Lincolnshire local stations - usage anomalies

[70014IronDuke]

Casually looking at the ORR station usage statistics for two local stations on the Lincoln – Sleaford joint-line , I saw figures as follows [rounded off a bit for ease of comparison]:

Ruskington (population 5,170) – 87,000 passengers (ie entrance+exits) annually

Metheringham (pop just 3,600) - 106,000 passengers

I thought these are extraordinarily high (especially Metheringham), not just for the size of local population, but because the service only really serves Lincoln in commuter time. OK, Sleaford too, but it is a small town, and hardly a major attraction for work these two settlements, surely? Bar schools, perhaps?

Anyone who wants to go to London/Peterborough/Nottingham/Newark/Sheffield will need to drive all the way or choose another railhead.

For comparison, I looked up similar (sort of) larger villages on the nearby Skeg-Nottingham line.

Heckington (pop 3,350) – 71,000 passengers

Bottesford (pop 3,590) - 61,300 passengers.

Not only are these significantly lower usage figures (relative to their populations) – but these stations, most especially Heckington, have far better services to Grantham (for London) and Nottingham at commuter travel times.

Now I realise that in the big scheme of millions of passengers nationwide these are small numbers, but I find them intriguing. It begs the question – How come? Why are the figures for Ruskington and Metheringham so good? And are Bottesford and Heckington underperforming? Are the conductors missing passengers at these stations in significant numbers? Or what?

And if there were a decent service on the joint line, eg say, an 07.00-ish departure to Peterborough (or Grantham) connecting to decent London trains – would passenger usage from Metheringham and Ruskington rise further still?

(Note - yes, I realise Bottesford is (just) in Leicestershire.)

 

[High Dyke]

Better informed people may provide a more precise analysis of the figures, but there are number of young people travelling to/from places like Heckington and Ruskington for school/college/university. Even Hubberts Bridge, Swineshead and Rauceby have a regular flow of passengers during school term time.

Heckington also has a number of people that use the train to/from Sleaford and Boston for work/shopping etc - local bus services being sporadic to say the least. There is also a small influx of tourists that visit Heckington by train.

I would surmise that Ruskington and Methringham would have similar trafic flows. for Lincoln and Sleaford. Whilst the road network is easily accessible traffic congestion in Lincoln, especially at peak times is horrendous. The Mem takes the train to/from Lincoln, for certain shifts. especially with the current redevelopment for the new transport hub.

In respect of Bottesford, again the school there provides a fair bit of pupil traffic from Grantham, and a great number of commuters to/from Nottingham.

Obviously I'm not able to comment on how efficiently guards carry out their fare gathering job, but on some trains it would benefit from additional revenue staff onboard. For example the journey from Rauceby to Sleaford takes about 3 minutes, but the guard doesn't have time to sell/check tickets for the 15/20 passengers that board the train at Rauceby.

 

[class26]

Casually looking at the ORR station usage statistics for two local stations on the Lincoln – Sleaford joint-line , I saw figures as follows [rounded off a bit for ease of comparison]:

Ruskington (population 5,170) – 87,000 passengers (ie entrance+exits) annually

Metheringham (pop just 3,600) - 106,000 passengers

I thought these are extraordinarily high (especially Metheringham), not just for the size of local population, but because the service only really serves Lincoln in commuter time. OK, Sleaford too, but it is a small town, and hardly a major attraction for work these two settlements, surely? Bar schools, perhaps?

Anyone who wants to go to London/Peterborough/Nottingham/Newark/Sheffield will need to drive all the way or choose another railhead.

For comparison, I looked up similar (sort of) larger villages on the nearby Skeg-Nottingham line.

Heckington (pop 3,350) – 71,000 passengers

Bottesford (pop 3,590) - 61,300 passengers.

Not only are these significantly lower usage figures (relative to their populations) – but these stations, most especially Heckington, have far better services to Grantham (for London) and Nottingham at commuter travel times.

Now I realise that in the big scheme of millions of passengers nationwide these are small numbers, but I find them intriguing. It begs the question – How come? Why are the figures for Ruskington and Metheringham so good? And are Bottesford and Heckington underperforming? Are the conductors missing passengers at these stations in significant numbers? Or what?

And if there were a decent service on the joint line, eg say, an 07.00-ish departure to Peterborough (or Grantham) connecting to decent London trains – would passenger usage from Metheringham and Ruskington rise further still?

(Note - yes, I realise Bottesford is (just) in Leicestershire.)

Metheringham is used as a "park and ride" for Lincoln from a reasonably wide area.

 

[TheBigD]

Deleted

 

[70014IronDuke]

Metheringham is used as a "park and ride" for Lincoln from a reasonably wide area.

