The whole CLC could do with a recast but that's the problem when you try to cram in long distance trains which serve pinch points far away (e.g. the Norwich service is constrained by the ECML section, by the single track chords at Dore and Hazel Grove, the Airport service has to fight for space on the congested corridor with limited layovers).
IMO, it'd be a lot better for local passengers if the service was simplified into a "turn up and go" service that terminated at Oxford Road (with the fast services from Liverpool to Manchester running over Chat Moss)... that would also help the case for electrification... but it'll never happen because the smaller number of people wanting to do quirky long distance trips (or at least have the
ability to do those long distance journeys, even if they rarely do them) is more important than the everyday commuters who just want a regular reliable service into central Liverpool/ Manchester. Imagine the outrage on Merseyside if Lime Street loses its service east of Manchester.
That said, there are enough reliability problems at Castlefield etc already, so I fully appreciate the need for caution.
Why ? This station is still apparently going to get a half hourly service - which is better than my local station gets, in spite of being well used and open since the 1840's.
I thought Normanton had two trains per hour to Castleford and two trains per hour to Wakefield?
Maybe you've moved though, apologies.
I say that because a significant amount of public funding has gone into this project - how does a basic station cost £20m? If that was done on the basis of a 3tph service, would that money ever have been spent if the proponents had admitted the true level of service to be provided? We've seen this before with the Ordsall Chord and the promised extra services south of Manchester.
Everything costs a daft amount of money nowadays - not just rail - look at how much it cost to convert Hard Shoulders into lanes of "smart" motorway - everything in construction is stupidly expensive. Which is why I'm generally of the opinion that we should improve existing services rather than build new lines/ new stations (especially when it's connecting rural villages!).
Sadly, the situation in Warrington is depressingly familiar.
We opened East Midlands Parkway when there was very little spare capacity for long distance services to stop there (not enough seats in a 222 to justify stopping there).
We opened Low Moor (outside Bradford), when there was only scope for one train per hour to stop there.
We opened the two local stations between Leeds and Shipley (Kirkstall Forge & Apperley Bridge) with an awkward service pattern.
There's criticism at Laurencekirk because the station was opened with regular services to Arbroath/ Dundee/ Edinburgh/ Glasgow but the timetable was then changed with an Aberdeen - Montrose shuttle introduced (that meant the existing Aberdeen - Dundee - Edinburgh/ Glasgow services were sped up to skip Laurencekirk, i.e. the station was opened with long distance services but lost these when the timetable was recast).
It may be a disconnect between the infrastructure side of things and the train operation side of things, I don't know (I'm not trying to turn this into a "Privatisation" debate) but we seem to spend millions of pounds on opening stations with the promise of regular services and then opening them with the bare minimum stopping there.
But given how long it takes to fund/ design/ build/ test a station, it's not always going to be simple to coincide that with a timetable recast.
It's a horrible precedent for a new station a decade in the planning and not financed by the railway industry. First question for any funder must now be - "if we pay for this station, what guarantee do we have that you will provide any trains?"
Agreed - people will feel let down compared to what was promised. But, given the lead times, I don't know how we could guarantee such promises, since money may be initially found five/ten years before the first trains stop there.
