How would providing a direct or cross platform service through Bradford improve the current services Bradford has? It would link them up but it wouldn't provide Bradford with any new destinations or increased frequency (not without significant investment elsewhere on the network).
Agreed, a “Crossrail” would be of very little benefit to Bradford (other than the ability to head to one central station for all Leeds-bound trains, albeit from opposite platforms, plus the time penalty for going via Shipley means it’s generally always faster to wait and go via Pudsey, though I’m sure someone will point out some evening/Sunday exceptions)
Plus you then get into the other two big problems:
1. Assuming that the plan is for Halifax services to run via Shipley into Leeds, whilst the Pudsey route is used by Skipton trains (?) then what do you do about electrification? Start running lots of services currently that have been run by EMUs for decades with diesel trains? Or are you also paying for Calder Valley electrification or a massive fleet of bi-modes? (This is much like SELRAP, where the seemingly small proposal comes at a much heftier price because of the unspoken implications that various other things will also be paid for)
2. At the moment there are three trains an hour from the Calder Valley to Leeds via Pudsey (some semi-fast). But there are only two paths an hour from Bradford to Leeds via Shipley (stoppers, taking around ten minutes longer between the cities). So would Hebden Bridge/ Halifax etc lose some of their Leeds services because of a lack of paths (on top of the time penalty)?
Ultimately, there seem to be no spare paths at the Leeds end, so any ambitions for Bradford would always be reshuffling the same number of services to break some links if you want to create others (e.g. you can have through trains from keighley/ Ilkley to Manchester but that means a reduction in services from places like Hebden Bridge/ Halifax to Leeds)
Surely Bradford's greatest need is a regular intercity to London - hourly or two-hourly, would be great.
I wouldn’t put that as a massive priority, more of a grandstanding ambition for local MPs to focus on
Has the GC service made much quantifiable difference to Bradford?
Whereas, electrifying the Calder Valley would provide faster cleaner trains (with plenty of scope for longer ones too, given the surplus of EMUs nationwide)
A through station would mostly benefit people in Halifax and the Calder Valley, as you’d lose the reversal at Bradford saving five or six minutes
Services at the Interchange seem to generally take two or three minutes to reverse. Given the passenger churn at a big city station, you’d expect something like that even if services weren’t reversing
But then a through station presumably means taking best part of ten minutes longer to get to Leeds because your train would be taking the more long-winded route through Shipley , so I can’t see much advantage for Halifax passengers
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