Trivia: Greatest service level difference between weekday and Sunday

[miklcct]

There are some stations which get 3 or 4 calls per hour on a weekday but only 1 call per hour on a Sunday.

For example, Farnborough has 3 calls every hour each direction off-peak, including 2 Waterloo - Basingstoke and 1 Waterloo - Portsmouth Harbour services, but on Sunday only 1 Waterloo - Basingstoke service calls there per hour.

Brookwood has 4 calls by 4 different trains every hour each direction off-peak, 2 Waterloo - Basingstoke and 2 Waterloo - Alton, but on Sunday, there are only 2 calls each hour from 2 portions of the same train, which makes them effectively 1 train per hour for anyone travelling beyond Woking compared to 4 trains per hour on weekdays.

Excluding stations which closed on Sundays, which station in UK (including all railway systems) has the greatest difference of service level between weekday and Sunday?

 

[A S Leib]

There are some stations which get 3 or 4 calls per hour on a weekday but only 1 call per hour on a Sunday.

For example, Farnborough has 3 calls every hour each direction off-peak, including 2 Waterloo - Basingstoke and 1 Waterloo - Portsmouth Harbour services, but on Sunday only 1 Waterloo - Basingstoke service calls there per hour.

Brookwood has 4 calls by 4 different trains every hour each direction off-peak, 2 Waterloo - Basingstoke and 2 Waterloo - Alton, but on Sunday, there are only 2 calls each hour from 2 portions of the same train, which makes them effectively 1 train per hour for anyone travelling beyond Woking compared to 4 trains per hour on weekdays.

Excluding stations which closed on Sundays, which station in UK (including all railway systems) has the greatest difference of service level between weekday and Sunday?

By passenger numbers pre-pandemic I'd expect it to have been Bank, or somewhere else in the City of London (apart from City Thameslink which is closed).

Solihull to Birmingham Moor Street and Beeston to Nottingham are currently 4 tph on weekdays and hourly on Sundays.

Lockerbie to Carlisle is one train per day on Sundays (or at least when there isn't engineering works, which doesn't seem to be until late May) and 21 on weekdays.

 

[Kite159]

Penarth, roughly 1 train per 2 hours on a Sunday, roughly 3-4 trains per hour Monday to Saturdays?

 

[Peter0124]

Pre covid IIRC: Glasgow Queen Street (low level) had 3tph on Sundays whereas Mon-Sat it was 8tph.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Excluding stations which closed on Sundays, which station in UK (including all railway systems) has the greatest difference of service level between weekday and Sunday?

Berney Arms has 10 calls on Sundays (5 each way to Great Yarmouth or Norwich) but only 4 on Mondays to Saturdays (2 each way).

Lakenheath has 7 calls on Sundays, just 2 on Saturdays and nothing midweek.

 

[PTR 444]

There are some stations which get 3 or 4 calls per hour on a weekday but only 1 call per hour on a Sunday.

For example, Farnborough has 3 calls every hour each direction off-peak, including 2 Waterloo - Basingstoke and 1 Waterloo - Portsmouth Harbour services, but on Sunday only 1 Waterloo - Basingstoke service calls there per hour.

Brookwood has 4 calls by 4 different trains every hour each direction off-peak, 2 Waterloo - Basingstoke and 2 Waterloo - Alton, but on Sunday, there are only 2 calls each hour from 2 portions of the same train, which makes them effectively 1 train per hour for anyone travelling beyond Woking compared to 4 trains per hour on weekdays.

Excluding stations which closed on Sundays, which station in UK (including all railway systems) has the greatest difference of service level between weekday and Sunday?

Are you including stations which have a better service on Sundays than other days of the week?

If so, then I nominate Beaulieu Road which has an hourly service on Sunday but only around 6 trains in each direction per day during the rest of the week.

 

[Parallel]

Chapelton and Portsmouth Arms stations on the Tarka Line get an improved service on Sundays. Monday-Saturday they get just two trains a day in each direction, but on Sundays, they benefit from 4 trains in each direction.

 

[Dai Corner]

Ebbw Vale - Newport has six trains on Sundays but none the rest of the week in the current emergency/Covid timetable.

 

[splashoutradio]

Should stations with a significantly better Sunday service be accepted, I'd nominate Hawarden Bridge.
7 trains Monday to Saturday, 20 on a Sunday.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Excluding stations which closed on Sundays, which station in UK (including all railway systems) has the greatest difference of service level between weekday and Sunday?

Should stations with a significantly better Sunday service be accepted...

Don't see why not. Wasn't specifically excluded by the OP.

Interesting that there are still a handful of stations around the network where the Sunday service provision is superior to other days of the week.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Interesting that there are still a handful of stations around the network where the Sunday service provision is superior to other days of the week.

There are two reasons you tend to get this. One is that the station is a purely leisure destination and so there is genuinely higher demand on Sundays than other days. Another is that the more intensive weekday service causes calls at the station to be inconvenient in pathing/unit utilisation terms, whereas on a Sunday there's plenty of slack and it can be served more often by those trains that do run.

Middlewood is/was an example of the former. I can't think of specific examples of the latter but I'm sure there are some.

 

[py_megapixel]

Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington and Prestbury. Weekdays are hourly with a couple of morning peak extras, while Sundays only get 6 trains a day.

IIRC Arriva commited to improve the service frequency on this line when they took on the Northern franchise in 2016, but nothing has materialised.

 

[geoffk]

Surely several stations on the Manchester - Stoke and Crewe lines would be on the list, also on other lines where Sunday work is voluntary. Example - Congleton, hourly weekdays, 5 trains each way Sundays with 3 or 4 hour gaps.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Have we had Bromley North/Sundridge Park? Dozens of services Mondays-Fridays on the branch line, possibly even more so on Saturdays, just a handful on Sundays (albeit technically these could be considered late night Saturday services operating beyond midnight!)

P.S. When did London Cannon Street first get regular Sunday services? Used to be diddly squat from there late evenings and/or Sundays for many a year.

 

[miklcct]

There are two reasons you tend to get this. One is that the station is a purely leisure destination and so there is genuinely higher demand on Sundays than other days. Another is that the more intensive weekday service causes calls at the station to be inconvenient in pathing/unit utilisation terms, whereas on a Sunday there's plenty of slack and it can be served more often by those trains that do run.

Middlewood is/was an example of the former. I can't think of specific examples of the latter but I'm sure there are some.

So what's the reason Beaulieu Road, mainly a leisure destination, still gets an abysmal Saturday service while having hourly trains on Sunday?

 

[jonnyfan]

Heaton Chapel and Levenshulme gets around 56 trains per day Mon-Sat into Manchester Piccadilly, around 3 trains each hour. On a Sunday both get 12 trains all day, with gaps of up to 3 hours.

The situation is slightly better from Piccadilly towards Levenshulme and Heaton Chapel, they get 14 trains on a Sunday, at hourly intervals.