As per the thread title, I am looking for trivia journeys where Northern trains have a significant time advantage over driving. The journey needs to be between two reasonably populated towns or cities or their significant railheads (so for example, Alnmouth would count, Chathill would not). I am not sure how many of these there will be, but the advantage should be decisive - more than around 1/3 quicker where possible. In some cases, other trains on the same route might be faster or more frequent and in other cases there might not be a frequent train service at all, but as long as there are at least several daily services this can be counted. This is mainly a question of the structural capability of the train service, so because the impact of peak road congestion is so difficult to measure, I think it will generally need to be ignored - even though this is often a very significant reason why the train service is attractive. For some context, if anyone can spot an example as good as this Transport for Wales one over a similar or greater distance, I would be very interested: Crewe to Shrewsbury is at least 60 minutes driving, but a fast train can make the journey in 30 minutes.
A couple of examples to get started:
Manchester to Bolton, 20 minutes by the majority of trains, at least 30 by road
Lancaster to Preston, 20 minutes by the hourly Northern trains, around 35 minutes by road
Arnside to Grange-over-Sands is 6 minutes by train, and 25 by road.
A couple of examples to get started:
Manchester to Bolton, 20 minutes by the majority of trains, at least 30 by road
Lancaster to Preston, 20 minutes by the hourly Northern trains, around 35 minutes by road
Arnside to Grange-over-Sands is 6 minutes by train, and 25 by road.
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