Well, I can't pretend to know the area, but I looked on a map and can only see about three quite small villages to the south that might attract a few such commuters. I dare say there are some such - eg school kids dropped off and picked up each day - but if you work in Lincoln, you have a car and are going to get in it, I can't see many just driving to Metheringham for the train - it just wouldn't be worth it, surely? I mean, if it were a fast train trip, with 4 TPH maybe yes, but is Lincoln traffic THAT bad that if forces car drivers to do park and ride from Metheringham? I find it hard to believe, frankly.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Better informed people may provide a more precise analysis of the figures, but there are number of young people travelling to/from places like Heckington and Ruskington for school/college/university. Even Hubberts Bridge, Swineshead and Rauceby have a regular flow of passengers during school term time. ...

Heckington also has a number of people that use the train to/from Sleaford and Boston for work/shopping etc - local bus services being sporadic to say the least. There is also a small influx of tourists that visit Heckington by train.
....

I'm sure all you say is true. But my point was that Heckington and Bottesford, despite having a better train service (ok, Bottesford is patchy outside the peaks) and being better placed to serve their natural traffic hubs - seemingly attract fewer passengers per capita (by some distance) compared to Heckington and Metheringham.

(cynic mode)

Ticket barriers at Lincoln... Single from Metheringham please...

I wonder if anyone from EMT is reading this?

If the stock could be found to run a (say) 06.00 Lincoln - Sleaford - Grantham - Nottingham train, ie good for a London KX connection and commuting to Nottingham, plus a return evening service, I wonder what it would do for the line.

Oh, and while the Sunday service at the two Skeggy line stations is not exactly great - there are at least some trains, unlike on the Joint.

Obviously I'm not able to comment on how efficiently guards carry out their fare gathering job, but on some trains it would benefit from additional revenue staff onboard. For example the journey from Rauceby to Sleaford takes about 3 minutes, but the guard doesn't have time to sell/check tickets for the 15/20 passengers that board the train at Rauceby.

Yes. Quite a hopeless task for a guard with train protection duties on that short run, I'm sure. It looks like Rauceby is expanding to boot, meaning there will be more demand for stops here.

 

[class26]

Well, I can't pretend to know the area, but I looked on a map and can only see about three quite small villages to the south that might attract a few such commuters. I dare say there are some such - eg school kids dropped off and picked up each day - but if you work in Lincoln, you have a car and are going to get in it, I can't see many just driving to Metheringham for the train - it just wouldn't be worth it, surely? I mean, if it were a fast train trip, with 4 TPH maybe yes, but is Lincoln traffic THAT bad that if forces car drivers to do park and ride from Metheringham? I find it hard to believe, frankly.

Traffic in Lincoln in the rush hour is horrendous , that`s why people leave the car at the last station (Metheringham) before Lincoln.
The villages of Woodhalls Spa , Coningsby, Billinghay and Tattershall are substantial sizes.

 

[Mitch in Notts]

The School runs to Sleaford generate a lot of extra passengers - years ago there used to be connecting feeder buses into the train from surrounding villages for travel into Sleaford. There are no morning commuter buses into Lincoln from Metheringham between arrivals at 0753 & 0953 except on schooldays so train is the only option or car.
Lincoln is a city and thus attracts considerably more flows from Metheringham, than doing a comparison to Heckington, where Boston & Sleaford will have more restricted & smaller job flows. Metheringham & Ruskington have had a relatively unchanged timetable for years at roughly hourly. To do a comparison to Bottesford flows to Nottingham is more tricky, as the timetable has changed considerably over the years and the journey time to Nottingham from Bottesford is nearly double that of Metheringham to Lincoln.
You would need to probably compare Metheringham flows to Lincoln with Saxilby flows to Lincoln which is definitely bigger but has a similar journey time to the same city. Or try Collingham perhaps?

 

[ashworth]

Traffic in Lincoln in the rush hour is horrendous , that`s why people leave the car at the last station (Metheringham) before Lincoln.
The villages of Woodhalls Spa , Coningsby, Billinghay and Tattershall are substantial sizes.

I have a relative who has recently moved to live in Billinghay and I was quite surprised, considering the size of the village, that it does not really have any useful bus service. I think it's something like 2 buses a day into Sleaford but nothing towards Lincoln. The population of Billinghay is now well over 2,000 and still increasing.
Although Woodhall Spa, Conningsby and Tattershall are on a more regular bus route running between Lincoln and Boston there is only one bus to Lincoln during the morning peak arriving at 0743.

