tbtc
Veteran Member
Whenever we discuss regret at closed stations (which we seem to do fairly regularly), it always seems to be on lines that closed (and generally on lines that closed in fairly rural areas - North Yorkshire, Peak District, Dartmoor etc).
This means that we don't focus much on stations which closed on lines that remained open. For example, in Sheffield we've lost a few between Meadowhall and Dore (Brightside, Attercliffe, Heeley, Millhouses and Beauchief). Some of them are fairly minor losses (Brightside is a stones throw from Meadowhall, Attercliffe was only useful when the heavy industry of the Lower Don Valley meant large numbers of steel workers employed nearby), but that's still five of the six stations between Meadowhall and Dore that have closed (the main one - Sheffield Midland - remains open, of course).
Some stations would be hard to rebuild now (because of buildings that had encroached onto the envelope of the old station site - even though the line remains open), some stations would be hard to operate now (e.g. a "local" station on a main line, where there either wouldn't be anything suitable to stop there or there wouldn't be space for local trains to stop - e.g. whilst Heeley or Millhouses may be popular, there aren't enough local trains on that corridor to give them the kind of regular frequency that urban stations really need, and there's not enough slack in the timetable for a local train to slow down/ dwell/ accelerate)
So, I'm not worried about the practicalities of re-opening it (this isn't a re-opening thread, this is a thread about the closures that were the biggest losses at the time that they closed) - the only criteria is that the line remains open with a (pre-Covid) frequency of at least a bi-hourly service passing by (so no freight only lines or ones with "parliamentary" service levels)
To start somewhere, I'll nominate Tweedmouth (whilst the main Berwick station is north of the river, most of the locals live on the south side - there's a contrast between the "tourist town" and the suburbs, so a station would have served a different market) - obviously there's no "local" trains on the line these days, so it's not going to get re-opened any time soon, I'm not suggesting that it should be re-opened, but it's an example of a station that provided something different to the next station on the line, and the kind of station that flies under the radar on discussions on here (closing it didn't leave an entire town without a station, so it doesn't get mentioned on the list of "towns without stations")
There are plenty of other places though (Clay Cross, Wooton Basset etc)
Over to you...
This means that we don't focus much on stations which closed on lines that remained open. For example, in Sheffield we've lost a few between Meadowhall and Dore (Brightside, Attercliffe, Heeley, Millhouses and Beauchief). Some of them are fairly minor losses (Brightside is a stones throw from Meadowhall, Attercliffe was only useful when the heavy industry of the Lower Don Valley meant large numbers of steel workers employed nearby), but that's still five of the six stations between Meadowhall and Dore that have closed (the main one - Sheffield Midland - remains open, of course).
Some stations would be hard to rebuild now (because of buildings that had encroached onto the envelope of the old station site - even though the line remains open), some stations would be hard to operate now (e.g. a "local" station on a main line, where there either wouldn't be anything suitable to stop there or there wouldn't be space for local trains to stop - e.g. whilst Heeley or Millhouses may be popular, there aren't enough local trains on that corridor to give them the kind of regular frequency that urban stations really need, and there's not enough slack in the timetable for a local train to slow down/ dwell/ accelerate)
So, I'm not worried about the practicalities of re-opening it (this isn't a re-opening thread, this is a thread about the closures that were the biggest losses at the time that they closed) - the only criteria is that the line remains open with a (pre-Covid) frequency of at least a bi-hourly service passing by (so no freight only lines or ones with "parliamentary" service levels)
To start somewhere, I'll nominate Tweedmouth (whilst the main Berwick station is north of the river, most of the locals live on the south side - there's a contrast between the "tourist town" and the suburbs, so a station would have served a different market) - obviously there's no "local" trains on the line these days, so it's not going to get re-opened any time soon, I'm not suggesting that it should be re-opened, but it's an example of a station that provided something different to the next station on the line, and the kind of station that flies under the radar on discussions on here (closing it didn't leave an entire town without a station, so it doesn't get mentioned on the list of "towns without stations")
There are plenty of other places though (Clay Cross, Wooton Basset etc)
Over to you...