Railway Geography: Winners and Losers

[Horizon22]

Until, like Stratford, a whole load of development springs up and people do want to go there!

Well a lot of development will be going up there if the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC, because that was a mouthful) plans progress.

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[A0wen]

Indeed, MK's birth came just after Beeching, and the idea was for individual hypermobility with the private car.

Galling to think both the Varsity line to Cambridge and Oxford, and the Newport Pagnell branch closed just *after* Milton Keynes broke ground!

I'll give you the Oxford - Cambridge line, but bear in mind it never had much of a through timetable in the 60s really being run as Oxford - Bletchley, Bletchley - Bedford and Bedford - Cambridge.

I don't agree about the Newport Pagnell branch. That would be of limited use even today - Newport's still a small place, Wolverton's not very far away and the branch was only ever single line. It would have been an operational headache and would have had low usage - I suspect had it stayed open by the mid 80s it would have been like the Croxley Green branch, a couple of peak hours only services run using decrepit stock.

 

[urbophile]

Newton Le Willows a winner, only a small Town but with direct services to Liverpool-Manchester-Manchester Airport-Leeds-York-Newcastle-Chester & North Wales

Hmm. In terms of destinations, maybe. But it is lamentably served frequency-wise even pre-Covid considering it is in Liverpool City Region and its Merseyrail-branded (but not operated) station has effectively one train an hour to/from Liverpool. One slow and one express, but only running a few minutes apart so that unless you want one of the intermediate stations you're better off waiting for the fast train. The hourly TfW train is handy for the destinations you mention but (at least in one direction) is only a few minutes apart from the others, hence for the best part of an hour there are no trains.

 

[SWTurbo]

I think Westbury is reasonably lucky in the way that its a junction station so gets about half the London Paddington - Devon/Cornwall trains. It’s also a train crew depot.

The other towns near it are larger but get a worse service. Frome is an example of very unfortunate geography/station location.

going the other way down the line, Salisbury (comparatively small at only 40,00) gets a pretty decent service in all directions owing to it being the junction of four(?) lines as well as having the TMD for SWR diesel stuff!

 

[Mikey C]

Until, like Stratford, a whole load of development springs up and people do want to go there!

HS2 won't be stopping there to serve the local developments though. If the station was just about the local area it would be a simple 2 platform station on Crossrail

 

[Bevan Price]

Anywhere on the route of one of the original mainlines = winner. Elsewhere = loser.

Rugby v Northampton is the example

There are exceptions.
Blisworth, Weedon, Welford = Losers (Closed)
Long Buckby - Winner. (Still open)
All are small to medium size "villages" (or very small towns).

 

[DarloRich]

Long Buckby - Winner. (Still open)

Long Buckby is growing. Lots of building work.

 

[GatwickDepress]

Hastings does quite well in terms of railway geography with multiple routes to London, which is very useful in the event of disruption.

 

[Ianno87]

Hastings does quite well in terms of railway geography with multiple routes to London, which is very useful in the event of disruption.

Although all painfully slow for the relative distance.

 

[Bevan Price]

Long Buckby is growing. Lots of building work.

Quite possibly because it retained its railway station ???

 

[RT4038]

Quite possibly because it retained its railway station ???

Quite!

I'll give you the Oxford - Cambridge line, but bear in mind it never had much of a through timetable in the 60s really being run as Oxford - Bletchley, Bletchley - Bedford and Bedford - Cambridge.

I don't think that is quite right - Bletchley-Cambridge was worked as a through service, with additional 'short' workings between Bletchley & Bedford. Through passengers from Bletchley to Cambridge (or vice-versa) never had to change at Bedford.
There were only 3 or 4 through trains per day crossing Bletchley.

 

[SteveM70]

Has anyone mentioned Hebden Bridge yet? Population just under 4,500 but frequent trains to Manchester / Leeds and hourly Preston / York

 

[RT4038]

There are exceptions.
Blisworth, Weedon, Welford = Losers (Closed)
Long Buckby - Winner. (Still open)
All are small to medium size "villages" (or very small towns).

