Bristol Parkway station is located at the intersection of the lines from London (Paddington) to…read moreSouth Wales and the main line from Bristol to Birmingham, providing a major interchange between the two. It was one of the first 'Parkway' stations to be built, in 1972, to attract car users to trains by providing ample car parking at locations with good road links, close to urban areas. This site was chosen both because of the interchange it offered, and because of its proximity to the M4 and M32, just north of Bristol. When opened, shelter was fairly meagre, with 'bus stop' shelters on the platforms and a small waiting room and ticket office by the entrance to the car park. Because of its exposed and windy position, additional long platform shelters were erected, but it still had a reputation for being a cold place to wait for a train. Over the years, substantial suburbs have developed around Stoke Gifford, and in 2001, a new and much larger station building, with a dramatic curved roofline, was built in recognition of its growing importance. In 2007 an additional platform was constructed on the London-bound (north) side, to provide additional capacity. The station is now used by over 1.75 million passengers a year, with in excess of half a million passengers changing trains here. The station now has heated waiting shelters on the platforms, and the main building has a small shop, cafe and ticket office. Other facilities include a taxi rank, payphones, cash points and bus stops for local bus services (including to Frenchay hospital and Bristol city centre). The station has level access (via lifts to the platforms). The station is served by all long distance trains on the London-South Wales main line and the cross-Country main line from the South-West to Birmingham and the North. It is also served by local services from Gloucester, Westbury and Weston-super-Mare.

This is a great, modern, functional station on the North side of Bristol. It's close to the M4/M5…read moreintersection, so it's a far better place to collect someone from than Bristol Temple Meads (in the centre of the city) if you're located to the north of the city. However, there are a few things to be aware of: 1. Parking is £5 a day. The payment meters are awkward to operate, and if you don't pay you will get clamped & fined. 2. The car park gets full by 9:30am most days, and if you park outside an official space, you will get clamped (even if you've paid for a ticket). 3. Traffic in the area is hellish at peak hours. Journeys from the motorway to the station can take in excess of 45 mins between 7:30 - 9:00 and 16:00 - 18:00 for the 2 mile journey. The station is fairly new with good facilities: clean toilets, a small newsagent, a coffee shop and a sandwich shop. There are also lifts to all platforms for the disabled.

Those who use a patch to give up smoking may ask, how much does the Patchweigh? This is unrelated…read moreto that. Patchway railway station is a super cute little station in the southwest of England close to Bristol. There are lots of little stations around here serving all the little Villages and towns and suburbs of Bristol and this is a great example of a typical Southwestern English rail station.

Patchway Station is a small station, well situated by rail. It's hidden away where not a lot of…read morepeople seem to know about it. There's free car parking. There are fairly regular trains to the centre of Bristol, towards the South-West, and to Cardiff, and at certain times of day there are even direct services that will take you to Birmingham, Manchester or beyond. If you're travelling to Cardiff regularly, tickets from Patchway are quite a bit cheaper than from Bristol Parkway. What a pity that it is such a desolate hole. The brick shelters smell of wee and are too small to keep more than 3 people dry. There are no ticket-buying facilities and the announcement system often doesn't work. As soon as it rains both platforms become giant puddles. At the risk of sounding old, Patchway station is also a hanging-out ground for an ugly teenage gang with nothing better to do. They document their sexual conquests across the station and I think they may be the reason that the shelters smell of wee. I wouldn't want to be waiting for, or getting off, a train here too late at night.

A small station with a fast main line service to London and the west of England. It has trains to…read moreWeymouth and Bristol so is an interchange. There is a ticket office and excellent toutist information is displayed in the waiting room.There is a coffee kiosk and taxis ard available here. It serves a wide area of south Somerset and there is a car park.

I've never learnt how to drive a car. Partly laziness, partly because as a teenager I was a bit of…read morean eco-warrior. Years later, less of an eco-warrior but low on funds, I am still at the mercy of public transport . When you live in the UK that's a pretty depressing thought, made even more depressing when you're waiting at trains stations like Filton Abbey Wood. FAW is possibly one of the worst train stations in the country. And I should know. I had to wait there every week days for six months. The station was built in 1996 by the Ministry of Defence to take its workers from their shiny offices to their homes in Wales or central Bristol. In 2006 it was voted Britain's 647th most used station, making it one of the busiest un-staffed stations in the country. You'd think that this would mean that it'd be one of the best. It isn't. With no seats, no toilets, no cover and no working ticket machines it ranks as one of the worst. The icing on the cake is that the one screen that shows the train times works intermittently so sometimes it can be a guessing game as to when your train will arrive. Avoid at all costs!

