One Or Multiple City Centre Stations In Provincial English Cities?

[zwk500]

I agree with all that. But I think the point is that that is an argument against trying to have one central station - because one central station becomes a single point of failure that, in the event of an emergency, could totally cripple transport into the city.

If Paddington closed, it'd be a fat lot of good to people trying to get to Slough/Maidenhead/Windsor that Liverpool Street is still operating. You can't build a 2nd terminal for every single station, nor would you be able to preserve enough capacity to operate an unplanned diversion without having a similarly catastrophic effect. It'd be quicker to recover the service to just shut down the affected line so that you're ready to go the moment it's open again.

Taking the GWML example, if there's a problem at Paddington would it be better to try and squash IC trains into Euston/Marylebone/Waterloo, or to turn every IC train at Reading and run 12-Car s as often as possible calling all-stations to Ealing Broadway? Direct local passengers to the tube, and anybody beyond Reading to Waterloo for the SWR services.

Finally, at some point the 2 routes will have to merge, and that junction will be a critical point. If it fails, you're back to square one - look at the Windmill Bridge Junction power failure for an example.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

If Paddington closed, it'd be a fat lot of good to people trying to get to Slough/Maidenhead/Windsor that Liverpool Street is still operating. You can't build a 2nd terminal for every single station, nor would you be able to preserve enough capacity to operate an unplanned diversion without having a similarly catastrophic effect. It'd be quicker to recover the service to just shut down the affected line so that you're ready to go the moment it's open again.

Taking the GWML example, if there's a problem at Paddington would it be better to try and squash IC trains into Euston/Marylebone/Waterloo, or to turn every IC train at Reading and run 12-Car s as often as possible calling all-stations to Ealing Broadway? Direct local passengers to the tube, and anybody beyond Reading to Waterloo for the SWR services.

Finally, at some point the 2 routes will have to merge, and that junction will be a critical point. If it fails, you're back to square one - look at the Windmill Bridge Junction power failure for an example.

I'm not suggesting a 2nd terminal for every station. Yes, sure, if Paddington closed, you've basically stopped most people who live along the GWML from getting in London. But the point is - that's NOT going to cripple London as a whole. It still leaves - I would guess, 90%+ of people who work in London able to get in just fine for the simple reason that 90%+ of people travelling into London don't come through Paddington. And actually, even some people who would normally come into Paddington would still be able to get in (Reading-Waterloo services, driving to places like High Wycombe, etc.)

Imagine by contrast if you had one big central London station to which all trains (or even just, all inter-city trains) arrived, and that station closed due to an emergency - leaving basically no-one able to get into London by train. Then you have a massively bigger problem.

Obviously, emergencies and maintenance and all sorts of disruption will happen from time to time. The point is that, if you have different services arriving at different stations - in exactly the way that currently happens for London - then you have a lot more resilience to cope with that, because an emergency at one location will at most disrupt only a proportion of people trying to get into London.

 

[zwk500]

Imagine by contrast if you had one big central London station to which all trains (or even just, all inter-city trains) arrived, and that station closed due to an emergency - leaving basically no-one able to get into London by train. Then you have a massively bigger problem.

It wouldn't shut down in the way the tube did after 7/7. The various contingency plans would all go into effect - basically all IC services terminate at the limit of suburban workings and full-length (12/10 car) shuttles organised to tube interchanges like Wembley Central, Stratford, Finsbury Park/Moorgate, Ealing Broadway etc. The tube would be a lot busier, and people would be very delayed, but they'd keep moving. The WCML contingency plan is regularly implemented to a lesser extent where LNR withdraw the normal timetable and operate max-length shuttles split at Northampton, to allow Avanti space for their delayed trains to slot into. It's remarkably effective at clearing the backlog.

