One Or Multiple City Centre Stations In Provincial English Cities?

[yorksrob]

The as-the-crow-flies distance is not much longer than the lengths of the platforms at New Street. I think the problem is more the lack of a clear, direct-line, traffic-free, walking route. I imagine building one would easily be the cheapest solution. Even a de-luxe fancy elevated covered route with escalators for most of its length would probably work out cheaper than any solution that involved re-routing trains



Another issue is it depends on how useful an interchange would be, and on how frequent the trains are (more frequent making interchange more attractive).

As an example, you could theoretically build a station in Canterbury where the two lines cross, enabling interchange. But the trouble is, what interchanges would you enable? Apart from Faversham-Ashford, almost the only significant journeys that the interchange would allow can already be made much more easily on direct trains that avoid Canterbury altogether. If you kept the two existing stations open, it would also theoretically allow people from either station to go anywhere by changing at the interchange - but the train frequencies at Canterbury aren't really sufficient to make that an attractive proposition.

On the other hand, if you did the same thing at Farnborough or Warrington, you'd make quite a big difference to connectivity, enabling quite a lot of journeys between medium-sized towns that are currently difficult to make by rail.

It's funny that you should mention Ashford to Faversham as it's a journey I've actually done by train (walking across Canterbury). I agree it's not a massive traffic generator, and certainly from Canterbury and Maidstone you have a very good service in all directions.

Warrington is a very long walk between the stations, but you wouldn't want to lose the convenient location of Central. Bank Quay less so perhaps.

 

[Austriantrain]

What would be a better solution for HS2 in Birmingham? Given that New Street can't sensibly be expanded.

(Sorry Mods: I know this has been argued to death on this forum)

Probably something resembling Stuttgart 21 or the mooted new Frankfurt station. A new through station for alle long- and medium-distance trains on the site of Curzon Street with new access tracks from all directions and the classic route via New Street relegated to S-Bahn- and Regional-Express-style services with a stop alongside Curzon Street.

Very expensive of course. But to be honest, from an outsiders perspective, at least the lack of the possibility of through HS2 services at Birmingham (and Leeds) for XC is quite baffling. I don’t think it would be politically acceptable elsewhere that a city e.g. the size of Bristol would not profit from HS2 for a journey to e.g. Manchester. The lack of a common station in Birmingham (trying to return on topic...) makes it even worse.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Exeter St Davids, Central and St Thomas
St Budeaux Ferry Rd and Victoria Rd

Wish they had managed to build a through station in Bradford instead of the existing two dead ends. Backing and out of Interchange adds several minutes to Calder Valley line services. Which is why I'm in favour of NPR serving Bradford

The time penalty for Halifax to Leeds running via Shipley would almost certainly be greater than the time penalty for the reversal at Interchange. The reversals can sometimes be a bit leisurely I admit, but if needed I'm sure it could be sped up a fair bit.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Warrington is a very long walk between the stations, but you wouldn't want to lose the convenient location of Central. Bank Quay less so perhaps.

Yeah, I think with Warrington, if you were going to build an interchange station where the lines cross, then you'd probably want to keep Central open. I think the slight slowdown in Northern/TPE trains from the extra stop more than balanced out by the extra travel opportunities. Bank Quay is more iffy - perhaps you'd keep that open but only for local trains, with Avanti skipping it in favour of the Interchange.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Is Bank Quay where it is in Warrington because it was a one-time split level interchange station with a (now closed to passengers) line on the lower level?

 

[Purple Orange]

I think the answer to the question has been answered by @61653 HTAFC and decide depending on each city’s requirements. To expand on that, I’d say it depends on both the size of the metropolis and the size of the city centre.

