Portway Park and Ride Station

[whole diary]

[Red Squirrel]

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^» (Network Rail - home page) are referring to the new Portway P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) 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.

[Bmblbzzz]

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^▸ (as far as I know), 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.

[John R]

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?

[ellendune]

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!

[John R]

Wouldn't Ryanair just call it Cirencester though?

[Bmblbzzz]

No, it would be Kemble-London.

[Andy]

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.
 

 
 

[Western Pathfinder]

Much easier to name it Avonside Park&Ride Station.

[Red Squirrel]

...call it Cirencester Parkway!

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^▸ (Great Western Railway)'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.

[Timmer]

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

[WelshBluebird]

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^▸ (Park and Ride) bus service is, the station could well end up being a disaster anyway.

[Bmblbzzz]

With over-use, it becomes more like the (real) GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'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.

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?

[Red Squirrel]

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

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^▸ (British Rail(ways)) would come along and tow them away.

[Tim]

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^▸ (United Kingdom), 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)

[Red Squirrel]

...its name has nothing to do with car parking.  

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?