 

[Purple Orange]

I’m not sure how there can be an argument at all for just one central station in a city. Many cities need a method of rail access to different areas of a city centre. Is it that the OP is considering Liverpool & Newcastle to be cities with just one central station, or are they considering the Mersey rail and Tyne & Wear Metro to be a part of that Rail station setup?

 

[Hey 3]

Providing diversionary capability is no longer affordable and overall is not cost-effective.

Similarly, rationalisation of stations in towns/cities that still have multiple stations post Beeching is equally unaffordable and impractical.

For example, in Manchester, it has proved impractical to centralise all long-distance services on Piccadilly because of the problems with the Castlefield corridor and the limited functionality of platforms 13/14. IMO, Victoria should be the main station for long-distance services to Scotland, Cumbria, NE England, Yorkshire (other than South Yorkshire), Liverpool and North Wales.

I don't think you want to deny most of the North and Scotland direct access to the North's busiest(or 2nd busiest) station.........

 

[Purple Orange]

I don't think you want to deny most of the North and Scotland direct access to the North's busiest(or 2nd busiest) station.........

Why? That makes no sense to me.

 

[zwk500]

I’m not sure how there can be an argument at all for just one central station in a city. Many cities need a method of rail access to different areas of a city centre. Is it that the OP is considering Liverpool & Newcastle to be cities with just one central station, or are they considering the Mersey rail and Tyne & Wear Metro to be a part of that Rail station setup?

My understanding was that the OP meant one 'main' station in the German Hbf style, and metro/light rail local stations don't count towards this, so places like Newcastle would be counted as having just one 'central' station.

I don't think you want to deny most of the North and Scotland direct access to the North's busiest(or 2nd busiest) station.........

Weren't you arguing for the reopening of Exchange on a different thread? Regardless, they're not being denied access to it - it's a short walk, there a direct accessible tram or several direct trains via Oxford Road.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think you want to deny most of the North and Scotland direct access to the North's busiest(or 2nd busiest) station.........

You need to more look at connections and whether you would travel via Manchester for those destinations anyway (e.g. the north WCML has a direct London service, so no need to provide for travel via Manchester, if people still want to do that for whatever reason they can manage the change). The main objection I have to Vic is that it is a dump (even after the fancy plastic roof was added to the tramway part), and a full redevelopment including demolishing the Arena could make it a very nice modern station indeed.

 

[Purple Orange]

My understanding was that the OP meant one 'main' station in the German Hbf style, and metro/light rail local stations don't count towards this, so places like Newcastle would be counted as having just one 'central' station.

In which case, how does Birmingham & Manchester fit in to that? Because what should happen with the other Manchester stations is that they perform the same role as the Merseyrail stations. Or Glasgow’s low level stations performing the same role, despite not being classed as a metro.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In which case, how does Birmingham & Manchester fit in to that? Because what should happen with the other Manchester stations is that they perform the same role as the Merseyrail stations. Or Glasgow’s low level stations performing the same role, despite not being classed as a metro.

Glasgow's suburban network is as good as identical to Merseyrail, to be honest.

 

[Purple Orange]

Glasgow's suburban network is as good as identical to Merseyrail, to be honest.

Exactly. These lines perform the same function, therefore you’d still have 4 or 5 stations in the city centres because the size of those city centres requires it.

 

[zwk500]

Exactly. These lines perform the same function, therefore you’d still have 4 or 5 stations in the city centres because the size of those city centres requires it.

I don't think the classfication as metro/light/heavy rail is particularly relevant. Different cities will have their suburban networks in different ways because of how and when they've developed. But you wouldn't call any of the stations on the Cathcart Circle a major hub or Hbf, in the same way you'd consider Central & Queen Street to be.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think the classfication as metro/light/heavy rail is particularly relevant. Different cities will have their suburban networks in different ways because of how and when they've developed. But you wouldn't call any of the stations on the Cathcart Circle a major hub or Hbf, in the same way you'd consider Central & Queen Street to be.