 

[Alfie1014]

I have a relative who has recently moved to live in Billinghay and I was quite surprised, considering the size of the village, that it does not really have any useful bus service. I think it's something like 2 buses a day into Sleaford but nothing towards Lincoln. The population of Billinghay is now well over 2,000 and still increasing.
Although Woodhall Spa, Conningsby and Tattershall are on a more regular bus route running between Lincoln and Boston there is only one bus to Lincoln during the morning peak arriving at 0743.

Bus services in Lincs do seem very poor compared to here in East Anglia. I have a friend who lives in Ruskington and the Stagecoach service to Lincoln and Sleaford (31/31X) is only about 8 times a day M-F with no service at all on a Saturday when you would think there would be at least some demand at least from shoppers!

 

[Mitch in Notts]

I have a relative who has recently moved to live in Billinghay and I was quite surprised, considering the size of the village, that it does not really have any useful bus service. I think it's something like 2 buses a day into Sleaford but nothing towards Lincoln. The population of Billinghay is now well over 2,000 and still increasing.
Although Woodhall Spa, Conningsby and Tattershall are on a more regular bus route running between Lincoln and Boston there is only one bus to Lincoln during the morning peak arriving at 0743.

Billinghay had a two hourly 5S Sleaford-Metheringham service connecting into the 5 for Lincoln/Boston until about 5 years ago. That was replaced by the 65 Horncastle-Sleaford 4 times a day and subsequently that has been replaced more recently by the shambles of a route(65/66) that replaces the 65 & 631 (for Cranwell) - giving Billinghay a 0857am & 1045am buses to Sleaford with returns at 1000, 1415 & 1715(NS).

 

[70014IronDuke]

The School runs to Sleaford generate a lot of extra passengers ...

OK, but then what about the kids from Heckington? You'd think there would be similar numbers? Or do they go to other schools? Or are there buses in competition with rail?

- years ago there used to be connecting feeder buses into the train from surrounding villages for travel into Sleaford. There are no morning commuter buses into Lincoln from Metheringham between arrivals at 0753 & 0953 except on schooldays so train is the only option or car.

OK, could be an important driver, I can see that.

Lincoln is a city and thus attracts considerably more flows from Metheringham, than doing a comparison to Heckington, where Boston & Sleaford will have more restricted & smaller job flows. Metheringham & Ruskington have had a relatively unchanged timetable for years at roughly hourly. To do a comparison to Bottesford flows to Nottingham is more tricky, as the timetable has changed considerably over the years and the journey time to Nottingham from Bottesford is nearly double that of Metheringham to Lincoln.

OK, fair points but a) Nottingham is a far bigger city, surely, than Lincoln and b) Bottesford also has Grantham, a sizeable place of greater importance than Sleaford, just 7 miles away. I have a friend who lives in Bottesford, and he says, for example, that quite a few folk leave their cars and take the train into Grantham before going on to London or elsewhere. Again, this is a factor that should add to the Bottesford figures. I just can't fathom why Metheringham statistics are be THAT much bigger than Bottesford - unless there is a a lot of ticketless travel from the latter.

You would need to probably compare Metheringham flows to Lincoln with Saxilby flows to Lincoln which is definitely bigger but has a similar journey time to the same city. Or try Collingham perhaps?

Good points! Look at Saxilby - population 4,000.

And usage?

Just 62,000. And Saxilby has a (relatively) fantastic service to Lincoln + to Retford and Sheffield- so how come the figures are so low? 40% weaker than Metheringham? Are the traffic jams in Lincoln kinder to folks coming in from Saxilby? More buses? Some other factors?

 

[70014IronDuke]

Traffic in Lincoln in the rush hour is horrendous , that`s why people leave the car at the last station (Metheringham) before Lincoln.
The villages of Woodhalls Spa , Coningsby, Billinghay and Tattershall are substantial sizes.

OK, you obviously know the area to some extent, if not well - unlike me.

 

[LowLevel]

I work these trains all the time and what High Dyke has said is largely the right answer.

Metheringham is used as a park and ride, has short journey times, and not an awful peak time service (although the joint line dogboxes can be unpleasant at times). Popular with college kids and workers, the same as Ruskington to a lesser extent plus school kids going the other way to Sleaford. Lincoln road traffic has always been awful and is now worse than ever with the redevelopment.

Bottesford has a patchy service. A fairly major flow is actually school kids from Grantham TO Bottesford. There's some commuters as well and fair leisure traffic.

Most Heckington traffic is local journeys to Sleaford.

Most Rauceby traffic is schoolkids to Sleaford in on the two morning services and back out on the 1614. Few commuters as the service is no good back out of Sleaford for them. Some have singles in the morning and then get the bus back.

Swineshead exists almost solely for the schoolkids that use it heading to Sleaford, it's unusual to pick up other people.

