Britain’s Worst Connected Big Cities By Rail.

mds86 · 18 Aug 2019

tbtc said:
not in the shadow of somewhere larger on a main line (e.g. Gloucester is close enough to Cheltenham)

I think you'll find Gloucester's population is larger than Cheltenham's. Its just that Cheltenham's station sits on the mainline and is easy for trains to call at, where as Gloucester's is just off the mainline and forces north-south trains to reverse which typically takes 10 minutes so I'd class it as more operationally convenient for XC.

Djgr said:
Weren't Gloucester's woes self inflicted, as the city lobbied to get the through station (Eastgate) closed in the 1970s in order to bring about road improvements?

The line linking the old Eastgate station to the main north-south mainline made it relatively easy for these trains to call at Gloucester. However the line had 4 or 5 level crossings in the city over busy roads that caused gridlock when the barriers were down to allow trains through. It would have been near on impossible to remove the level crossings without demolishing a lot of houses either side to build over/under bridges and would involve major alteration of road layouts so obviously not popular with locals. I suspect the road lobby had a good foot in the door by this time encouraging the council that removal of the line would be good for the ever increasing number of cars on the road. BR were also on a tight budget and had wanted to rationalise the stations in the area for some time. They were happy to divert most of the trains that did call at the Eastgate station to Central, so the line's fete was sealed with it ripped up, the station demolished and the land sold off. An Asda supermarket now occupies the site of the station and the inner ring road was expanded onto part of the former line.

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Fisherman80 · 18 Aug 2019

I live in Bradford and have to say the rail links to other parts of the country are terrible for such a large city. Sunderland too deserves much better as does Middlesbrough.

frodshamfella · 18 Aug 2019

David Emmott said:
In those days it was quite normal for many such destinations to be served by two or three (or fewer) trains a day. Is it because timetable planners now prefer regular clock-face timetables, that a destination is either given an hourly or half-hourly service, or none at all? It's all very well to say 'change at Birmingham', but even if (a big if) that means a connection on the same platform, it is a serious deterrent to the elderly or infirm, or people with heavy luggage.

Totally agree, I've travelled from Runcorn to Exeter a number of times which requires a change of train at New Street, it is a highly stressful thing to do. Trying to board an already busy Cross Country service with luggage and to find your seat, it pretty awful. God knows how you cope if elderly or travelling with kids. If there was a service running direct from Liverpool, that's what I'd get.

Envoy · 18 Aug 2019

frodshamfella said:
Totally agree, I've travelled from Runcorn to Exeter a number of times which requires a change of train at New Street, it is a highly stressful thing to do. Trying to board an already busy Cross Country service with luggage and to find your seat, it pretty awful. God knows how you cope if elderly or travelling with kids. If there was a service running direct from Liverpool, that's what I'd get.

When Transport for Wales get their new trains, you should find a service every other hour from Liverpool to Newport & Cardiff via Frodsham & Chester. So, one easy change at Newport for a stopping service to Exeter - most are now ‘mini’ HST’s OR use the stopping service between Newport & Bristol & then change for an express to Exeter. Transport for Wales will receive sometime this year ex East Coast Mainline stock for some of the Holyhead to south Wales services hauled by class 67’s. Being as they will have 4 coaches, they are unlikely to be overcrowded so could even be an alternative to your present route via Runcorn & Birmingham?

matacaster · 18 Aug 2019

Eric said:
It's quicker on the X63 to Huddersfield by bus than the train.

It wouldn't be if they hadn't knocked down the viaduct (admittedly in need of repair) at Bailiff Bridge and closed that route.

matacaster · 18 Aug 2019

Camden said:
Liverpool is the only large metropolitan entity, though, which for its location is very poorly connected. Glasgow is equivalent, but it's much further away from other main population centres.

Bradford is merely a borough in the Leeds' area, which is getting HS2 and HS3. Despite having a proper and large metropolitan area, Liverpool is perpetually and increasingly obviously arbitrarily excluded from these, which I'm guessing is the main thrust of the TV report.

Most of the good jobs, housing, transport etc have gone to Leeds, even HMRC - Bradford council has been clueless for years, yearning for mega projects that never happen (Odsal - wembley of the north). Bradford is a dump, I wouldn't expect any action on HS3 to involve Bradford!