Only Weedon comes close to being a small town like Long Buckby. Not sure about the comparison of Welford, whose station was some miles away in North Kilworth, and on a completely different line (Rugby-Market Harborough)?

 

[GatwickDepress]

Although all painfully slow for the relative distance.

It's the classic Southern Railway way!

The roads are equally as slow though, so I suppose it evens out in the end.

 

[A0wen]

There are exceptions.
Blisworth, Weedon, Welford = Losers (Closed)
Long Buckby - Winner. (Still open)
All are small to medium size "villages" (or very small towns).

Long Buckby - 4k
Weedon - 2.7k
Blisworth - 2.8k
Welford - 1.0k

I'd have ignored Welford because the line and station have gone, whereas at both Blisworth and Weedon the line is still there.

That said, AIUI, Long Buckby survived due its proximity to Daventry (4 miles) and the fact it had been seen as the main station for Daventry because it was on the mainline, whereas Daventry's station which closed in 1958 was on the very minor Weedon to Leamington line.

Quite possibly because it retained its railway station ???

Not really, there are several similar sized places in Northants which are also seeing alot of house building but don't have a station - Earls Barton, Irchester and Silverstone spring immediately to mind.

 

[BigCj34]

Cark and Kents Bank, they have a railway service to Manchester Airport because of two viaducts connecting the Furness and Cartmel peninsulas to Lancaster!

I would say Egremont was in unlucky casualty of Beeching, though services were on the decline some time before and the track was finally closed around that time. The line going through the villages of Nethertown, Braystone and St Bees was spared to provide services up the Cumbrian Coast while the notably bigger Egremont lost its line.

 

[Glenn1969]

Hebden Bridge has a catchment area population of around 10,000 (including the villages of Heptonstall , Blackshaw, Slack, Colden and Old Town) so maybe does merit its service?

 

[Taunton]

There are exceptions.
Blisworth, Weedon, Welford = Losers (Closed)
Long Buckby - Winner. (Still open)
All are small to medium size "villages" (or very small towns).

It's as much the service the railway is able to provide as the local population. The main line through Blisworth has no local stopping trains, so there's not the ability to provide a service. Long Buckby is the reverse, local services only, and thus able to be readily served.

It's something commonly not realised by proponents of new stations to serve small places on main lines. You need a relevant service, and an existing one (because the smaller demand will not justify an additional one) as well.

 

[al78]

Although all painfully slow for the relative distance.

That seems to be true to a large extent in the SE. Getting to some places from Horsham that requires a change at Three Bridges or Gatwick is almost as slow as cycling door-to-door when the time taken getting to and from stations is taken into consideration, especially on Sunday. It all depends on whether or not you get lucky with the connection times.

It's the classic Southern Railway way!

The roads are equally as slow though, so I suppose it evens out in the end.

On the roads it heavily depends on which direction you are travelling and when. Routes radiating into and out of London are usually well served by fast roads (dual carriageways). Travelling EW can be very slow, especially if you get stuck behind the 40 mph club for miles.

 

[Envy123]

It's the classic Southern Railway way!

The roads are equally as slow though, so I suppose it evens out in the end.

It’s laughable that the rail journey from Littlehampton to London is about the same as from Warrington.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Other losers in the northwest & north Wales ...

Fleetwood
Leigh
Skelmersdale
Leek
Caernarfon
Ruthin, Denbigh & Mold
Oldham
Bury
Wythenshawe
Ashton under Lyne
Northwich
Ellesmere Port
Wrexham
Nantwich
Newcastle under Lyme
Barrow
Buxton
Rawtenstall & Rossendale
Keswick
...

I could go on and on

 

[BigCj34]

Other losers in the northwest & north Wales ...

Fleetwood
Leigh
Skelmersdale
Leek
Caernarfon
Ruthin, Denbigh & Mold
Oldham
Bury
Wythenshawe
Ashton under Lyne
Northwich
Ellesmere Port
Wrexham
Nantwich
Newcastle under Lyme
Barrow
Buxton
Rawtenstall & Rossendale
Keswick
...

