tbtc
Veteran Member
@Kite159 made an interesting point in the thread about stations with awkward platform numbers, which I thought warranted a proper response (and I’d probably already gone off topic in that thread by discussing Platform 0 at Doncaster which was intended to accommodate the Scunthorpe stoppers, freshly cut from being through Sheffield services, but these hourly trains to North Lincolnshire have been replaced by a bus every two/three hours, with seemingly no urgency in bringing them back… call it unlucky, call it poor coordination between different branches of the public sector, but the result appears to be spending lots of money on a facility that doesn’t seem quite so necessary - some Hull stoppers use Platform 0 at Donny, in fairness, but it’s not the same level of service that it used to be either, so Platform 0 gets gaps of two hours when it was intended to have a half hourly DMU)
I’ve seen a few posters announce that they feel that Covid means that investment in HS2 no longer seems quite so important (albeit often these were people who were always against HS2, so the fact that they’ve latched into shorter reason to complain about it shouldn’t surprise me…), but I’ve not seen many people suggest that investment on the “traditional” network looks less urgent due to service reductions (or the abandoning of planned service improvements in the short/medium term)
Maybe some people will say that “investment in classic lines is always a good thing” or that we need to speculate on future growth (Field Of Dreams etc) or that it’s better to waste money on my backwater route than spend it on London commuters, or that their local line is getting over 100% off pre-Covid numbers, or it will be shortly…
… but is anyone brave enough to say something like “the quiet ditching of planned ECML increases over the next five years means I no longer think Darlington requires additional platforms“ or that “with XC in no hurry to reinstate a second Birmingham - Reading service each hour, I’m now lukewarm on the need for electrification from Coventry to the Thames Valley”, or even to criticise investment that did take place which no longer looks like it was quite so necessary in hindsight?
(I’m not blaming anyone for decisions taken pre-Covid, just looking for examples of infrastructure that felt like a good idea at the time but less so now, e.g. grade separation of a junction to aid freight, only for the flow to end shortly afterwards)
There are probably many other examples of infrastructure investment for service patterns pre Covid which since timetable cuts sees little benefit. I.e. Loop at Alvechurch, useful when it was 3tph for Redditch, now it's cut to 2tph sees no trains passing there on a normal timetable.
I’ve seen a few posters announce that they feel that Covid means that investment in HS2 no longer seems quite so important (albeit often these were people who were always against HS2, so the fact that they’ve latched into shorter reason to complain about it shouldn’t surprise me…), but I’ve not seen many people suggest that investment on the “traditional” network looks less urgent due to service reductions (or the abandoning of planned service improvements in the short/medium term)
Maybe some people will say that “investment in classic lines is always a good thing” or that we need to speculate on future growth (Field Of Dreams etc) or that it’s better to waste money on my backwater route than spend it on London commuters, or that their local line is getting over 100% off pre-Covid numbers, or it will be shortly…
… but is anyone brave enough to say something like “the quiet ditching of planned ECML increases over the next five years means I no longer think Darlington requires additional platforms“ or that “with XC in no hurry to reinstate a second Birmingham - Reading service each hour, I’m now lukewarm on the need for electrification from Coventry to the Thames Valley”, or even to criticise investment that did take place which no longer looks like it was quite so necessary in hindsight?
(I’m not blaming anyone for decisions taken pre-Covid, just looking for examples of infrastructure that felt like a good idea at the time but less so now, e.g. grade separation of a junction to aid freight, only for the flow to end shortly afterwards)