New stations on existing heritage railway lines that could be built and reopened.

[Journeyman]

I think the OP might be approaching this from the wrong angle. Just because a station may have existed somewhere on a heritage line in the past doesn't automatically mean there's a good case for it now, and a business case for a station on a heritage railway has to take very different factors into account than one on the main line.

First, it needs to be pointed out that 99.9999999% of journeys on heritage railways are done for the sake of it, and fulfil extremely limited public transport functions. Very, very few people living near heritage railways find them much practical use, because they don't operate every day and very rarely provide services that would be useful for workers or schoolkids etc. As such, the size of local catchment area for a station on a heritage railway is almost irrelevant.

Purely based on my own observations, terminus stations on heritage railways tend to be far busier than intermediate ones by several orders of magnitude, and intermediate stations only tend to get used much if...

• they form a key part of the railway's offering, i.e. cafe, shop, museum, loco shed, place to see trains passing etc.
• they are a convenient access point, i.e. good bus/rail interchange, car park etc.
• they are located at or near other popular tourist magnets, like scenic walks, attractive villages, other museums etc.

If none of these things apply, I'd suggest your typical heritage railway would be very uninterested in the expense and hassle of restoring and re-opening a derelict site simply because it used to be there.

 

[43096]

Going back to East Leake on the GCR(N) - as has been stated earlier, the goods yard site was lost to housing development years ago and I would imagine difficulties with planning consent for rebuilding and re-opening due to the lack of car parking. East Leake station and Rushcliffe Halt are at opposite ends of the now much expanded village and I'm sure the Halt could easily handle what local traffic is available. The cost of rebuilding would mean re-opening would probably never be a commercial proposition, certainly with the three round trips per day operation as at present. I doubt it would be so post-reunification either...

It's a pointless exercise re-opening it. Better to spend the funds on either providing better facilities at Ruddington or something at the Loughborough end (which is in itself fraught with difficulties).