I could go on and on

Workington and Whitehaven are hard to reach partly because of the closure of the line between Workington and Penrith, also meaning Cockermouth has no service as well as Keswick.

Barnard Castle has no line anymore.

All lines which noone would ponder closing today especially given the crosscounty links they provide.

As for overachievers I would add Carlisle and Peterborough, they are more interchange places than destinations!

 

[southern442]

On the roads it heavily depends on which direction you are travelling and when. Routes radiating into and out of London are usually well served by fast roads (dual carriageways). Travelling EW can be very slow, especially if you get stuck behind the 40 mph club for miles.

In the particular case of East Coastway settlements like Eastbourne and Hastings, (whilst Littlehampton and Bognor both take a while, I wouldn't say it's too bad depending on what train you get), the main roads down to either are the A21 and A22, which both have long single carriageway sections and can be quite awful to drive along if you're in a hurry, despite the lovely scenery.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Bradford is a funny one.

It's generally got six trains per hour to Leeds, two trains per hour to Manchester, hourly services to York /Hull/ Huddersfield/ Chester and Blackpool via Burnley/ Preston, as well as a few London services (the LNER one was going up to bi-hourly, the GC one was a few a day). Plus frequent local links to Skipton/ Keighley/ Ilkley etc.

So even if there was a central station, I don't know what significant improvements it'd get. If anything the Huddersfield service is the one I'd throw an extra train per hour at (locals may argue though).

I can appreciate that people in Bradford look at Leeds getting a significantly better service (in the way that people in Sunderland are envious of Newcastle, I'm sure people in Rotherham think similarly about Sheffield, the grass is always greener), but I think Bradford has a good collection of services and I don't think that linking Forster Square to the Interchange would make much of a difference to Bradford itself.

Bradford still has no through trains to major northern/midlands cities like Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle or Birmingham, nor to Manchester Airport or even Manchester Piccadilly. And most of its London trains take almost two hours to get to Doncaster.

A central station would make Bradford more of a hub - and Leeds to Carlisle & Lancaster trains would almost certainly be rerouted via Bradford.

Another poster has raised the issue of population. Excluding Keighley and Ilkley, the city of Bradford as most people would regard it is still very large. Have a look at an OS or other map and compare Bradford's urban area (Thackley to Wyke, Thornton to areas wrongly ruled by Leeds) with other major cities. The official population figures exclude suburbs like Tyersal, parts of Thornbury, western parts of Pudsey and East Bierley which are far closer to Bradford than Leeds or Huddersfield.

 

[70014IronDuke]

As well as places largely created by the railways, like Crewe and Swindon (and I'd suggest Doncaster), there are places where two routes happened to cross, like Newark and Retford.


I'm not convinced that the WCML was much of a factor in the creation of Milton Keynes. At the time it was being planned, railways were largely considered old fashioned and even obsolete, while the car was king. This was shown by the early construction of the grid system of main roads, while for years the only railway stations were on the fringes at Bletchley and Wolverton. I think the nearness of the M1 would have been a much bigger influence.

Moreover, AIUI, orgininally, Milton Keynes was planned deliberately not to have a railway station so as to avoid it becoming another commuter town for London.

 

[Bevan Price]

Only Weedon comes close to being a small town like Long Buckby. Not sure about the comparison of Welford, whose station was some miles away in North Kilworth, and on a completely different line (Rugby-Market Harborough)?

My error - I meant Welton, not Welford.

It's as much the service the railway is able to provide as the local population. The main line through Blisworth has no local stopping trains, so there's not the ability to provide a service. Long Buckby is the reverse, local services only, and thus able to be readily served.

It's something commonly not realised by proponents of new stations to serve small places on main lines. You need a relevant service, and an existing one (because the smaller demand will not justify an additional one) as well.