For example:

1. Newcastle would never need more than one mainline station in the centre, but it does need the two metro lines crossing the city for local traffic. Being an elongated city centre with a steep topography, people local to Newcastle need access to Central Station, but their destination in the city centre tends to be elsewhere.
2. Manchester would not work with one main termini. It’s city centre is too large and with a metropolis of nearly 3 million, it is not in the same territory as cities like Newcastle, Edinburgh or Leeds. As the many threads on Manchester testify, there is a lot of infrastructure work required in the city to make it work efficiently but it has the bare bones in place to have a very useful network.
   • Piccadilly needs to become the focus of all intercity long distance services, which it can with HS2 and NPR. The main shed needs to become more like a London Victoria or Waterloo situation, focussing on terminating commuter trains from the south.
   • Victoria needs to become the focus for local commuter services and semi-fast trans pennine and Welsh services on lines coming in from the Chat Moss, Bolton, Rochdale & Stalybridge. This will only happen if NPR or TRU can divert fast Trans Pennine services to Piccadilly.
   • The lines connecting Piccadilly P13 & P14, Oxford Road, Deansgate, Salford Central, Salford Crescent and Victoria need to focus on local and regional commuter services. 6-car trains with doors at thirds. There may always be an element of long distance services on this line, but they must be minimised.
3. Birmingham is another that can’t have a single termini. I like the idea of moving Cross Country services to Moor Street (ideally an expanded Moor Street), thus leaving New Street to and it’s radial lines to focus on local and regional traffic.
4. Glasgow is another where the separation of services works due to it’s size.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think with regard to Manchester you could viably have one mainline station, but if you did you would probably need to add about 4 terminal platforms to Piccadilly, plus 4 more through platforms and quad-track the whole of Castlefield, possibly with a flyover for both the Ordsall Chord and Castlefield Junction. This wouldn't be worth the money, though, I'd rather look to upgrade Vic to be to the standard of Picc rather than the nasty, dirty, poorly-looked-after mess it is now.

 

[6Gman]

Resident Wiganer here. I wouldn't mind both stations being combined but think it might be too much work for little gain as you just cross the road like at St Budueax in Plymouth however that's not to say if Wigan Council desired a huge change to the layout of the town centre, then it could be worthwhile combining Western and Wallgate. The question then being what do we call Wigan Combined?

The two Wigan stations are so close together that it really isn't an issue. I suspect that changing from a Canterbury train to a Luton train at St Pancras is a much longer walk, albeit all under cover.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The two Wigan stations are so close together that it really isn't an issue. I suspect that changing from a Canterbury train to a Luton train at St Pancras is a much longer walk, albeit all under cover.

Piccadilly concourse to P13 is almost certainly at least as long. So I don't think it's an issue at all, really. Both could perhaps benefit from a tidy-up, but I wouldn't spend money on merging them, and the merged station would need to be further from the town centre so would be a downgrade.

 

[Purple Orange]

I think with regard to Manchester you could viably have one mainline station, but if you did you would probably need to add about 4 terminal platforms to Piccadilly, plus 4 more through platforms and quad-track the whole of Castlefield, possibly with a flyover for both the Ordsall Chord and Castlefield Junction. This wouldn't be worth the money, though, I'd rather look to upgrade Vic to be to the standard of Picc rather than the nasty, dirty, poorly-looked-after mess it is now.

But then Piccadilly is due to get between 6 and 8 new platforms. Either 6 terminus, or 4 terminus plus 2 or 4 through platforms. However that assumes Victoria remains, therefore it would still require a further 4 terminus platforms and P15 & P16. All of a sudden there is a 28 platform station, which for UK standards, in a very densely packed city centre, is huge. It wouldn’t address services from the north and west very well either.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But then Piccadilly is due to get between 6 and 8 new platforms. Either 6 terminus, or 4 terminus plus 2 or 4 through platforms. However that assumes Victoria remains, therefore it would still require a further 4 terminus platforms and P15 & P16. All of a sudden there is a 28 platform station, which for UK standards, in a very densely packed city centre, is huge. It wouldn’t address services from the north and west very well either.

I know we are in cloud cuckoo land realistically, but 4-tracking the whole of Castlefield would address that just fine. Hamburg manages with a very similar setup indeed.

 

[BayPaul]

I think the answer to the question has been answered by @61653 HTAFC and decide depending on each city’s requirements. To expand on that, I’d say it depends on both the size of the metropolis and the size of the city centre.

