Leeds ticket office

Was passing through Leeds today and thought I would ask a question which has often perplexed me and I know it might seem bizarre but thought I'd see if anybody knew the answer.

Most of the main stations in major cities, particularly in England, have the ticket office/travel centre operated by the main "London InterCity" operator - e.g. Sheffield is operated by EMT and Newcastle is LNER etc. However I have always found it strange that Leeds is operated by Northern.

I presume this must go back to BR days (but could be wrong) in that Regional Railways rather than InterCity managed it. Just curious to know if anyone knows why Leeds was treated in this way?

Northern approx 23 departures per hour and LNER 2 must have something to do with it (then Cross Country 2 and TPE 11)

wellhouse said:

Northern approx 23 departures per hour and LNER 2 must have something to do with it (then Cross Country 2 and TPE 11)

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Possibly, but when Midland Mainline started they only had 1 departure per hour outside of the peak at Sheffield, yet they still managed the station.

Back when long distance travel was either booked in a travel centre or by telesales I suppose it made sense for Intercity and it's successors to run the office. Nottingham was a curious inverse case to Leeds - Central Trains ran the whole station, platform staff etc etc etc with the exception of the booking office which was Midland Mainline's.

The East Coast franchise ran a booking office at Leeds until a couple of years ago, when it was shut down.

Leeds was a Regional Railways ticket office and travel centre, and also a Regional Railways managed telephone enquiry bureau upstairs.

Thus, at privatisation it just handed over to Northern Spirit and their successors.

Why Leeds was Regional Railways whilst other places such as Sheffield and Manchester Piccadilly were Intercity managed (if I recall correctly) I do not know.

I did work experience there with Regional Railways North East, even getting let loose hand writing International tickets on the International desk in the travel centre.

The telephone enquiry bureau I remember being interesting - very ancient computers, but pretty much everything being in printed books. Checking times and fares was a major exercise involving lots of lifting of heavy books and scraps of paper.

Liverpool Lime Street is similar in that the ticket office and travel centre are Northern operated. Virgin Trains have the fast ticket collection machines.

I'm sure that there is a reason for this but it has just always been that way