Portway Parkway railway station

Portway is a planned railway station on the Severn Beach Line in the district of Avonmouth in Bristol, England. The station will serve the Portway park and ride facility on the A4 Portway and form part of the MetroWest scheme.

History 
The railway through the site was inaugurated on 6 March 1865, when services began on the Bristol Port Railway and Pier (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.

With no prospect of a proper dock being funded without a connection to the national rail network, the Clifton Extension Railway (CER) was approved. This was a joint venture by the BPRP, Great Western Railway and Midland Railway 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, the line came under the aegis of the Western Region of British Railways and, upon privatisation, transferred to Railtrack and later Network Rail. A park and ride was opened near junction 18 of the M5 motorway, adjacent to the railway, in 2002. 

In 2009, it was proposed that a railway station should be built. The plan was supported by Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways 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 and West of England Local Enterprise Partnership. Ground surveys began in 2017, with completion originally planned for 2019; however, planning permission was not granted until March 2019.

The station, part of the MetroWest scheme, will have a platform suitable for five-car trains. There will be seven disabled parking spaces by the access point, and parking for 40 bicycles.

References 

Category:Park and ride schemes in the United Kingdom
Category:Railway stations in Bristol
Category:Proposed railway stations in England