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Does professional sport affect decisions about closures?

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EM2

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An idle thought occurred while planning a possible model railway layout.
The idea is of a small run-down urban terminus, which to be honest doesn't warrant enough traffic to stay open. But it's the only station left in the town and stays open because of the traffic every other Saturday, with it being close to the town's football stadium.
And then I wondered whether the powers-that-be would take that into consideration when planning to close a line or withdraw services?
Mansfield famously did not have a station for many years, despite having a Football League club, and I'm sure there must be other stadia that have had their local line or station shut.
 
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BestWestern

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Or have a brand spanking station opened outside but then have the service deliberately withdrawn on event days due to lack of capacity!
 

6Gman

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An idle thought occurred while planning a possible model railway layout.
The idea is of a small run-down urban terminus, which to be honest doesn't warrant enough traffic to stay open. But it's the only station left in the town and stays open because of the traffic every other Saturday, with it being close to the town's football stadium.
And then I wondered whether the powers-that-be would take that into consideration when planning to close a line or withdraw services?

No.


...
 

Llanigraham

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I believe that the football loadings at Cardiff's Ninian Park Station were studied quite closely to see whether it was worth closing it or not.
 

deltic

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An idle thought occurred while planning a possible model railway layout.
The idea is of a small run-down urban terminus, which to be honest doesn't warrant enough traffic to stay open. But it's the only station left in the town and stays open because of the traffic every other Saturday, with it being close to the town's football stadium.
And then I wondered whether the powers-that-be would take that into consideration when planning to close a line or withdraw services?
Mansfield famously did not have a station for many years, despite having a Football League club, and I'm sure there must be other stadia that have had their local line or station shut.

Not to withdraw a service but some stations that closed to regular passengers remained open for sporting traffic for some years after eg Wadsley Bridge which was used for football speicals for over 30yrs after last passenger service and it could be argued Bordesley station only remains open because of match day traffic to Birmingham City
 

J-2739

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Depends if the little loadings of the other stations on the line outweigh the one station on the line which is only busy on match days.
 

adrock1976

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On a sideways note, Drayton Park station on the Northern City Line is closed on matchdays when Arsenal play home matches at the nearby Ashburton Grove stadium. This is due to the island platform being narrow.

While still mentioning stations in the London area, Wembley Stadium on the Great Central Railway was originally opened for the Empire Exhibition (1924 I think). I am aware that additional services call when there are events on at the stadium, however, I am unsure of the passenger loadings on non-event days. Also, I am not sure if any passengers interchange between Wembley Stadium (GCR) and Wembley Park (Metropolitan Railway/London Underground) or Wembley Central (London & Birmingham Railway) that are shown in the station usage data for the trio of stations at Wembley.

When part of the Glasgow Central Railway (Caledonian Railway) reopened in 1979, this included the reopening of Finnieston station. During the 1980s when the SECC and the Armadillo were built, the station was renamed to Exhibition Centre. At that time, that part of Finnieston was former industrial wasteland along the banks of the mighty Clyde. Furthermore, part of the carriageway of the main road Clydeside Expressway is the former trackbed of the Caledonian Railway route westwards to Dumbarton.
 

CarltonA

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While still mentioning stations in the London area, Wembley Stadium on the Great Central Railway was originally opened for the Empire Exhibition (1924 I think). I am aware that additional services call when there are events on at the stadium, however, I am unsure of the passenger loadings on non-event days. Also, I am not sure if any passengers interchange between Wembley Stadium (GCR) and Wembley Park (Metropolitan Railway/London Underground) or Wembley Central (London & Birmingham Railway) that are shown in the station usage data for the trio of stations at Wembley.

The present station at Wembley Stadium was opened in 1905 by the GCR and was called Wembley Hill for a long time. The station opened in the 1920s was in a different place and no longer exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wembley_Stadium_railway_station
 

edwin_m

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Does professional sport affect decisions about closures? Yes, because the railway is a political football.
 

roversfan2001

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Surely the passenger numbers keep stations open? Obviously if a major attraction is nearby that will positively affect passenger numbers.
 

NSE

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Surely the passenger numbers keep stations open? Obviously if a major attraction is nearby that will positively affect passenger numbers.

Not necessarily, As Adrock said. Drayton Park is literally underneath The Emirates, but has never had match day traffic. It is tiny and has only a single island platform. All traffic is pushed to Arsenal/Finsbury Park stations.
 

thenorthern

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Depends on a range of things, Bordesley Station would have probably closed if it wasn't for the fact that Birmingham City football club is next door to the stadium.

Meadowbank Stadium closed 3 years after Meadowbank Thistle FC left Meadowbank Stadium and became Livingston FC.

I would have thought St James station and that branch from Monument on the Tyne and Wear Metro wouldn't have opened if it wasn't for the stadium although being a Sunderland fan no St James' Park isn't a bad thing.
 

clagmonster

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Not necessarily, As Adrock said. Drayton Park is literally underneath The Emirates, but has never had match day traffic. It is tiny and has only a single island platform. All traffic is pushed to Arsenal/Finsbury Park stations.
That isn't strictly true as on Tuesday nights it used to be possible to travel to Drayton Park before a game, just not travel back from said shack. I know because I've done it.
 