..and before anyone moans, I was born in Bradford and lived there for around 40 years, it used to be rather nice!

matacaster · 18 Aug 2019

Camden said:
Hull has a fraction of the population and is of no relevance to the discussion.

Liverpool is a major metropolitan city a mere 15 miles from the WCML trunk, as is Manchester, which is a) why the line was built that way and b) why it should by rights be able to have excellent, rather than poor, connectivity.

The lack of HS2 track is an appalling determination.

It's clearly more important that those in leafy home counties should not have their views spoiled or a few houses knocked down by a ghastly railway than the people of Liverpool should actually be able to have a decent rail service to London.

ivanhoe · 18 Aug 2019

tbtc said:
I do enjoy these threads and the chance for people to grumble about how their local place is so much more important than the rest of the world may think it is.

Realistically though, there's never going to be a fully level playing field. Some places might be large but are on the fringes of the country (Liverpool, Swansea etc). Some places might be large but lack significant business/tourist/ long-distance-student market that makes rail travel more important (Bradford, Sunderland etc). Some places may be large but are within spitting distance of somewhere even larger/more important (Bradford, Sunderland etc). And some places are smaller but happen to be on the way to bigger places so punch about their weight (Doncaster, Crewe etc).

(also, you can get into a lot of hair-splitting about whether somewhere like Salford is a whole separate place, or about the merits of a city with generous boundaries like Sheffield versus a city with tightly drawn boundaries like Nottingham)

Based on the above, I think that the place with a legitimate grievance would be Leicester. It's not a stuck on coast (with a small hinterland), it's not in the shadow of somewhere larger on a main line (e.g. Gloucester is close enough to Cheltenham), it does have a reasonable long-distance student market (though less significant for finance/tourists). Leicester has even lost its direct hourly service to a nearby city in recent years (Coventry), so I think that the people of Leicester are the ones worthy of any gripes on this thread (though, predictably, other cities seem to shout louder!).

Is it even always desirable to improve the connectivity of everywhere to everywhere else? A box-ticking exercise based upon an obsession with giving places as many places as possible will just end up with a mess like the Northern Rail network. I'm not bothered about Sheffield getting a new hourly service to Bradford (but I would be bothered about getting a better service to Leeds, where I can connect to Bradford). Same with Cardiff (which would benefit a lot more from improved services to nearby cities like Swansea/ Bristol) than whether it has a direct train to Leicester or Newcastle. Simply ticking a box for ever one of the other cities on a list of twelve that your conurbation has an hourly service to is a pretty arbitrary way of assessing things - I think that links within a commutable distance (say an hour's travel) is significantly more important.

Good post. We can all become obsessed with 'our City' being poorly connected but in the end, it's the timetabling that allows me 2 trains an hour from Loughborough to Liverpool,Manchester,Leeds etc during daytime. Of course we would all like direct trains, but the reality is that in order to give greater travel opportunities for the many, means that quite a few cities will have to rely on good connections. Believe me, living in Loughborough (no City) means any journey off the MML means a change somewhere on route. Having a major station like Derby nearby, gives me greater opportunities to travel greater distances, away from the MML.

AndyHudds · 18 Aug 2019

matacaster said:
Most of the good jobs, housing, transport etc have gone to Leeds, even HMRC - Bradford council has been clueless for years, yearning for mega projects that never happen (Odsal - wembley of the north). Bradford is a dump, I wouldn't expect any action on HS3 to involve Bradford!

..and before anyone moans, I was born in Bradford and lived there for around 40 years, it used to be rather nice!

You must have left an extremely long time ago or be about 100 years if at some point it was nice because as far as I can remember it's always been a scruffy hole.

Bantamzen · 18 Aug 2019

matacaster said:
Most of the good jobs, housing, transport etc have gone to Leeds, even HMRC - Bradford council has been clueless for years, yearning for mega projects that never happen (Odsal - wembley of the north). Bradford is a dump, I wouldn't expect any action on HS3 to involve Bradford!

..and before anyone moans, I was born in Bradford and lived there for around 40 years, it used to be rather nice!

You could say that about a lot of towns and cities. Bradford is in fact recovering, the retail area has modernised & shifted it's centre, there are more nice bars and now restaurants starting to appear, and of course when the Odeon re-opens as a music venue more people will indeed be travelling to and from Bradford. After many years Bradford is no longer competing with Leeds for the retail sector, but is carving a niche for itself. Even film makers are starting to love the city and it's surroundings, with many scenes in film & drama being filmed here.

