Portway Park and Ride is a railway station under construction on the Severn Beach line in the Avonmouth district of

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, England. The station, about north-west of Bristol city centre and close to the M5 motorway, will serve the

Portway park and ride The Portway park and ride site is on the A4 Portway at Shirehampton, to the north-west of Bristol, England, close to junction 18 of the M5 motorway. History The site opened in April 2002 with 300 car parking spaces as part of the Bristol par ...

facility on the A4 Portway. It forms part of the MetroWest package of improvements to railways in the area. the station is expected to open in the summer of 2023.

History

The railway through the site was inaugurated on 6 March 1865, when services began on the

Bristol Port Railway and Pier The Bristol Port Railway and Pier (occasionally referred to as the Bristol Port and Pier Railway) was a railway in Bristol, England. Route The Bristol Port Railway and Pier company (BPRP) ran from a main terminus at (originally called Clifton), ...

(BPRP), a self-contained railway which ran along the north bank of the River Avon to a deep-water pier on the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth. The route was standard gauge single-track. The BPRP ran into trouble by 1871, when the terminal pier at Avonmouth became difficult to use due to a build-up of

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...

. With no prospect of a proper dock being funded without a connection to the national rail network, the

Clifton Extension Railway The Clifton Extension Railway was a joint railway in Bristol, owned by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and the Midland Railway (MR) companies. Description of line The railway ran from a junction with the GWR at Narroways Hill, just north of Sta ...

(CER) was approved. This was a joint venture by the BPRP,

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

and

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

which ran from Sneyd Park Junction, south of , via , to join up with the national network at Narroways Hill Junction. The link opened in 1877. Despite the increased traffic the BPRP suffered financially, and was taken over by the CER in 1890. When the railways were nationalised in

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

, the line came under the aegis of the

Western Region of British Railways The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex- Great ...

and, upon

privatisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

, transferred to

Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...

and later

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

. A park and ride was opened near junction 18 of the M5 motorway, adjacent to the railway, in 2002.

Station proposal

In 2009, it was proposed that a railway station should be built. The plan was supported by

Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FoSBR) is a Bristol-based campaign group, calling for better rail transport in the Bristol area. Formation FoSBR was formed in 1995 as ''Friends of Severn Beach Railway'', to protest against the potential ...

and the Bristol branch of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. The plan was approved in October 2012. In 2017, £2.23million was allocated for construction, of which £1.67M came from the government's New Stations Fund, with additional funding coming from the

West of England Combined Authority The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) is a combined authority within the West of England area, consisting of the local authorities of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset. The combined authority is led by the ...

and

West of England Local Enterprise Partnership West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

. Ground surveys began in 2017, with completion originally planned for 2019; however, planning permission was not granted until March 2019. In December 2019, it was reported that the cost estimate had risen to between £3.4M and £3.6M. The station remained part of MetroWest's plan for 2020–2025 and spending of £1.5m was moved to the 2021–2022 year. Preparation began in December 2021 with vegetation clearance and the setting up of a site compound with the main works commencing in February 2022. The station will have a single platform suitable for five-car trains. There will be seven disabled parking spaces by the access point, and parking for 40bicycles. The station was expected to be open in the summer of 2022. However, this was later delayed and then again further in November 2022 due to some problems with electrical supplies and cabling. The car park also remained unfinished. the station is substantially complete and is expected to open in the summer of 2023.

References

{{Current rail infrastructure projects in the United Kingdom Park and ride schemes in the United Kingdom Railway stations in Bristol Proposed railway stations in England