Port Talbot Parkway Railway Station

This is a ghastly station. The steps are absolutely filthy — people seem to think it’s OK to spit and urinate. They are never cleaned. If you can’t get up the steps you have to book for the level crossing to be opened. Whether they turn up or not depends on whether they have been told — you have to ring up 24 hours before and then they don’t always pass on the message. Stand there and wave by the level crossing gate — they might look straight at you from the platform but not come to the gate. If you manage to attract their attention don’t expect them to help you with your case. Then when you get to the dirty and uncleaned waiting room you will be greeted by hard steel seats and it will be freezing cold. They try their best but there is no passenger awareness really. If the ticket office is closed and you are therefore unable to collect your pre-​booked cheaper ticket, they will not accept the fact that you have paid for the ticket and will insist you buy another on the train. Therefore make sure you collect it beforehand if you are travelling when the ticket office is closed. I avoid this station if I can and go by bus to Gatwick Airport!

This is quite a large Railway Station. No disabled access when booking office is closed. Station closes early and passengers have to use the night exit. It has recently been re-​painted in attempt to make it look better. Regular trains to Swansea/​Cardiff.

Port Talbot Parkway is the main railway station for the South Wales port and steel town of Port Talbot, and also serves the housing developments and seaside town of nearby Aberavon.
One of the major stops on the line from Cardiff to Swansea, the station was built when the line was opened in 1850, but named Aberavon (the town and station later acquired its name from the Talbot family who developed the docks and the adjacent seaside settlement adopted the name Aberavon).
For much of the 19^th and 20^th century, Port Talbot was the centre of an extensive railway network serving the adjacent coast and the coal mining valleys to the north, but this has since shrunk to the main line, and a small network serving the steel works.
The station was rebuilt in the 1970s in its present form with a single island with 2 platforms, and the small, modern brick ticket office was rebuilt in 1980. It was renamed Port Talbot Parkway in the late 1980s when a large car park was built, with the aim of its becoming a local railhead.
The station has a small buffet, toilets and has step-​free access to the platforms, via the level crossing, available only when the station is staffed (6−22h). The ticket office is only open until the early evening. It has a large car park, a taxi rank and cycle storage.
It is served by the main hourly London-​Swansea inter-​city trains operated by First Great Western, hourly regional trains between West Wales and Manchester, and the less frequent local trains from Swansea to Cardiff which stop at intermediate all stations.