However, I'm not going to jump on the more connections bandwagon quite so much. It would be nice to have direct services to places like Manchester Airport, Liverpool and perhaps a couple more to York. What is more important though is that Bradford still doesn't have much in the way of late night connectivity, something that will be important as the city rebuilds it's music scene.

Djgr · 18 Aug 2019

mds86 said:
I think you'll find Gloucester's population is larger than Cheltenham's. Its just that Cheltenham's station sits on the mainline and is easy for trains to call at, where as Gloucester's is just off the mainline and forces north-south trains to reverse which typically takes 10 minutes so I'd class it as more operationally convenient for XC.

The line linking the old Eastgate station to the main north-south mainline made it relatively easy for these trains to call at Gloucester. However the line had 4 or 5 level crossings in the city over busy roads that caused gridlock when the barriers were down to allow trains through. It would have been near on impossible to remove the level crossings without demolishing a lot of houses either side to build over/under bridges and would involve major alteration of road layouts so obviously not popular with locals. I suspect the road lobby had a good foot in the door by this time encouraging the council that removal of the line would be good for the ever increasing number of cars on the road. BR were also on a tight budget and had wanted to rationalise the stations in the area for some time. They were happy to divert most of the trains that did call at the Eastgate station to Central, so the line's fete was sealed with it ripped up, the station demolished and the land sold off. An Asda supermarket now occupies the site of the station and the inner ring road was expanded onto part of the former line.

Blackpool is another place that suffers from crass anti-rail decision making in the past but what is surprising is that Gloucester's was as late as the 1970s when the tide had already turned (for example Merseyrail investment was happening at the time ).

A good example to demonstrate that foolish actions have long term consequences.

thenorthern · 18 Aug 2019

A lot of it is luck where the railways were built and which ones survived the Beeching Axe.

Many places that aren't very large have very good connections because of previous historical importance for example York has very good connections partially because in Victorian Times it was a very important city due to it being historically a very important city.

Gareth · 18 Aug 2019

The whole Liverpool "is isolated and out on a limb" thing is a mendacious trope peddled by those with an agenda, aided and abetted by the ignorant.

It's not much difference getting to/from London by car or train than Manchester is. It's not remotely comparable to Hull in this respect (and it's probably still being unfair to Hull anyway).

Likewise, Liverpool isn't comparable with Bradford or Sunderland. They're smaller places than Liverpool that are situated immediately next door to larger cities.

Liverpool's isolation is political, not geographical.

JKF · 18 Aug 2019

Bradford’s problem is partly that East Coast services from London would have to reverse in Leeds in order to extend to it (which they do, but only one a day I believe, same for Harrogate and Skipton). There used to be the Wortley curve (severed but not lifted!) allowing direct access to the line to Interchange but those services wouldn’t be able to call at Leeds so not attractive to operators.

What could help matters would be the proposed electrification east of Leeds to Colton Junction. This would allow EC services to arrive at the station from both directions (as was proposed a few years ago) with trains running through the station rather than terminating. Trains arriving from the east could proceed to Forster Square without turning, a much simpler/quicker operation. I wonder if this might lead to improved services?

Glenn1969 · 18 Aug 2019

Bradford has got a London service 4 a day via Kirkgate and Halifax. But it hasn't got any other long distance services

etr221 · 18 Aug 2019

I have long thought that Hull was about the worst served of any city of its size (without doing any study)

tbtc · 18 Aug 2019

mds86 said:
I think you'll find Gloucester's population is larger than Cheltenham's. Its just that Cheltenham's station sits on the mainline and is easy for trains to call at, where as Gloucester's is just off the mainline and forces north-south trains to reverse which typically takes 10 minutes so I'd class it as more operationally convenient for XC

Apologies - I had it the other way round in my head for some reason.

I was just trying to differentiate Leicester from the various "pairs" of cities around England where one has the main line service (Newcastle/ Leeds/ Cheltenham etc) and the other has secondary status (Sunderland/ Bradford / Gloucester etc) but got my facts wrong.

