Most limited service stations on a well served line

RichmondCommu said:

There is absolutely no market for that station so five per day is generous.

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I'm not sure I would agree with that at all. The potential market for the station is absolutely massive for a city suburban station.

I've just had a look at Peartree (sic) station on Google earth, and within 800m of the station there is a massive residential population. Within 200m of the station there is a leisure park with a multiplex cinema, bowling alley, and associated restaurants, a premier inn, and a retail park with a massive Sainsbury's supermarket.

Pear Tree is a very big suburb of Derby, and if it was proposed to build a new station at the location, the proponents could probably come up with a very advantageous benefit to cost ratio to support it.

The issue is that the local population probably don't use the railway because of the infrequent service pattern, coupled with regular bus routes through the area into the city centre.

Be3G said:

I couldn't agree more about all of that. I remember taking a few trips on the 363 – that and the 517 were commercial buses if memory serves, which TfL (or maybe it was London Transport back then?) competed with by a combination of 192/377/491. As you say, it wasn't the busiest of buses… and I've certainly experienced a few cramped 192s! Though I do wonder if, considering the local demographic (i.e. income status etc.) there might be a greater tendency to use the bus rather than train because it's cheap; Tottenham Hale is, after all, a fairly significant bus interchange too.

As for the Meridian project… I remember looking through the plans to see if I could find promising signs of redevelopment of Angel Road station, but saw nothing. If I recall correctly, there seemed to be more focus on providing an easy walking route to Edmonton Green.

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It's a shame that the onus would have to be on Edmonton Green, but I suppose it's a given that any substantial improvements to Angel Road would rely on the proposed four-tracking on that line.

I agree with what you say about the socioeconomic leanings towards the bus - as well as being a bus interchange, Tottenham Hale is in z3, and the Edmonton area is firmly z4, so travelling to the former for rail connections elsewhere brings down travel costs, especially for season holders. The buses down Fore Street and the High Road also load to bursting for the tube from Seven Sisters, and many even stay on a 259/279 to Manor House for the zone 2 connection to the tube there. There are other parts of London where you see this in action - the numbers who do the 45 minute trek on a 472 from Thamesmead (nearest station Abbey Wood - zone 5) to the z2 connection at North Greenwich have to be seen to be believed.

As for the 363/517, the only competition LT (I think it's withdrawal came in 2001, so just nudged into the TfL era!) put up in the shape of the 192 as far as Angel Road. The 377 came in later to fill gaps left around Bush Hill & west of Enfield when the 517 was withdrawn, and TfL introduced the 491 to cover the Edmonton - Waltham Cross function provided by the 363 plus the Brimsdown leg of the 517.

Apologies, I seem to have gone off topic here.. anyway, final thought is that if the Meridian development does get going, as a mixed tenure sort of development proposed (mix of market rates, affordable and social rented) you'll have the ones who will want the 192, but also an increase in people commuting into jobs in the centre of London (or the Docklands), who will have been able to afford their homes at market rates and will happily shell out for a train connection in directly from the area - should it exist.

STEVIEBOY1 said:

. There is a line from Stockport to I think Redditch which is not often used either.

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That would be a rum route for Northern!!...I think you mean the previous mentioned Reddish South and Denton stations on the Stockport, Stalybridge line..

nicobobinus said:

The buses down Fore Street and the High Road also load to bursting for the tube from Seven Sisters, and many even stay on a 259/279 to Manor House for the zone 2 connection to the tube there. There are other parts of London where you see this in action - the numbers who do the 45 minute trek on a 472 from Thamesmead (nearest station Abbey Wood - zone 5) to the z2 connection at North Greenwich have to be seen to be believed.