I don't think the usage is particularly odd, if you get out on to the trains and see it for yourself as it were.

 

[Mitch in Notts]

Swineshead exists almost solely for the schoolkids that use it heading to Sleaford, it's unusual to pick up other people.

I don't think the usage is particularly odd, if you get out on to the trains and see it for yourself as it were.

Ah that explains something. I once got off the morning train at Swineshead from Nottingham - expecting kids to be boarding going to Boston Schools but no-one got on (we had been joined by kids with bikes at Sleaford & Heckington going to Boston schools). So the primary flow from Swineshead is to Sleaford schools for which there is no bus link, presumably kids for Boston use the buses that pass through the village rather than walk all the way to the station.

 

[bunnahabhain]

There's usually two or three regulars from Swineshead, and since a stop got put in at Rauceby on the 0641 Notts to Skeg there's a lady who does Rauceby to Hubbert's Bridge.

Bottesford could do with an hourly service all day long, in terms of numbers its probably the busiest station per train on the line between Nottingham and Boston.

 

[Merthyr Imp]

Didn't Bingham used to be the busiest?

 

[ashworth]

Didn't Bingham used to be the busiest?

I would have thought that Bingham was the busiest too. However, Bingham has such a good bus service into Nottingham these days that I would suspect that increasing numbers are travelling into Nottingham by bus rather than by train. Nottingham station is not in the most central location for many areas of the city.
It's the same situation on other lines into Nottingham where stations like Burton Joyce, Lowdham, Carlton, Netherfield, Bulwell, Hucknall etc have much lower passenger figures than you would expect because people prefer to use the very good bus and tram services.

So to return to the main theme of this thread. Nottingham has very good bus service into the city from the surrounding areas which are in many cases more frequent and much more convenient than the train. Lincoln, however, does not have good bus services into the city from the surrounding villages and so therefore people will drive to stations like Metheringham.

 

[LowLevel]

Carlton in particular has artificially low figures because of the Nottingham City Cards that are valid on the train. The local station adopters have done some counts and reckon it's well into 3 figures now.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Didn't Bingham used to be the busiest?

It may have been at one time, but despite getting the very best service of all on the route, no, in fact Bottesford had the highest usage figures (of the intermediate stations between Nottingham and Grantham) for the last year with about 62,000, - that makes it by a margin of 1,000 and a bit, or so.

A thought: I realise that there is not stock available for this now, but would Nottingham - Grantham - Boston - Skegness be able to justify an upgrade from the current 1 TPH to 1TPH plus 1 TP two hours, the latter all stations Nottingham - Boston, allowing the "fast" service to concentrate on the principal stations on the route, with the Raucebies, Swinesheads, Ancasters and Aslocktons served by the all-stops, except perhaps outside peak hours?

 

[Failed Unit]

The route into Lincoln from the Sleaford direction is bad. You can be sat on Canwick Hill for longer than the entire journey.

As others have said it is really the only decent service on a local line. I am sure Market Rasen would do better if it’s service was useable. Used to be better under BR but the removal of the 156 and change in arrival time from 0820ish to 0755ish killed off the commuting on that route.

I am sure Methringham and Ruskington would increase if the service ran to Peterborough before 0800 and after 1600 to make it useful to go to London. I understand the line is open now (but sure someone will correct me if wrong) but EMT haven’t taken the plunge.

I always look at Lincolnshire as suppressed demand. But what can EMT do. It is a resource lead service and if they did improve it the extra passengers would be a bad thing if the can’t fit on the dog box.

 

[TheBigD]

Deleted

 

[Failed Unit]

Time flies.
1992 was when BR slashed the service and about 1994 when they made it impossible to commute on the Grimsby line. Looked with envy as other less busy routes have had improvements. But yes little interest in improving timetables despite changes on the ECML or improving opening hours on the joint line.

 

[TheBigD]

Deleted

 

[Failed Unit]

Connections at Newark have worsened over the years... Whilst the ECML has added extra services and changed stopping patterns, the Newark-Lincoln service has been pretty static, with only a few retimings...

One can only hope that the next franchise sees a decent service for Lincolnshire's lines specified...

Wont disagree with you. Lincoln - Doncaster could also do much better on the connections. But too many instances where a small change of time will give a valid connection. In many cases just removal as the padding. The London - Newark service hasn’t helped blocking platform 3 at northgate for so long. In some cases the unit must leave to clear space instead of connecting with it.

2 good examples are 1528 and 1728 ex Newark services. In a sane world we would make them connect with something but although the platform is long enough I understand the unit and the train can’t be on platform 3 at the same time. Along with the cost of fixing it can’t be justified. (Sorry off topic)