I suppose we then come back to that question - are we talking about more than one main station, or more than one station at all (be that tram, heavy rail metro or just something where regional services stop like Manchester Oxford Road).

 

[Hey 3]

Summary of this thread:
London is way too big to have a "Central" station, as is Birmingham and Manchester and possibly Glasgow and Edinburgh
Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, Leeds, York and Peterborough have just one station
Bedford, Cardiff, Manchester and Birmingham(ie Bordesley) have mostly have a "main" station plus smaller stations served by local trains(not Merseyrail or T&W Metro)
London has lots of important termini serving all different regions and purposes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Summary of this thread:
London is way too big to have a "Central" station, as is Birmingham and Manchester and possibly Glasgow and Edinburgh

Birmingham and Manchester are not too big for that, the only thing that really prevents Manchester having it is the inadequate capacity of Castlefield. If that was 4-tracked throughout with flyovers at the major junctions, it would be very similar to the setup in Hamburg, and just fine. Glasgow and Edinburgh are definitely not too big, and indeed Edinburgh does have one main central station (Waverley), Haymarket is more of a Manchester Oxford Road like secondary station.

 

[Purple Orange]

I suppose we then come back to that question - are we talking about more than one main station, or more than one station at all (be that tram, heavy rail metro or just something where regional services stop like Manchester Oxford Road).

Exactly this. Manchester could do with one main station for long distance intercity services (Piccadilly), but it needs other stations to assist with access to other areas of the city centre. One station alone will not work.

Piccadilly P13 & P14, Oxford Road, Deansgate, Salford Central, Salford Crescent and Victoria should be the home of regional commuter rail, with services no further than the North Wales coast and across to Hull/Scarborough on an east-west axis, and no further than Stoke/Crewe to the south and Blackpool & Cumbria to the north. Victoria in this instance is still a ‘main station’ but with a very different purpose. These stations are for getting people in to the city, but also to get different parts of the centre, hence the need for more than one station in the city.

If you compare that geography to London, it is certainly comparable to the commuter stations that serve the capital. Indeed even London could be heavily rationalised too without losing any stations. If by ‘main station’ we are solely concerned with long distance intercity, then we’d consider every station that points south of the Thames as regional commuter. Liverpool Street is mostly regional commuter. Kings Cross and St. Pancras NR platforms will be mostly regional commuter once HS2 is established.

Manchester could only reasonably cope with one station if it had been built slap bang in the middle of the city, but for that to be truly effective you have to hope the city centre is smaller than it is. Alas Manchester City centre is growing fast and one station would look wholly inadequate.

I don't think the classfication as metro/light/heavy rail is particularly relevant. Different cities will have their suburban networks in different ways because of how and when they've developed. But you wouldn't call any of the stations on the Cathcart Circle a major hub or Hbf, in the same way you'd consider Central & Queen Street to be.

Yet in the case of Glasgow, Queen Street and Central could have been accommodated in one station, which is kind of the point. Had planning took on a different form back in the 19th century, a different outcome may have happened, with Glasgow having one main station and a number of smaller stations, as it does now, in the centre.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you compare that geography to London, it is certainly comparable to the commuter stations that serve the capital. Indeed even London could be heavily rationalised too without losing any stations. If by ‘main station’ we are solely concerned with long distance intercity, then we’d consider every station that points south of the Thames as regional commuter. Liverpool Street is mostly regional commuter. Kings Cross and St. Pancras NR platforms will be mostly regional commuter once HS2 is established.

You can effectively consider KX and StP as one station, it's basically a single complex, and the walk between them is shorter than between Picc 13/14 and the main concourse. Euston is very close too - so what you've basically got is one complex that has almost all of the IC services in the UK anyway. Indeed, it would be possible (give or take the British Library and some listed blocks of flats) to rejig the streets and buildings round there to bind them together even more effectively, perhaps with public piazzas and similar between them instead of what isn't much more than a sink estate.

That does just leave Paddington, of course, which is a bit far over for that.