Djgr said:
Blackpool is another place that suffers from crass anti-rail decision making in the past

Five or six trains per hour to Preston, two trains per hour to Manchester, hourly to Liverpool, hourly to Bradford/ Leeds/ York, some direct London services... that's a pretty good range of services for somewhere stuck on the coast (i.e. not on the way to anywhere else), and given the lack of major university/ minimal First Class demand.

Gareth said:
Liverpool's isolation is political, not geographical.

I'd argue that it's geographical (which is why Hull/ Sunderland/ Swansea get similarly mentioned on threads like this, though generally without the same accusations of politics).

Liverpool is obviously on the coast, not on the way to anywhere else, but gets a pretty decent range of services (two per hour to York, two per hour to Birmingham, two per hour with the peak flow to London - new services to Wales/ Scotland on the horizon).

The only reason that Liverpool's range of services seem to look poor seems to be along the lines of "...but Manchester has a better service" - ignoring the fact that Manchester is a different market and (being more geographically central) has a wider range of destinations and is the railhead for a larger population.

AndyHudds · 19 Aug 2019

61653 HTAFC said:
How is the connection into the Nottingham train at Wakefield Kirkgate these days? This time last year I was regularly doing Batley to Nottingham (but generally using a 2-5 MCard as far as Wakefield or the boundary), and found it worked heading TO Huddersfield/Mirfield, but the outbound was better via Penistone.

Does that service still sit in the platform at Halifax for a while? It used to wait for 11 minutes, this was slightly shortened when Low Moor opened.

Back on topic, Gloucester is pretty poorly served for a county town (at least in name). Not quite as big as Bradford or Sunderland, but a large number of intercity services miss it by not much!

Pretty lousy, there is no connection at Wakefield anymore, it's either the laborious Penistone Line but at least they appear to have removed the 'not via Leeds' barr and it now appears a change at Leeds is now allowed.

Djgr · 19 Aug 2019

Five or six trains per hour to Preston, two trains per hour to Manchester, hourly to Liverpool, hourly to Bradford/ Leeds/ York, some direct London services... that's a pretty good range of services for somewhere stuck on the coast (i.e. not on the way to anywhere else), and given the lack of major university/ minimal First Class demand.

The point I was trying to make was about the demise of Blackpool Central and the conversion of much of the trackbed to a new road, leaving the less convenient Blackpool North and South stations. I would agree that its present day rail service is adequate.

I'd argue that it's geographical

And I would argue it's geographical and political/cultural.

Obviously it is on the edge but it's what about 15 miles off the WCML so hardly a backwater then.

But clearly also Liverpool has little love for London and the SE honeypot. Indeed I would and do best describe it as a Celtic city state with ambiguous linkage to t'North.

D6975 · 19 Aug 2019

frodshamfella said:
Totally agree, I've travelled from Runcorn to Exeter a number of times which requires a change of train at New Street, it is a highly stressful thing to do. Trying to board an already busy Cross Country service with luggage and to find your seat, it pretty awful. God knows how you cope if elderly or travelling with kids. If there was a service running direct from Liverpool, that's what I'd get.

You shortly won't have to change at New St. You will be able to do a same platform change at Stafford. The Manchester-TM service is due to be extended to Exeter.

Cherry_Picker · 19 Aug 2019

Gareth said:
Liverpool's isolation is political, not geographical.

It's surrounded by water on three sides.

urbophile · 19 Aug 2019

Cherry_Picker said:
It's surrounded by water on three sides.

Three sides? Only if you count the Leeds and Liverpool canal.

NoMorePacers · 19 Aug 2019

JKF said:
Bradford’s problem is partly that East Coast services from London would have to reverse in Leeds in order to extend to it (which they do, but only one a day I believe, same for Harrogate and Skipton). There used to be the Wortley curve (severed but not lifted!) allowing direct access to the line to Interchange but those services wouldn’t be able to call at Leeds so not attractive to operators.

What could help matters would be the proposed electrification east of Leeds to Colton Junction. This would allow EC services to arrive at the station from both directions (as was proposed a few years ago) with trains running through the station rather than terminating. Trains arriving from the east could proceed to Forster Square without turning, a much simpler/quicker operation. I wonder if this might lead to improved services?