For example:

1. Newcastle would never need more than one mainline station in the centre, but it does need the two metro lines crossing the city for local traffic. Being an elongated city centre with a steep topography, people local to Newcastle need access to Central Station, but their destination in the city centre tends to be elsewhere.
2. Manchesterwould not work with one main termini. It’s city centre is too large and with a metropolis of nearly 3 million, it is not in the same territory as cities like Newcastle, Edinburgh or Leeds. As the many threads on Manchester testify, there is a lot of infrastructure work required in the city to make it work efficiently but it has the bare bones in place to have a very useful network.
   • Piccadilly needs to become the focus of all intercity long distance services, which it can with HS2 and NPR. The main shed needs to become more like a London Victoria or Waterloo situation, focussing on terminating commuter trains from the south.
   • Victoria needs to become the focus for local commuter services and semi-fast trans pennine and Welsh services on lines coming in from the Chat Moss, Bolton, Rochdale & Stalybridge. This will only happen if NPR or TRU can divert fast Trans Pennine services to Piccadilly.
   • The lines connecting Piccadilly P13 & P14, Oxford Road, Deansgate, Salford Central, Salford Crescent and Victoria need to focus on local and regional commuter services. 6-car trains with doors at thirds. There may always be an element of long distance services on this line, but they must be minimised.
3. Birmingham is another that can’t have a single termini. I like the idea of moving Cross Country services to Moor Street (ideally an expanded Moor Street), thus leaving New Street to and it’s radial lines to focus on local and regional traffic.
4. Glasgow is another where the separation of services works due to it’s size.

I agree that because of the development of the cities, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are not really practical to combine the stations, but in an ideal world, I see no advantage of them being separate. To take Birmingham, for example, the New Street lines run directly under Moor Street. In a money no object world, if New Street was moved around 200m east, and effectively became Moor Street Low Level, allowing all of the platforms to be in one building, would there be any real disadvantage. The advantage, obviously would be connections - separating intercity services from local is not great, as large numbers of passengers want to travel on intercity into Birmingham, but have their final destination at a suburban station somewhere. OK, you can walk between the two, but it is not the nicest walk, and it means the interchange time is much more than the 10 minutes it would otherwise be. Not practical now, but I don't see any reason to say X city is too large for a single central station, it is better off with two.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree that because of the development of the cities, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are not really practical to combine the stations, but in an ideal world, I see no advantage of them being separate. To take Birmingham, for example, the New Street lines run directly under Moor Street. In a money no object world, if New Street was moved around 200m east, and effectively became Moor Street Low Level, allowing all of the platforms to be in one building, would there be any real disadvantage. The advantage, obviously would be connections - separating intercity services from local is not great, as large numbers of passengers want to travel on intercity into Birmingham, but have their final destination at a suburban station somewhere. OK, you can walk between the two, but it is not the nicest walk, and it means the interchange time is much more than the 10 minutes it would otherwise be. Not practical now, but I don't see any reason to say X city is too large for a single central station, it is better off with two.

I think this is a bit like Manchester in that it would make sense but the cost would be unjustifiable. I don't think there's any advantage of multiple main stations other than that it's already that way. The likes of Castlefield is a bit different, though, where you have one main IC station and a few S-Bahn stops for local services only.

 

[Purple Orange]

I agree that because of the development of the cities, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are not really practical to combine the stations, but in an ideal world, I see no advantage of them being separate. To take Birmingham, for example, the New Street lines run directly under Moor Street. In a money no object world, if New Street was moved around 200m east, and effectively became Moor Street Low Level, allowing all of the platforms to be in one building, would there be any real disadvantage. The advantage, obviously would be connections - separating intercity services from local is not great, as large numbers of passengers want to travel on intercity into Birmingham, but have their final destination at a suburban station somewhere. OK, you can walk between the two, but it is not the nicest walk, and it means the interchange time is much more than the 10 minutes it would otherwise be. Not practical now, but I don't see any reason to say X city is too large for a single central station, it is better off with two.

Would you build one station in London, if starting from scratch? How many platforms would it need and where would it go?

I think the size and location of the city centres are an issue too. The reason Manchester built termini on the peripheral was because of the concentration of the city centre at the time the railways were being built.

Plus the size of the city centres need to be addressed too. Manchester has 5 stations that are used to access different areas of the city. One station can't deal with this. I would say cities could have one station for long distance intercity services and the rest are for local & regional traffic, which is what is happening in Manchester and might happen in Birmingham, if Moor St and Curzon Street integrate better.