The most depressing and dire station to have to wait about on in the entire country, in my humble…read moreopinion. Massively horrid and empty, it's as if aliens have removed all the rest of humanity from the planet and you're there, stuck forever alone, on Filton Abbey Wood Station.. To be strictly fair, it was purpose-built for one reason only, and that was for commuter transport to the vast MOD office complxes there. Maybe the fact that it was built by the MOD in 1996 accounts for the bleak, utilitarian design. It's a three-track station, and has covered shelters on each platform, but apart from that - No refreshments, no waiting room, no toilets, no station staff (There is a portacabin that is allegedly manned for a couple of hours in an afternoon), no ticket office, no lost luggage office, etc etc. There is one public payphone but it's sometimes out of order, has no phone book and smells of wee. There's no taxi rank handy either, or bus terminus. If you end up there for any reason be sure to have someone waiting with a car. If you have to change trains there and will be waiting for any length of time be sure to have snacks, fully-charged cellphone, and hope you don't need a bathroom in a hurry! I'd give it no stars at all, except it is a functional station and serves the purpose of decanting employees of the MOD every morning and evening.

Just outside Coleford, Perrygrove railway offers a ride on a narrow-gauge railway and more…read more On entry we were greeted by friendly staff who explained the timetable and handed out a quiz sheet to each of our children together with a key that opens the appropriate prize box once you've finished. The aim of our time at the place was to explore the whole site finding shapes and pictures to answer the clues on the sheet. They provided two different sets of questions, depending on whether you want to just take the train or wish to wander through the wooded area. Next to the entrance there's a miniature 'village' inside that the kids can explore. There's a reasonable amount of scope for them to play hide-and-seek, crawl and run about, spy on Mum and Dad sitting in the cafe and invent other games to play. The railway journey takes you to the top of a hill and you have plenty to look out for on the way. There are a several places where you can get off and explore and there's no limit to how long you spend doing so; you can get on and off as much as you like. At the to of the hill there's a small covered childrens playframe built to a very high standard. From here a series of narrow paths lead down through the wooded area back to the main 'station' at the entrance. I'd suggest that if you have a pushchair, you might struggle pushing it along these paths unless it is one that has large wheels. Once you've finished wandering about outside collecting answers to the questions on the quiz, you return to the main building and enter a miniature 'village' to find your prize. The prizes are obtained by identifying the correct locker to open with your key. Inside you'll find some sweets and some 'party-bag' gifts. The cafe provides basic hot and cold drinks, sandwiches and simple heated-up food. There was also a small selection of items for sale; postcards, toy trains etc. It is spacious and you can just about see the trains coming and going. Prices were reasonable. We found Perrygrove a good place to spend a 2-3 hours and a good choice on a rainy day as well as with good weather.

Brilliant station with such kind staff especially Lead man in customer services called Darren who…read morewas so helpful with laptop related disasters

A nice little station with only four platforms. It is the main station in Herefordshire. The staff…read moreare generally friendly. The cafe is nice, and, suprisingly, quite cheap.

Five stars for the cafe; two stars for the station. The chef in the cafe was charming, friendly and…read moresang while crafting my sausage and egg bap. Was boiling over with laughter, loved his friendliness. The train station is closed on the weekends for rail work, which means it takes twice as long to get anywhere on the bus. Purchased the bus tickets from the train staff inside, who kept directing a group of us to talk to the bus coordinator, and the bus coordinator was not available/missing...poor show!

This relatively small train station is an easy walk to Downtown or the local Co-op. We came…read morearrived from Paddington in the early afternoon and only required minimal directions to get to our Hotel. We had printed out our tickets ahead of time for our return journey back to London. So all we had to do was figure out which side of the tracks we needed to be, wait in the enclosed seating area, and wait for our train. The architecture was mixed and somewhat unremarkable.

Moreton-in-Marsh is a small town in the Cotswolds, so its railway station is small compared to…read morestations in larger towns like Oxford. There is no self-service ticket machine in this station, so if you purchased tickets online and hope to use a self service ticket to print them out, you won't be able to do that here. I printed out all the tickets I purchased online months ago at Paddington Station since I knew I would not be able to do that. There is anagent from whom you can purchase tickets at certain times, so it's good to know their office hours. The ticket office also has information brochures on places of interest in the area. This station is only a few minutes from High Street, so it's very convenient for travelers or sightseers who might want to check out this town. If you don't have a car, you can take the bus going to towns like Stow-on-the Wold or Burton-on-the Water from this station.

Upon arriving in London, we decided to hop on the train to Bristol instead of renting a car -- and…read morewe're so glad we did! The train stations were a breeze to navigate, tickets were very affordable, and the ride itself was smooth and scenic. Staff and locals couldn't have been kinder, always ready to point us in the right direction with a smile. If you're traveling in the UK, skip the stress of driving and take the train -- it's an absolute win!

Used in the TV show Boy Meads World, for all of those train travelers who treat their bodies like a…read moreTemple. This is a large station that services Bristol (but not literally), and is the hub of the entire Southwest UK when it comes trains. It's a haunting old station and one which we've been to on many occasions. Functionally, it's been modernized a lot in recent years during the resurgence of Bristol, but it's as grand as ever. It's actually the oldest station in the country and also the largest. Literally, in the UK. It started serving trains on the last day of August in 1840 and it connects to London Paddington. It was designed by Brunel. Who then did a lot of other railway things. But this was his first mission and he did it well.