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Oh I can believe it! I was one of those people when I had a just-above-minimum-wage job in the centre of London a couple of years ago. I live in zone 6, and at the time the daily peak-time Oyster cap was £15 for 1–6, £10 for 1–4 and just £8 for 1–2. It was only part-time so a season ticket was no use. In order to prevent too much of my wage going on travel, I therefore started catching a 279 from near the top of its route to Edmonton… and then progressed to staying on all the way to Manor House to get the £8 cap. Took forever in rush hour! Indeed, the 279 is nearly always packed at any time of the day or week, despite the fact it shadows the Southbury loop – it's just so much cheaper. £2.10 for a three-minute, one-stop journey? No thanks.

Acton Bridge (Crewe to Warrington/Liverpool line) must be one of the worst served compared to the number of trains. 5 trains per hour in each direction go through the station but the off-peak frequency at Acton Bridge is one train every 4 hours.

Sidious said:

I'm not sure I would agree with that at all. The potential market for the station is absolutely massive for a city suburban station.

I've just had a look at Peartree (sic) station on Google earth, and within 800m of the station there is a massive residential population. Within 200m of the station there is a leisure park with a multiplex cinema, bowling alley, and associated restaurants, a premier inn, and a retail park with a massive Sainsbury's supermarket.

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Ok, I'm going to make an assumption here that you have never visited the area around Peartree? The neighborhoods within 800 metres of the station are some of the poorest in the East Midlands with many adults barely having the means to get them and their brood into the centre of Derby.

As for restaurants, McDonalds and KFC may class themselves as restaurants but very few others do! And even in a huge city like London, very few people would entertain the idea of taking the train to McDonalds.

In terms of the cinema, other than perhaps people living in Willington, it’s impossible to imagine anybody in the Derby area taking the train to Peartree in order to watch a film. The same could be said for the bowling alley and Sainsburys (which incidentally is far from being "massive").

In terms of the hotel, guests travelling to Derby would almost certainly take a cab from the station. Not only that but people dragging a suitcase would be ill advised to walk in the Peartree area after dark.

Sidious said:

Pear Tree is a very big suburb of Derby, and if it was proposed to build a new station at the location, the proponents could probably come up with a very advantageous benefit to cost ratio to support it.

The issue is that the local population probably don't use the railway because of the infrequent service pattern, coupled with regular bus routes through the area into the city centre.

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Compared to the likes of Oakwood and Stenson Fields, describing Peartree as being "a very big suburb" is stretching things somewhat. Oakwood is only a short drive to Spondon station which has a reasonable service during the peak and yet one could hardly describe it as well used.

The one thing here that I would agree with is that with a very good bus service in the centre of Derby, there is very little reason for anyone to take the train.

Down here on Southern we have Pevensey Bay, 3 trains an hour each direction, 4 trains stop per day. In the 5 plus years I've worked only picked up one passenger, never sold a ticket to or from.
Another station we stop at only now and again is Faygate between crawley and horsham, but I have sold two tickets from this station and may get more stops as housing is being built nearby..

I could say Newhave Marine. That gets about 2 trains a day, mon - fri, but never any passengers

Toots said:

That would be a rum route for Northern!!...I think you mean the previous mentioned Reddish South and Denton stations on the Stockport, Stalybridge line..

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Whoops sorry, I knew that did not look right when I wrote that, yes I did mean Reddish South etc . (I'll put my dunces cap on!)

SprinterMan said:

As can be seen, not all of these stations have low passenger numbers, so it is curious as to why the service is so bad. Is it just a legacy or poor service left by Central Trains, or laziness on the part of EMT or GA, or both. In particular, Netherfield/Radcliffe/Ancaster/Rauceby/Swineshead/Eccles Road/Harling Road/Manea all do reasonable passenger numbers, and so deserve a better service.

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Most of those stations don't get twenty people a day, so I think the service they receive is justified. Just take a look on google maps, with the exception of Netherfield and Radcliffe (both of which well served by bus services) the others are all stations in the middle of nowhere with a few dozen houses. Hardly enough to warrant more than the odd few parliamentary services each day to take people to/from work.

Clifton between Manchester and Bolton has somthing like 1 train a day in each direction I think