan down here to count them all
don't. If it's 832
Give or take
(Lewis laughing)
No we need an exact number
Oh no!
830. We'll go with 830
That's Lewis
Thanks to Lew
There's a help Point!
point, park and ride
The help point is in use and it's called Park and Ride
'cause it's an established brand and established name
'Cause there's a number nine bus that has been here
for about like 20 years actually going into town
So the station is just using the existing site
hence why they've expanded the carpark
Presumably you could like, you could get the bus
into town and maybe the train back
or the train into Bristol and then the bus back
But I believe on a return ticket, the train is cheaper
at £3 and the bus is slightly more expensive
50p at £3.50
There's another entrance up at this end of the station
along with the shelter
Little perch seats
And did I see down there?
Yes. Actual seats
Actual proper seats
Oh from here
You get a good view of the whole station
It's long enough for a five car train
Even though our guerbo, this morning
was a three car train
(plastic bag rustling)
I've met somebody called Tim
That is a bright yellow T-shirt Tim
Yes
FOSBR. Friends of suburban Bristol railways
Yes.
With your website there, there's about five of you here
It's like a little entourage
What, what, what do you, what do you guys do?
What's your, what's your thing?
Well we campaign for a better rail in the Bristol area
Which I believe is now happening
It's happening
We'd like it to happen faster, because we'd like more
Off the top of my head
I can think of at least five stations
which might be coming, if you include Porter's Head
Could you tell us, tell us about those stations
Yeah, well we've got Porter's Head and Pill
which are just over there behind me or, behind us
Yeah. Yeah
And they're up on the Henbury line it's a couple more
Yeah. Yep, yep
There's, there's Henbury
and there's either North Filton, North Brabson
whatever they decide to call it
Because they're gonna go a new arena or stadium
Is that correct? Big arena. Yeah
What is that?
What, what are they building?
Well there's a, so they're building an arena
in the hangers where they built the Brabson
airliner back in the forties
Okay. So a bit of history. Nice
It's a bit nice bit of- Yeah, yeah
Okay
And there's one
on the Filton bank as well, on the main line
So that's Ashley down
So Ashley down will be the next one
And I read just in the press yesterday
that it's definitely gonna be start to be built
in I think 2024 next year
It's, the platforms are in
Oh really?
The platforms are in. Yeah, yeah
Yeah. Because it's an old station right?
They're just, they There was a station there
They've dug, they've dug out all the old platforms
put new ones in, made out of polystyrene blocks
It's fascinating.
So apart from those five, would you
like to see even more stations?
We would, we'd love to
To the, to the-
Sorry. Yeah, yeah.
No, no. If you look in the camera
Yeah
If you just say hello to the DFT
and put, put in your plea
Hi DFT
Please build us more stations in the Bristol area
We, we'd love it
We'd and Pilning we'd like to see more
More than two trains a week at Pilning please
Olga's gonna be so happy
She will
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Well we, we never forget Olga
Okay right. So a regular service to Pilning as well
Yeah yep. Yep
Anything else?
We'd like one every 15 minutes ideally
That's, see that would be great
And electric as well
Okay right. Apart from that
Apart from that, we're happy
(both laughing)
Thank you. Cheers. Nice to meet you
Right, train's here. Look, are you getting this train?
Oh, there we go Train here
Perfect timing
Yeah, I'm getting on this one
That's great. Glad we planned it
We didn't plan it
So yeah, I'm in the car park
Oh, car park
This is clearly the, the new bit right now
because this all looks rather lovely and new.
There are some bike racks over there, which is good to see.
I can't see any EV electric vehicle charging points
but yes, it's definitely a large carpark.
If you're coming to Bristol, come park your car here
Get the train or bus
Should check out where the bus is into Temple Meads
I'm at the bus stop
Stagecoach number nine
I'm wondering how many of the people
on board there right now have worked out yet
that there's a railway station that you can use instead
So park and ride, bus and now train
There's a green cabin here
Is that like a toilet or is that like a, a porter cabin?
It is a toilet
Ah. I was hoping it might be a cafe
6 million pounds spent on a station but they
couldn't upgrade the terrible looking green porter cabin
Sure, sure. I might use the loo though
(intermission music)
I've picked on a random person to hold my camera
Thanks very much
GWR. Is it me or is this a bespoke timetable
for Portway Park and Ride? Thanks very much
Basically it's the Severn Beach to Bristol line
Although don't 7 trains go through
to Weston-super-Mare now? I think that is a thing
You can see here 7:14, 7:48, 8:14, 8:48.
It is a half hourly service I believe in both directions.
But it gets a Monday to Friday and Saturday
and even on, oh Sunday it drops
to hourly rather than half hourly timetables
Yay
You, you probably do. Yeah
I'm getting this bit on camera
This is, this is like a little outtake
Wow. We'll just-
Stuart!
Hello
Stuart "every_station" Boyd.
Hi, how are you?
Hi, I'm good
Yesterday. What did you do?
I went to Fanet Parkway
Thanet with an F?
Well yeah
So that was the new, new new station.
Yeah, for 24 hours
For 24 hours
Okay. What's it like?
Were you on the first train?
I was on the first train out of Thanet
And I've went there when it was being built
Now it's finished
Externally, it's nice
Internally, on the platforms, it's it leaves
a lot to be desired
And here they've spent just under £6 million,
on essentially just a single platform with a shelter
Yep
But even if you call it bland
it's still good that there's stations, right?
Stations are good
Stations are still good New stations are good
Okay. Alright
If they're in the right place
Is this in the right place?
What have you seen from Portway this morning?
I'm interested to see how this one does
'cause of the buses
You think there's like a
bus versus train situation going on?
Well the bus, the bus is every 10 minutes
straight into the city centre
But it takes longer to get there
Right
The train is every half an hour
and it doesn't go into a city centre
But it's slightly cheaper for a return ticket. Okay.
Swings and roundabouts
There's a train coming in now the sun has risen some more
and the day has warmed up nicely
Just to say yes, there's an entrance-exit at either end
of this single five car platform, waiting shelter
couple of litter bins there
And there is just then a single ticket machine there
Last night, amusingly, I was at Clifton Down
and I was able to buy a ticket to Portway Park and Ride
even though the station wasn't open yesterday
But it is often a criticism that, you know
stations aren't in the ticket vending machines and stuff
So, but it was already well done GWR
It was in the, it was in the system
And even on my national route app this morning
just checking on my phone, checking out next train times
It was already in the App
Sometimes things, things, these things are slow to get
into the system, but it's all in the system
And remember if you see something that doesn't look right
see it, say it, sort it
Text British Transport Police on 61016
I'm out here in Bristol on the Severn Beach branch
Excuse me, that's the tea doing that.
Trains every half an hour at Britain's
newest railway station
This is Portway Park and Ride
Come for the bus but stay for the train
Why not do a day out where you
get the train out and the bus back?
That just might be fun
Another new railway station comes to the network
More new stations to come still in 2023 and into next year
It's all very exciting
That's it
Thanks for watching
See you soon