I think this is a bit like Manchester in that it would make sense but the cost would be unjustifiable. I don't think there's any advantage of multiple main stations other than that it's already that way. The likes of Castlefield is a bit different, though, where you have one main IC station and a few S-Bahn stops for local services only.

Yes S-bahn for the other stations certainly. Victoria needs to act as a central station still to mop up semi-fast traffic.

 

[daodao]

I would say cities could have one station for long distance intercity services and the rest are for local & regional traffic, which is what is happening in Manchester...

"which is what is happening in Manchester" assumes that the plans of the NPR crayonistas are deemed affordable and actually come to fruition. Even if they eventually do so, it will be the best part of 20 years before the main Transpennine service from Leeds to Liverpool is diverted back via Piccadilly.

 

[Huntergreed]

I like the simplicity of Glasgow’s layout:

Two stations, one for heading south and west, one for heading east and north. Similar layouts (both have a high and low level which connects to suburban services around the city) and are well situated within the city centre.

 

[Austriantrain]

I like the simplicity of Glasgow’s layout:

Two stations, one for heading south and west, one for heading east and north. Similar layouts (both have a high and low level which connects to suburban services around the city) and are well situated within the city centre.

Still, in most cities in the region where I come from, there would have been a North-South-railway built. Not necessarily for long-distance traffic (even though London - Aberdeen might arguably work better via Glasgow once HS2 phase 2b is finished), but at least for regional services, to enable connectivity.

It is actually all about connectivity, if you want to enhance public transports opportunities. Of course, if your trains are already full to bursting, which many in the UK were pre-Covid, it gets less important.

Having several termini in large cities has historic reasons. Even in my country Austria, railways were originally built as private undertakings, which wanted their own stations in Vienna. Since Vienna was also the capital of a large Empire at the time, it was also considered the only important destination anyway and not a connecting point to somewhere else.

For a city like London, the issue of having a central station for Intercity (nobody is saying that there won’t be additional stations for regional services, but most of them should also service the „main station“ - which is why I am not convinced of the Curzon Street/New Street split, since it means cities like Wolverhampton will not profit from HS2, nor will city pairs such as Bristol - Manchester or Bristol - Leeds) is a non-starter of course. However, I don’t think anyone would ever complain if in the 19th Century through North-South and East-West Intercity routes had been built through London, just as they were in Berlin.

 

[daodao]

Still, in most cities in the region where I come from, there would have been a North-South-railway built. Not necessarily for long-distance traffic (even though London - Aberdeen might arguably work better via Glasgow once HS2 phase 2b is finished), but at least for regional services, to enable connectivity.

It is actually all about connectivity, if you want to enhance public transports opportunities. Of course, if your trains are already full to bursting, which many in the UK were pre-Covid, it gets less important.

Having several termini in large cities has historic reasons. Even in my country Austria, railways were originally built as private undertakings, which wanted their own stations in Vienna. Since Vienna was also the capital of a large Empire at the time, it was also considered the only important destination anyway and not a connecting point to somewhere else.

For a city like London, the issue of having a central station for Intercity (nobody is saying that there won’t be additional stations for regional services, but most of them should also service the „main station“ - which is why I am not convinced of the Curzon Street/New Street split, since it means cities like Wolverhampton will not profit from HS2, nor will city pairs such as Bristol - Manchester or Bristol - Leeds) is a non-starter of course. However, I don’t think anyone would ever complain if in the 19th Century through North-South and East-West Intercity routes had been built through London, just as they were in Berlin.

In Vienna, I note that there is now a connection between the 2 main-line stations that have been retained (West and HBF) and that the role of Franz Josefs Bahnhof is much diminished (it is no longer the station for journeys to Prague and Berlin).

 

[Austriantrain]

In Vienna, I note that there is now a connection between the 2 main-line stations that have been retained (West and HBF) and that the role of Franz Josefs Bahnhof is much diminished (it is no longer the station for journeys to Prague and Berlin).