 

[HSTEd]

London is way too big to have a "Central" station, as is Birmingham and Manchester and possibly Glasgow and Edinburgh

If there were two extra tracks threaded through Castlefield, essentially all trains through Manchester could run through the Oxford Road corridor.

Manchester Victoria would become something more akin to Deansgate than anything else.
All trains would run through the Castlefield unified station.

The number of trains that can be handled by a single station is ably demonstrated by Clapham Junction.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If there were two extra tracks threaded through Castlefield, essentially all trains through Manchester could run through the Oxford Road corridor.

Indeed. As I've mentioned, this is exactly the setup Hamburg has and it works just fine, and Hamburg is both many times the size of Manchester and also has a proper, high frequency S-Bahn threaded through there as well as the ICE, IC and regional services. The Hamburger Verbindungsbahn has a lot in common with Castlefield, and the Dammtorbahnhof is basically the same thing as Oxford Road (even the nearest station to the uni, and if I recall rightly the 102 or whatever it is now, Europe's busiest single-number bus route, runs nearby!).

 

[cle]

If if. There will never be four tracks through Castlefield. Let's look at what we have:

A station on the north of the city centre, serving north of the city.
A station on the south of the city centre, serving south of the city.
Both then do a bit of east and west as makes sense operationally - and both can justify services to Warrington, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Leeds, Wigan and Boston.

Seems fine to me. It's not perfect, but it's what we have and it could work. But it is clear that Manchester is now big enough for two main stations (plus secondary ones) - check growth around Victoria, Ancoats, from Castlefield towards Cornbrook for how the city centre is spreading out.

And really we should discourage changing trains in Manchester if possible elsewhere. As noted, folks from the NW have Preston or Crewe almost universally as options heading in all directions. More geographically logical journeys, or regional - e.g. Wigan to Huddersfield, yes of course. How else. But on a national level, it shouldn't be encouraged. HS2 may fly in the face of all of that however, with 68 min times to London!

 

[BrianW]

For me the main issues are ease and attractiveness of:
- Connection to a /the 'main line'/ 'InterCity' services to the capital and principal cities from 'the suburbs'
- Connections between cities if not otherwise direct
- Opportunities for workers to reach a range of locations

I note for instance that at one time there was a direct service Manchester- Brighton; not now presumably due to lack of custom. Today the 'best' service is via Euston- tube- Victoria; or via MK or Watford Junction- Clapham Junction. How about Bolton or Southport to Brighton or Gatwick or Croydon or ... 4 changes? One or another St Albans station to Stratford-upon-Avon?

Again I appreciate that it's just not possible or sensible to facilitate everywhere to everywhere. In some ways though this is at least a good time to think about and order priorities, which hopefully a team at 'HQ' is working on, although government silence and indecision doesn't help planning

 

[zwk500]

I note for instance that at one time there was a direct service Manchester- Brighton; not now presumably due to lack of custom. Today the 'best' service is via Euston- tube- Victoria; or via MK or Watford Junction- Clapham Junction. How about Bolton or Southport to Brighton or Gatwick or Croydon or ... 4 changes? One or another St Albans station to Stratford-upon-Avon?

The Manchester-Brighton had the major problem of avoiding any key hub because of the rail routes. St Albans Abbey to anywhere would be just daft, tbh.

Again I appreciate that it's just not possible or sensible to facilitate everywhere to everywhere. In some ways though this is at least a good time to think about and order priorities, which hopefully a team at 'HQ' is working on, although government silence and indecision doesn't help planning

What would a team at 'HQ' be looking at? This is a speculative ideas thread, none of these ideas would get anywhere near a business case. The layout we've inherited is, by and large, the layout we've got. Especially with COVID shaking the forecast numbers up like a snow globe for the foreseeable future.

