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The two Wakefield stations.

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tom73

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Westgate resembles any station with frequent long distant services whereas Kirkgate, much to my surprise resembles, aside from the long platforms, a sleepy country station with very few facilities. Is this a common situation in locations with two stations.
 
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Djgr

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Westgate resembles any station with frequent long distant services whereas Kirkgate, much to my surprise resembles, aside from the long platforms, a sleepy country station with very few facilities. Is this a common situation in locations with two stations.
It happens
e.g.
Blackpool North v Blackpool South
Wrexham General v Wrexham Central
Colchester v Colchester Town
 

STEVIEBOY1

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I think they have improved facilities at Wakefield Kirkgate in recent years following through services from London.
 

30907

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Short answer is yes - most obviously if one is the "central" station. I'm struggling to find examples where there are two "town" stations of fairly equal status (as opposed to suburbia and the biggest cities): Canterbury E and W.
Wakefield is interesting because historically both were on fairly major routes.
 

infobleep

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Folkestone West and Folkestone Central spring to mind.

West has buildings but the doors say staff only and there are what look like gray drab metal boards over the windows. Central has more facilties.

One place where this isn't the case is Portsmouth Harbour and Portsmouth & Southsea.

Dorking West and Dorking Deepdene are much more plain and sparse that Dorking Main.

West Byfleet has more facilties than Byfleet and New Haw. One of the most beneficial at West Byfleet, aside from the toilets, is seating!
 

Taunton

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Colchester. Main station in the inner northern suburbs. Colchester Town station, despite its name and more central location, a sleepy terminus only for certain trains to reverse at on the Clacton branch.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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Folkestone West and Folkestone Central spring to mind.

West has buildings but the doors say staff only and there are what look like gray drab metal boards over the windows. Central has more facilties.

One place where this isn't the case is Portsmouth Harbour and Portsmouth & Southsea.

Dorking West and Dorking Deepdene are much more plain and sparse that Dorking Main.

West Byfleet has more facilties than Byfleet and New Haw. One of the most beneficial at West Byfleet, aside from the toilets, is seating!

Folkestone Central used to have two island platforms, 2 up and 2 down I think, now it only has one island platform. (Did there used to be a Folkestone East Station as well?)
 

Fawkes Cat

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Someone with a better grasp of history should be able to say, but wasn't one of the intentions of Beeching to have one main station in each town? So in Manchester Central closed and London Road was upgraded to Piccadilly, with upgrades as well to Oxford Road vice Central, while Victoria was left to run down. Similarly concentration on Birmingham New Street with Moor Street run down and Snow Hill closed, or Liverpool with Central and Exchange becoming local only (and subsequently in practical terms replaced with new stations at Central and Moorfields) with all long distance services concentrated at Lime Street.
 

Mike99

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Penge East & Penge West, both similar levels of service , 4tph towards London etc.

But what about Beckenham? 3 stations all on different lines, Beckenham Junction serving London Victoria and London Bridge, New Beckenham, serving London Bridge, Cannon Street, Waterloo East and Charing Cross and Hayes to the south and Beckenham Hill, serving London Blackfriars etc. London St Pancras and further north with various outbound destinations Sevenoaks, Orpington, Hayes to name but a few , so quite a similar level of service. Stretching the available connections a little bit as well, Tramlink serving Beckenham Junction with links to Croydon and Wimbledon
 

Taunton

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Someone with a better grasp of history should be able to say, but wasn't one of the intentions of Beeching to have one main station in each town?
It was certainly one of the practical outcomes, but more generally from looking for operating costs efficiencies. As the railways consolidated through grouping and then nationalisation it went on progressively, there were a number of such approaches at generally smaller points long before Beeching. In some cases, such as Glasgow which at least reduced from 4 to 2, one station, however welcome that would have been for passenger convenience, were just not possible. I don't believe the Beeching reports showed any increase in revenue expected from consolidated stations because connecting or through trains were easier. They also seem not to have capitalised the value of selling off redundant railway lands in cities.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Kirkgate is MUCH better than it used to be!
It certainly is, but there's still lots of room for improvement! The upturn really started with the introduction of the fast Leeds to Sheffield and Nottingham services, with the GC London runs helping too. The cafe is decent but the station still lacks facilities, as well as the subway being a bit of a walk due to the long ramps. The island platform lacks facilities with just a shelter (which only opens onto platform 2, not 3) and a cruel "tribute" to the old overall roof in the form of a metal sculpture.