You are right up to a point. Westbahnhof does not really play a role anymore for Intercity travel except for private operator WESTbahn, which has no wish to be integrated with other rail services so connections don’t matter for them (in fact they have made it their USP to serve Westbahnhof, which is better situated for people from the western parts of Vienna than Hauptbahnhof).

In fact, the two important mainline stations are now the newish Wien Hauptbahnhof and Wien Meidling, with most trains serving both (kind of a „split hub“). The centralization of Intercity services at Hauptbahnhof was really without alternative to enable routes towards Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia to be integrated and even though half of Vienna - the western part mentioned above - complained about it at the time, it was a major success passenger number-wise.

Of course, Vienna has a size that necessitates several other stations as well (for instance, most regional services from the north run on a line through the central parts of the city, serving several important stations before reaching Hauptbahnhof and then continuing towards the South, meaning from both north and south of the city you can directly reach several important interchanges).
However, for services on the Franz-Josefs-Bahn, not connecting directly to mainline services is a major disadvantage and there are recurring ideas (if somewhat of a pipedream) to change that (for instance running direct services to Hauptbahnhof via other lines; or building a northwest-southeast S-Bahn-Tunnel).

 

[nimbus21]

That Bradford's 2 stations remain unconnected is a terrible legacy of modern planners not doing their jobs. Nobody in the north part of Bradford, or north-west of Bradford along the Aire Valley line to Keighley and Skipton, or north-west of Bradford along the Wharfdale line to Ilkley or to the east of Bradford to places in East Leeds like Pudsey want to waste time travelling wrong direction to Leeds before heading westwards to Lancashire, Liverpool, Manchester, north Wales etc or southwards to Sheffield, the Midlands and the south generally They have to at present because there is no north-south through line connecting Bradford's two central stations. Solution 1 is to inflict some damage to city centre buildings and connect the two stations.

The other problem for Bradford is the time-wasting reverse at the Interchange for services from the Halifax/Huddersfield direction going east in the Leeds direction. In addition Bradford is largely unconnected with many major cities in the north such as Liverpool, Hull and Newcastle. Servuces to Manchester and even Leeds are horrendously slow. Solution 2 is to construct a new NPR line with a new loop from the Leeds-Bradford line into the Interchange from the north. This would be a mirror image of the current loop and would preferably move the station slightly further south. This is what Bradford Council's NPR plans are basically proposing. The latest Council proposal is however to move the station a bit further south than ideal because the Council own a large plot of land there which therefore provides greater confidence to delivery.

These solutions would offer great improvements to train services to huge numbers of people in West Yorkshire and the north and save hundreds of millions of pounds being wasted on endless modifications to the tracks and station at Leeds. They would provide as huge boost to regeneration in Bradford which is massively underperforming due to poor transport links.

 

[Ianno87]

That Bradford's 2 stations remain unconnected is a terrible legacy of modern planners not doing their jobs.

No, it's the legacy of historic railway builders chasing their own profits, and Victorian politics which left railway builders to their own devices rather than building railways in any kind of coordinated, strategic way.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Is Bank Quay where it is in Warrington because it was a one-time split level interchange station with a (now closed to passengers) line on the lower level?

The original Grand Junction Bank Quay station in Warrington (1838) was slightly further north of today's station, located north of what is now the A57 road bridge.
It was rebuilt further south when the low level line (Timperley-Garston) opened in 1852.
The low level line also had its own station at Arpley to the east, closer to the town centre.
The CLC route came much later (1873), and crossed the WCML (with no connection) further north.
The CLC route also had a separate straight alignment north of the town centre, which was on a 2-mile loop where Warrington Central was built.
The straight route crossed the WCML roughly above the point where the Dallam Branch (the original 1831 Warrington & Newton) left the main line.
The straight route was closed in the 1960s and there is little of it left now, but you can still feel the sharp curves where trains take the loop line.

 

[Purple Orange]

"which is what is happening in Manchester" assumes that the plans of the NPR crayonistas are deemed affordable and actually come to fruition. Even if they eventually do so, it will be the best part of 20 years before the main Transpennine service from Leeds to Liverpool is diverted back via Piccadilly.