That would require electrification from Micklefield to Hambleton Junction as well for that to be achieved.

quantinghome · 19 Aug 2019

JKF said:
What could help matters would be the proposed electrification east of Leeds to Colton Junction. This would allow EC services to arrive at the station from both directions (as was proposed a few years ago) with trains running through the station rather than terminating. Trains arriving from the east could proceed to Forster Square without turning, a much simpler/quicker operation. I wonder if this might lead to improved services?

I believe that's the plan in the near future. The new Azumas are hybrid so can run without wires, and Bradford will get a 2-hourly service, extended from Leeds.

Fisherman80 · 19 Aug 2019

AndyHudds said:
You must have left an extremely long time ago or be about 100 years if at some point it was nice because as far as I can remember it's always been a scruffy hole.

Bradford did indeed used to be nice but successive councils have let this city go to rack and ruin.
Let's take the old Exchange station.
A magnificent piece of architecture bulldozed in the 1970s to make way for today's Interchange.......a non discript dead end.
On the main point of this thread,many years ago you could travel to most points of the country from Bradford. The Devonian used to start from Forster Square so did through services to St Pancras.

duffield · 19 Aug 2019

Fisherman80 said:
Bradford did indeed used to be nice but successive councils have let this city go to rack and ruin.
Let's take the old Exchange station.
A magnificent piece of architecture bulldozed in the 1970s to make way for today's Interchange.......a non discript dead end.
On the main point of this thread,many years ago you could travel to most points of the country from Bradford. The Devonian used to start from Forster Square so did through services to St Pancras.

Well, at least you should be able to get a direct train from Bradford to Sheffield and Nottingham soon.

CharlesR · 19 Aug 2019

tbtc said:
(e.g. Gloucester is close enough to Cheltenham)

It is if you live close to the A40 which can be as little as a 10-15 minute drive, however those South of Gloucester have to travel anything up to 40 minutes just to travel to a station with a half decent service.

CaledonianBlue · 19 Aug 2019

Perhaps 'isolation' is the wrong word but surely, factually, places like Cardiff, Glasgow, Sunderland, Hull and Liverpool (however slightly) are more peripheral to the set of cities than others, and (as others have pointed out) simply less likely in the first place, to lie on the path between other places (unlike Birmingham, Manchester).

So I think the interesting part is, to what extent do railway lines and/or services reinforce or compensate for this geographical 'peripherality'?

In this respect Liverpool seems well connected by railway lines to north, north-east, east, south-east and west, but only a minority of those are serving the other cities on the list. Similar for Glasgow, lines in most directions of the compass, but only a minority going to those other cities. Edinburgh has fewer radial routes than Glasgow, but I suppose more services directly linking cities to the south. In contrast Sunderland really only has north and south, Hull only north and west. And so on.

So the more surprising cases would be Bradford, which is arguably more central geographically than Leeds but suffers from its railway provision. And similarly, but in different ways, Leicester.

Then, it becomes interesting how future High speed could overturn those 'historic injustices'; if Bradford gets a good deal out of HS2/HS3, whereas Leicester could continue to be handed no favours?

Bevan Price · 19 Aug 2019

How to define city / town populations depends on whether or not you consider traditional boundaries; urban areas; built-up areas; metropolitan boundaries, etc. All are somewhat arbitary definitions, and in some cases, it may not be obvious which station is best located to serve parts of the population. For example, Newton Le Willows, considered part of the "Liverpool built-up region" is more likely to associate with the Warrington stations than with any of the Liverpool stations.

Some of the various options are given here:
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/united-kingdom-population/cities/

(England only, historical changes): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_and_cities_in_England_by_historical_population

(England, counties + towns therein): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlements_in_English_counties_by_population

(UK, Urban areas) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom

gazzaa2 · 19 Aug 2019

Camden said:
Liverpool is the only large metropolitan entity, though, which for its location is very poorly connected. Glasgow is equivalent, but it's much further away from other main population centres.

Bradford is merely a borough in the Leeds' area, which is getting HS2 and HS3. Despite having a proper and large metropolitan area, Liverpool is perpetually and increasingly obviously arbitrarily excluded from these, which I'm is the main thrust of the TV report.

The problem is Liverpool is viewed like Bradford for Leeds but to Manchester. Manchester dominates the north west as Leeds does Yorkshire and Birmingham the midlands.

I think transport wise Wolverhampton does quite well from being on Birmingham's doorstep, (certainly post-HS2).

Britain’s Worst Connected Big Cities By Rail.

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