There used to be a (sparse) stopping service through Blisworth, but local stations between Rugby & Wolverton were all closed.

 

[tbtc]

Warrington historically benefitted from being the lowest road/rail crossing of the Mersey, until the direct rail route to Liverpool via Runcorn was opened in 1869.
It's not quite the same in Yorkshire, but it's why Doncaster got its prime place on the ECML

That's a very good point

The (best) main lines had to be inland enough to cross rivers without too much cost, not having to slow the journeys down significantly by needing to snake around at every wide estuary (as well as the point that coastal places don't have large hinterlands since they have so much sea near them)...

...but also far enough away from the Pennines etc to avoid crossing between lots of different steep valleys (with all of the tunnelling that this would require) or negotiating dozens of rivers

Places like Warrington and Doncaster are in the "goldilocks zone" - places where you can build bridges over rivers without too much fuss, far enough away from big hills and steep valleys - e.g. further inland than Doncaster and you've got to get between the Trent/ Don/ Calder (etc) valleys but going closer to the coast means lower population density and struggling to cope with the Wash/ Humber estuaries. Sheffield is bigger than Doncaster, but serving Sheffield comes at the cost of bending your route to accommodate the steeper valleys, whereas the flat lands around Doncaster can allow a fairly straight bit of track.

So Newcastle is on the main line (just the right width of river to cross), but Hexham and Sunderland lose out as they are too inland/ coastal respectively. And even if Sunderland's municipal population is bigger than Newcastle's municipal population, railway demand is based more on things like "population within a ten mile radius" (which means Newcastle wins hands down since it has towns surrounding it in all directions, whereas a lot of a ten mile radius of Sunderland is taken up by the North Sea

Bradford still has no through trains to major northern/midlands cities like Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle or Birmingham, nor to Manchester Airport or even Manchester Piccadilly. And most of its London trains take almost two hours to get to Doncaster.

A central station would make Bradford more of a hub - and Leeds to Carlisle & Lancaster trains would almost certainly be rerouted via Bradford.

Another poster has raised the issue of population. Excluding Keighley and Ilkley, the city of Bradford as most people would regard it is still very large. Have a look at an OS or other map and compare Bradford's urban area (Thackley to Wyke, Thornton to areas wrongly ruled by Leeds) with other major cities. The official population figures exclude suburbs like Tyersal, parts of Thornbury, western parts of Pudsey and East Bierley which are far closer to Bradford than Leeds or Huddersfield.

I don't see how a central station would make much difference to Bradford services - it still isn't going to be on a main route between large places, given the fairly low population density to the north and west (scenic, some lovely places, but not enough population density north/west of Bradford for it to be on a main line)

It's similar to Sheffield in that respect - we have the big empty Peak District within five miles of the city centre (whereas places like Birmingham/ Manchester/ Leeds have more satellite towns nearby)

I suppose there's the additional issue with Bradford city centre being at the end of a valley (making it less attractive for people to have built a through station)

Whereas other smaller places get a better service because they happen to be pretty much on a straight line between other bigger places (e.g. Huddersfield being between Leeds and Manchester)

 

[CW2]

As a loser I give you Abingdon. With a population just shy of 40,000, it used to have a branch line from Radley, but that closed under Beeching. Now the good folks of Abingdon tend to drive to Didcot Parkway if they are going anywhere long-distance.
A lesser candidate I give you Wantage and its satellite of Grove. Their joint population would be around 15,000, but the closure of Wantage Road station (in the parish of Grove) - also under Beeching - has deprived this area of rail transport - other than by going first to Didcot Parkway.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

If we confine ourselves to towns and cities which still have a train service, the biggest loser of all is probably Whitby

 

[Greetlander]

Wakefield is a winner. It's a large council area - but served well enough by stations, Castleford, Pontefract etc). Other than the city proper is around the same size as Halifax/Rochdale/Lincoln etc. It benefits from being in the way between Leeds and Doncaster and being just big enough to matter. In isolation it would never justify the levels of service or the multiplicity of routes.