I think we have to be mature enough to understand that this is an evolving project that will take a couple of decades. You have to take a long term view. Yes it does rely on a form of NPR, but it doesn’t rely on a new rail line all the way between Liverpool, Manchester & Leeds. Even just Trans Pennine Route upgrade will do as long as it connects to Piccadilly HS2 eventually. Liverpool services don’t need to be linked in either. A semi-fast Lime Street, Newton, Victoria, Stalybridge, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Leeds, Selby, Hull will work fine, with the fast Manchester-Leeds services leaving from Piccadilly.

 

[BayPaul]

I think this is a bit like Manchester in that it would make sense but the cost would be unjustifiable. I don't think there's any advantage of multiple main stations other than that it's already that way. The likes of Castlefield is a bit different, though, where you have one main IC station and a few S-Bahn stops for local services only.

I agree completely.

Would you build one station in London, if starting from scratch? How many platforms would it need and where would it go?

I think the size and location of the city centres are an issue too. The reason Manchester built termini on the peripheral was because of the concentration of the city centre at the time the railways were being built. .

If starting completely from scratch, yes, I think I would go for a single London station as far as possible, but it would obviously be a little more complex than that. I would go for a crossrail / S Bahn / Thameslink approach for outer and inner suburban rail - basically the whole of the Network South East area, linking lines across London with multiple small (2 platform) stations across central London, as far as possible with each line having a city and an east end station. These lines would effectively take the place of many of the underground lines. This would leave Intercity services. It doesn't seem impossible for all intercity services to run from a single terminal, presumably on the Euston Road. Platform-wise, it would probably be about 30-40 intercity platforms (roughly 6 Eurostar, 4 East Midland, 8 Great Western, 8 West Coast, 6 East Coast), so around twice the number of Euston. It would be a huge station (probably with two or three separate train sheds and throats), but if well designed, and properly incorporated into the area (lots of pedestrianised routes, multiple entrances etc) it would be no more complicated to use than an existing big station. Obviously as many of the Crossrail lines as possible would also connect in the same location to provide simple connections throughout, and I would also add an OOC / Watford style hub on each Intercity line, also with crossrail connections. It would be a nightmare to build, but probably no worse than building half a dozen smaller termini.

All academic, as we are where we are, and it is pointless (but fun) to consider alternative histories!

 

[Purple Orange]

I agree completely.

If starting completely from scratch, yes, I think I would go for a single London station as far as possible, but it would obviously be a little more complex than that. I would go for a crossrail / S Bahn / Thameslink approach for outer and inner suburban rail - basically the whole of the Network South East area, linking lines across London with multiple small (2 platform) stations across central London, as far as possible with each line having a city and an east end station. These lines would effectively take the place of many of the underground lines. This would leave Intercity services. It doesn't seem impossible for all intercity services to run from a single terminal, presumably on the Euston Road. Platform-wise, it would probably be about 30-40 intercity platforms (roughly 6 Eurostar, 4 East Midland, 8 Great Western, 8 West Coast, 6 East Coast), so around twice the number of Euston. It would be a huge station (probably with two or three separate train sheds and throats), but if well designed, and properly incorporated into the area (lots of pedestrianised routes, multiple entrances etc) it would be no more complicated to use than an existing big station. Obviously as many of the Crossrail lines as possible would also connect in the same location to provide simple connections throughout, and I would also add an OOC / Watford style hub on each Intercity line, also with crossrail connections. It would be a nightmare to build, but probably no worse than building half a dozen smaller termini.

All academic, as we are where we are, and it is pointless (but fun) to consider alternative histories!

Theoretically will Euston achieve that, of sorts. It depends on what we call ‘Intercity’ destinations, but from London I would categorise the following:

• Intercity:
  • Manchester
  • Birmingham
  • Leeds
  • Liverpool
  • Sheffield
  • Nottingham
  • Newcastle
  • Glasgow
  • Edinburgh
  • Aberdeen, Dundee & Inverness
  • Bristol
  • Cardiff & Swansea
  • Exeter & Plymouth
  • Cheltenham, Oxford, Worcester
  • Chester & North Wales

Of those destinations, 5 routes will not be served by Euston and will be coming in to Paddington. It is probably not worth it, but an engineering solution could be found for those services to use Euston. I’m unsure if Southampton, Brighton, Norwich & Portsmouth might be too close to call long distance intercity.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