AndyNLondon

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That isn't strictly true as on Tuesday nights it used to be possible to travel to Drayton Park before a game, just not travel back from said shack. I know because I've done it.

The current practice is to close Drayton Park station both before & after weekend matches, and after weekday evening matches. I would guess that as well as the safety concerns, it's also about trying to spread the crowds over several stations with more frequent services.
 

glbotu

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The current practice is to close Drayton Park station both before & after weekend matches, and after weekday evening matches. I would guess that as well as the safety concerns, it's also about trying to spread the crowds over several stations with more frequent services.

I think the 6tph GN service could probably handle some of the football crowd (they're generally pretty good at getting people dispersing between Highbury & Islington, Arsenal and Holloway Road), but it's the Island that is too narrow to hold the waiting passengers and there's not enough distance between it and the stadium to use as a "spillway" to hold people off of the station.
 

Mikey C

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Not necessarily, As Adrock said. Drayton Park is literally underneath The Emirates, but has never had match day traffic. It is tiny and has only a single island platform. All traffic is pushed to Arsenal/Finsbury Park stations.

Drayton Park is a slightly different situation, seeing that other stations, notably Finsbury Park which can cope much better with the crowds are nearby. If it was the ONLY station near the stadium (god forbid!) I'm sure they would keep it open, but with controlled entry.

Lord's station on the Metropolitan Line was closed and replaced by St John's Wood on the Bakerloo (Jubilee) Line BUT the original plan was to temporarily open it for big matches, so this would have been an example of a station being opened just for sporting events.

Instead, lots of cricket fans now have to walk to Baker Street if they don't fancy queuing st St John's Wood!
 

tbtc

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We've recently had the station by the Coventry City/ Wasps ground (still called the Ricoh Arena?) not going to open at match times because the line wouldn't be able to cope with the numbers.

It's a tricky one. A sports stadium can certainly help in terms of numbers, but it may only have a couple of dozen fixtures a year, maybe fewer. Then you've got the feast/ famine of suddenly needing capacity for hundreds/ thousands of people in a very short space of time (but then the station/ line may be pretty empty the rest of the fortnight).

Whilst the railway is great at many things, it's not necessarily suited to those kinds of peaks in demand (e.g. should stations on the Coventry - Nuneaton line be able to cope with eight coach trains on a high frequency, with the additional rolling stock required to provide those seats, or is it too much hassle to provide it for a few sporting fixtures?
 

OwlMan

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We've recently had the station by the Coventry City/ Wasps ground (still called the Ricoh Arena?) not going to open at match times because the line wouldn't be able to cope with the numbers.
It no longer closes at weekends as a double dogbox now runs Sat & Sun
 

fgwrich

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It no longer closes at weekends as a double dogbox now runs Sat & Sun

Just what I was about to say as I found out a few weekends back when I visited for Chiefs v Wasps. Double Dogbox was no good to me heading up to the stadium though as my XC was late arriving and the LM left nearly a minute early. Cue a late running XC and VT arriving at the same time as the LM leaves half empty (hourly service at weekends!). I did catch it on the return leg though, all I can say is roll on with Knuckle and the D Trains!

Another three stations close to stadiums are Digby and Sowton and Newcourt at Exeter, and the soon to eventually be built Reading Green Park station which will be close to the Madjeski. Just a shame that as a station will be built just over the road, London Irish are considering a move down to Brentford. Newcourt and Digby are not strictly built to serve Sandy Park stadium - Digby built to serve a Park and Ride and housing, and Newcourt was also built to serve new housing out on that side of Exeter. However, as the nearest stations they are used - Newcourt is used to serve stations towards Exmouth and Digby is used to serve stations up to Exeter and onwards.
 

DarloRich

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the FA certainly don't listen to TOCs/NR - they scheduled a cup final after the last trains had left London due to engineering work they were well aware of!
 

WelshBluebird

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Didn't it later become another one that closed for safety reasons on match days? Due to narrow platforms in that case.

It is back open again now. They were trying to get people to use Grangetown station instead (which is a bit further away from the stadium, but not by much) but that didn't really work too well. And I think especially now we are back down in the Championship, the attendances aren't big enough to cause an issue! Still quite often worked by a single 153 though, which can certainly help when it comes to getting to know away fans!!
 

DarloRich

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Drayton Park is a slightly different situation, seeing that other stations, notably Finsbury Park which can cope much better with the crowds are nearby. If it was the ONLY station near the stadium (god forbid!) I'm sure they would keep it open, but with controlled entry.

Lord's station on the Metropolitan Line was closed and replaced by St John's Wood on the Bakerloo (Jubilee) Line BUT the original plan was to temporarily open it for big matches, so this would have been an example of a station being opened just for sporting events.

Instead, lots of cricket fans now have to walk to Baker Street if they don't fancy queuing st St John's Wood!

I cant say the queues after a game at Lords are that bad - it is much more civilised than other sporting venues and the walk form the ground seems to thin the crowd out.
 
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