Yes. I had a friend who used to travel Durham to Church Stretton this way from university.
You know, I think there may be a market from passengers who wish to avoid the chaos which is Piccadilly. I'm thinking of the long distance often required when changing trains, the passive-aggressive ticket checkers and the outright aggressive shouters.
The odds of boarding XC and TfW services in particular and getting to somewhere to sit are rather better at Piccadilly than they are at Stockport. I know where I'd be going, even if it involves using Piccadilly.
I agree with you Howard. A few other factors that were perhaps also not applicable back in the days when jimm used the route were the fact that a lot of local residents weren’t even aware that the service between Stalybridge & Stockport still existed, plus of course in recent years much development has taken place around Manchester’s Northern Quarter so a service taking 20 minutes from Reddish South to Victoria could prove a rather attractive proposition over the current bus which only goes as far as Piccadilly Gardens and takes well upwards of 30 minutes at best during peak hours. There has also been considerable housing development within walking distance of the station at Reddish over the last 30 or so years and there is more currently on the way so this mitigates the lack of a station car park somewhat. On the other hand I would tend to agree regarding the siting of Denton, as I’m not quite as familiar with its surroundings currently.
Not sure how people were unaware of trains that shuttled up and down hourly each way all week and had done so for many years.
Even if there are more houses near Reddish South now, the railway line still runs in the wrong direction from the place most potential passengers want to go.
Denton has the reservoirs and a golf course to the north, lots of business sheds immediately to the east and south and is cut off from the housing to the west by the M60 and the M67 cuts right past as well west to east.
This is bit like the argument that if only GWR would run lots more trains on the Newquay branch all year, then more people would use the line for local journeys - which they won't, as it at ends up at Par, rather than Truro or St Austell. If a service doesn't go to the right place, people will not use it and the diversion of TransPennines into Piccadilly took away the raison d'être of the Stockport-Staybridge run - long-distance connections, not a local link.
Yes, it seems obvious to me to run the service to Victoria and beyond rather than Stalybridge, although it is the "long way round" - if the trains continued to the North West via Victoria that could mean a couple of movements per hour along the corridor could be removed?
Thinking also a P+R at Denton might be possible to get commuters/shoppers via the line to Victoria?
It seems obvious to run a train that can only serve Reddish South and Denton, then meanders its way to Victoria via Ashton Moss?
Good luck with getting s subsidy for that one. People from places north west of Manchester want to get to the airport, not Stockport.
