Change at Stapleton Road
A long time ago, I used to watch trains at Stapleton Road. In those days, there were station buildings and even a refreshment room. As a junction it was in decline then, but as a junction, this bleak, ravaged station may have a future.
Occasionally, travelling from Cam & Dursley or Yate I do still change at Stapleton Road for Clifton Down, catching a train I would miss at Temple Meads. Last week, the change was for a more complicated journey.
The destination was Newport: Britain’s least known Newport, the one in Shropshire. Traveline suggested trains to Telford, two buses, the Crudginton Roundabout, and a left turn on foot to “unknown”. Traveline had also suggested travelling via Warminster, probably to the Isle of Wight. As Traveline also regularly suggests a trip to Swindon using a ferry, presumably to cross the stripling Thames at Bablock Hythe, I don’t take it as Gospel. So rather than catch the X14 to Westbury-on-Trym, change buses for Parkway, buy a few cleft sticks, engage a native bearer and head for Crudginton, which I had assumed was a joke devised by Bill Tidy for his CAMRA cartoons, I used my intelligence. Start from Clifton Down, change at Stapleton Road for Newport (Cas Newydd) , whence to Shrewsbury for a bus to the entrance gate of the Agricultural College outside Newport.
Sadly I was offered a lift so I don’t know whether this would have worked. However, I do now know that momentary inattention on the M6 can take you to Northants when you should be in Glos. (“Oh Mr Porter, what shall I do?”)
The serious point is that Stapleton Road and Parson Street could be promoted as junctions to make journeys easier and reduce congestion at Temple Meads.
Conspiracy Theorists might care to pursue the idea that Traveline has been infiltrated by the car industry, Lord Mandelson, the CIA and of course the Milk Marketing Board.
Peter