 

[Irascible]

You can effectively consider KX and StP as one station, it's basically a single complex, and the walk between them is shorter than between Picc 13/14 and the main concourse. Euston is very close too - so what you've basically got is one complex that has almost all of the IC services in the UK anyway. Indeed, it would be possible (give or take the British Library and some listed blocks of flats) to rejig the streets and buildings round there to bind them together even more effectively, perhaps with public piazzas and similar between them instead of what isn't much more than a sink estate.

That does just leave Paddington, of course, which is a bit far over for that.

Well... the GWML and WCML are in very close proximity not all that far from Euston...

( No I'm not serious, but you could if you really wanted ).

 

[HSTEd]

The problem is that the railway is inevitably about bulk flows.
We can't move small numbers of people around economically, but at the same time people want high frequency services.

To square this circle we ultimately have to drive down the number of routes in use.
Splitting trains across multiple city centre stations wrecks interchange opportunities and reduces effective service frequency.

Two trains per hour each to two stations is nowhere near as useful as four trains per hour to one station.

And whilst you might not want people to change trains in city centres - I'm afraid that's where the bulk flows go through!
This is especially true as distances become less important with increasing operational speeds.

EDIT:

They probably should have closed the road between STP and KGX when they rebuild KGX station and merged them into one continuous structure.

 

[cle]

Manchester to Brighton twice a day running via Reading and Wolves - or 2tph fast, a lightning fast Victoria-Euston tube hop, and 3tph. And I'm sure a much shorter journey time - much better for anyone who would make that journey regularly.

In future, Brighton - CJ - OOC, even better.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If if. There will never be four tracks through Castlefield

I agree there won't. But the point is that Manchester could cope just fine with a single main station (Piccadilly) if it did have 4 tracks through Castlefield, and Hamburg is basically the evidence.

 

[HSTEd]

I agree there won't. But the point is that Manchester could cope just fine with a single main station (Piccadilly) if it did have 4 tracks through Castlefield, and Hamburg is basically the evidence.

It's a real pity, we are so close - although if NPR comes good with a fast eastern approach to Picadilly from Leeds, the Castlefield corridor issues become much less problematic, especially with the HS2 tunnel available heading south and west

 

[Wolfie]

The problem is that the railway is inevitably about bulk flows.
We can't move small numbers of people around economically, but at the same time people want high frequency services.

To square this circle we ultimately have to drive down the number of routes in use.
Splitting trains across multiple city centre stations wrecks interchange opportunities and reduces effective service frequency.

Two trains per hour each to two stations is nowhere near as useful as four trains per hour to one station.

And whilst you might not want people to change trains in city centres - I'm afraid that's where the bulk flows go through!
This is especially true as distances become less important with increasing operational speeds.

EDIT:

They probably should have closed the road between STP and KGX when they rebuild KGX station and merged them into one continuous structure.

Good luck on getting the suggestion in your last para through the London Borough of Camden Council....

 

[Purple Orange]

I agree there won't. But the point is that Manchester could cope just fine with a single main station (Piccadilly) if it did have 4 tracks through Castlefield, and Hamburg is basically the evidence.

In this context, it would still need Oxford Road, Deansgate, Salford Central & Victoria.

It's a real pity, we are so close - although if NPR comes good with a fast eastern approach to Picadilly from Leeds, the Castlefield corridor issues become much less problematic, especially with the HS2 tunnel available heading south and west

I think that is how it will go eventually, but Victoria will be an equivalent of Oxford Road in the post HS2/NPR world as a pure commuter station. It could still be a 20 million passenger per annum station though.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

If there were two extra tracks threaded through Castlefield, essentially all trains through Manchester could run through the Oxford Road corridor.

Manchester Victoria would become something more akin to Deansgate than anything else.
All trains would run through the Castlefield unified station.

The number of trains that can be handled by a single station is ably demonstrated by Clapham Junction.

Even if there were 6 or 8 through platforms at Piccadilly, you still wouldn't want to path the 2 (in normal times) TPE's per hour across the entire throat.