That Bradford's 2 stations remain unconnected is a terrible legacy of modern planners not doing their jobs. Nobody in the north part of Bradford, or north-west of Bradford along the Aire Valley line to Keighley and Skipton, or north-west of Bradford along the Wharfdale line to Ilkley or to the east of Bradford to places in East Leeds like Pudsey want to waste time travelling wrong direction to Leeds before heading westwards to Lancashire, Liverpool, Manchester, north Wales etc or southwards to Sheffield, the Midlands and the south generally They have to at present because there is no north-south through line connecting Bradford's two central stations. Solution 1 is to inflict some damage to city centre buildings and connect the two stations.

The other problem for Bradford is the time-wasting reverse at the Interchange for services from the Halifax/Huddersfield direction going east in the Leeds direction. In addition Bradford is largely unconnected with many major cities in the north such as Liverpool, Hull and Newcastle. Servuces to Manchester and even Leeds are horrendously slow. Solution 2 is to construct a new NPR line with a new loop from the Leeds-Bradford line into the Interchange from the north. This would be a mirror image of the current loop and would preferably move the station slightly further south. This is what Bradford Council's NPR plans are basically proposing. The latest Council proposal is however to move the station a bit further south than ideal because the Council own a large plot of land there which therefore provides greater confidence to delivery.

These solutions would offer great improvements to train services to huge numbers of people in West Yorkshire and the north and save hundreds of millions of pounds being wasted on endless modifications to the tracks and station at Leeds. They would provide as huge boost to regeneration in Bradford which is massively underperforming due to poor transport links.

Is there all that much demand for cross-Bradford travel between Shipley and Halifax/Huddersfield or vice-versa? I'm not convinced there was enough demand to justify the cost of a cross-city link even before the new shopping centre was built in the way. For one thing it wouldn't just be the cost of building a new central station, but the loss of Interchange would probably mean building a new bus station too.

The best solution for cross-Bradford journeys would be a battery shuttle bus (though not the MetroShuttle loop that ran previously, as that was only convenient in one direction) free to all.

For all those who think recent decisions at SWR will put paid to speculation about 442s, take note of how often Bradford Crossrail comes up on this and other threads even after a big shopping centre was put in the way... then again, shopping centres aren't quite the cash-cow they once were, so maybe Broadway won't be in the way for as long as we thought!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Of those destinations, 5 routes will not be served by Euston and will be coming in to Paddington. It is probably not worth it, but an engineering solution could be found for those services to use Euston. I’m unsure if Southampton, Brighton, Norwich & Portsmouth might be too close to call long distance intercity.

Bournemouth and Norwich are both roughly as far from London as Birmingham, so if you're counting Birmingham as far enough away to be an InterCity destination...

 

[Purple Orange]

Bournemouth and Norwich are both roughly as far from London as Birmingham, so if you're counting Birmingham as far enough away to be an InterCity destination...

True. Therefore if 12 platforms can accommodate all HS2 traffic plus north wales, perhaps another 6 terminus platforms and 6 underground through platforms would deal with everything else required, including Brighton, Southampton, Leicester, Norwich, Bournemouth & Portsmouth.

 

[Austriantrain]

Bournemouth and Norwich are both roughly as far from London as Birmingham, so if you're counting Birmingham as far enough away to be an InterCity destination...

In any case, if you think of NY GCT (or some Tokyo stations), a central London Intercity station would not even be *that* big.

 

[XAM2175]

I agree that because of the development of the cities, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are not really practical to combine the stations, but in an ideal world, I see no advantage of them being separate.

I like the simplicity of Glasgow’s layout:

Two stations, one for heading south and west, one for heading east and north. Similar layouts (both have a high and low level which connects to suburban services around the city) and are well situated within the city centre.

I agree with @BayPaul on this. Building a Glasgow Hauptbahnhof would be extra-ordinarily difficult nowadays and is virtually certain to never happen, but if I had the option of building one I wouldn't persist with the current two-station arrangement. That it's mostly workable for most major flows is something that's occurred in spite of the layout, not as a result of it.
(and don't start me on the "interchange" between Central and the subway at St Enoch)