Wakefield is possibly unique in that what is considered the main station is actually smaller (in terms of number of platforms) than the secondary station.
 

rf_ioliver

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Folkestone Central used to have two island platforms, 2 up and 2 down I think, now it only has one island platform. (Did there used to be a Folkestone East Station as well?)

This is correct, though Folkestone East has been closed for many years and there was Folkestone Harbour as well.
 

J-2739

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Guildford and London Road, Guildford?

Kirkgate is MUCH better than it used to be!

Still a bit of a dive. Even with speakers playing Jerusalem, the underpass remains creepy.

Wouldn't be fair to compare with Westgate, which had seen a near total rebuild not too long ago.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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This is correct, though Folkestone East has been closed for many years and there was Folkestone Harbour as well.

Yes I went on the ferries a few times on the boat trains via Folkestone Harbour, they reversed from the main line to the Harbour Station. I have also been to Folkestone Harbour on a few special steam charters which were great, especially the "Chuffing" when come back up the hill. :)
 

xotGD

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In Bradford neither station looks like it serves a major city.
 

LMS 4F

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Guildford and London Road, Guildford?



Still a bit of a dive. Even with speakers playing Jerusalem, the underpass remains creepy.

Wouldn't be fair to compare with Westgate, which had seen a near total rebuild not too long ago.
Where Kirkgate is better is getting across to the opposite platform. At Westgate there are lifts but if they out of order as one was last Thursday then the stairs are very steep and high. At Kirkgate the tunnel whilst not the best is easier to traverse with a reasonable slope.
 

infobleep

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Folkestone Central used to have two island platforms, 2 up and 2 down I think, now it only has one island platform. (Did there used to be a Folkestone East Station as well?)
Your right it does have two island platforms, one of which is disused.

I would submit a photo showing the diaues platform but the file size is too large to upload here.

Not sure about Folkestone East. I'll check my offical handbooks of Railway statuons later or R J Butt's directory of open and closed passenger stations, from the 1990s.
 

infobleep

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Brighton and London Road (Brighton)
On that note there is Guildford and London Road (Guildford). You can't I believe get a ticket to cover both stations though.

There is of course Queenstown Road (Battersea) and Battersea Park. Not sure which offers more

There is of course East Croydon, West Croydon and South Croydon.

What about Wimbledon and Wimbledon Chase? Wimbledon Chase definitely doesn't have many facilities.
 

edwin_m

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In many of the ones mentioned here, all the trains serving the smaller station also serve the larger one, so the reason for the second station must be that it's more convenient than the main station for some parts of the town.

In other cases such as Wakefield, the railway geography means that there is no one place where a station can be built where all the trains serving the town could call - or occasionally there is but it would be too far from the town itself (as at Yeovil) or just impractical. In the latter case there may be an attempt to concentrate as many trains as possible on one of the stations and allow the other one to be run down somewhat.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Folkestone West and Folkestone Central spring to mind.

West has buildings but the doors say staff only and there are what look like gray drab metal boards over the windows. Central has more facilties.

One place where this isn't the case is Portsmouth Harbour and Portsmouth & Southsea.

Dorking West and Dorking Deepdene are much more plain and sparse that Dorking Main.

West Byfleet has more facilties than Byfleet and New Haw. One of the most beneficial at West Byfleet, aside from the toilets, is seating!
To be pedantic for a moment, West Byfleet serves the town of the same name, rather than the western half of Byfleet (which is a separate place). Weirdly the post-town for the housing immediately on the "up" side of the railway is Addlestone, despite the station and actual town of the same name being some distance away and on a different route!
 

Senex

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I'd forgotten that but you are correct. I think it was something to do with the costs of maintaining the viaduct. However, if that rationalization had been done we'd probably be regretting it now, as Leeds-Doncaster trains would have had to thread through a set of slow flat junctions and conflicts with other services.
What, you mean a string of slow, flat junctions just like the route created between Manchester Piccadilly and Salford Crescent / Salford Central? I thought a love of slow, flat junctions was very much a British speciality.
I wonder how much faster the route into Wakefield Kirkgate from Hare Park could be made. Once away from Kirkgate, it is the curve to Westgate that is the original route and probably potentially just as well aligned into Westgate as the WR&G line.
 

geoffk

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I think they have improved facilities at Wakefield Kirkgate in recent years following through services from London.
Well yes but they couldn't have made it any worse. Probably then Britain's largest unstaffed halt.
 
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