It does seem a waste of a station with growing usage, although admittedly that is growth from a small base.
Passenger numbers were generally growing there, but then passenger numbers were generally growing at most stations pre-Covid:
| 2015/16 |
88,810 |
|---|
| 2016/17 |
97,180 |
|---|
| 2017/18 |
96,596 |
|---|
| 2018/19 |
96,604 |
|---|
| 2019/20 |
101,830 |
|---|
(passenger figures from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_railway_station)
It's not a
quiet station - anything with a six figure passenger number/ over a hundred departing passengers a day generally isn't on the "closures" list - but I'm guessing that the vast majority of those passengers will be short distance traffic for Leeds, generally with the peak flow - it's £3.20 return to Leeds so maybe the total revenue is going to be
in the region of half a million pounds (I'm sure someone will be along to suggest that there are some high value Cottingley - London First Class passengers, and that closing it will mean they aren't willing to use a White Rose station instead etc etc)
Lets say that, all things being equal, a White Rose station is more useful for half of the current Cottingley passengers (given that Cottingley is the only station currently open between Morley and Leeds, so presumably serves a wider catchment than just the people living within a stone's throw of the station), so that takes Cottingley down to 50,000 passengers a year (based on the current hourly service)
If you can retain
roughly three quarters of those 50,000 passengers with just two or three stops each weekday (into Leeds in the morning, back at tea time, tickets interchangeable with White Rose so people can always travel back to that neck of the woods at other times) then maybe you wouldn't need to consider closing the station.
The problem will be if those passenger numbers are spread much thinner across the week - for arguments sakes, if you assume a station has an hourly service in each direction for twelve hours a day, seven days a week, that's 168 trains stopping there each week. In the case of a station with 100,000 passengers a year, that's (slightly) less than one departing passenger per service that stops there. In the case of a station that's gone down to 50,000 passengers, that's half again.
But people don't turn up randomly, the majority will be travelling to the nearest big city centre station in the morning and back in the afternoon. Not all, sure, but Cottingley isn't a "Destination" station (whereas some people from Kirkless etc will travel to White Rose as a shopping centre/ nearby office park/ connecting bus services etc)
So, for me, keeping it would really depend on how spread/bunched the remaining passengers are. If you can keep most of them with just a few key services a day/week then keep it open. If the "50,000" are spread much thinner across the week then it becomes a lot less economical to keep serving them (given that the opportunity cost of serving Cottingley each hour may be serving another station down the line or an improved dwell time at Leeds to make services more reliable etc etc)
I suppose that one thing Cottingley has got in its favour is how inaccessible it is - Brightside was only a short straight walk from Meadowhall along roads parallel with the railway line, but Cottingley is much further by foot from White Rose than the train would go, maybe the walking distance is twice as far as the crow would fly, which means that a White Rose station is a lot more awkward for Cottingley passengers than a Meadowhall station was for Brightside, maybe we'll see Cottingley retaining more like 75,000 or those 100,000 passengers, maybe more.
"Local" stations on busy main lines are always going to be tricky though - holding up express services etc - maybe if the Government even get around to electrifying the line there'll be more scope for EMUs to make more stops at such stations.
