Trivia: Towns which do not deserve the service they get

[Socanxdis]

Nobody is getting the service they deserve in the UK.

 

[Iskra]

Not sure Huddersfield- which has a catchment area of 200,000 people and is the 11th largest TOWN in England but has no inter city North South service- really deserves to be on this list

Huddersfield is way over-served on the Manchester-Leeds axis due to railway geography. It isn’t actually the centre of the universe as all its residents believe.

200,000 if you ignore all the stations around it that serve those 200k.

Bradford is double the size, compare its service level.

 

[yorksrob]

I agree obviously (!) but Dewsbury should be on in its place- it's a ghost town.

I'm not sure Wakefield quite deserves the level of intercity service it gets, but being on the main line from London to Leeds means it does well. The twisty and slow viaduct to the south also means there's little to be gained by not stopping, which perhaps helps explain why so few services do skip it.

Because it gets the service it does, it then gets used as a railhead for surrounding towns, which then justifies the initial overprovision!

There's nowhere else that could provide a decent railhead for the City and surrounding area. Last time I got a taxi from Leeds, it was over £30 and Doncaster's even further.

 

[pwig]

What about Alnmouth?

 

[cactustwirly]

Huddersfield is way over-served on the Manchester-Leeds axis due to railway geography. It isn’t actually the centre of the universe as all its residents believe.

200,000 if you ignore all the stations around it that serve those 200k.

Bradford is double the size, compare its service level.

Apples and Pears....
Huddersfield is more economically active, and therefore has more demand!
Population isn't everything!

 

[DanTrain]

Huddersfield is way over-served on the Manchester-Leeds axis due to railway geography. It isn’t actually the centre of the universe as all its residents believe.

200,000 if you ignore all the stations around it that serve those 200k.

Bradford is double the size, compare its service level.

...and yet Huddersfield still doesn’t have a service to London unlike Bradford. Admittedly London is probably not the primary destination from Huddersfield but it’s an indicator of the restricted service level Huddersfield receives to everywhere other than North TPE stations.

What about Alnmouth?

Or for that reason the village of Alnmouth...or even the smaller village of Hisburn where the station actually is! All are overserved on their own, and the region is too really but that’s one benefit of being right on the ECML.

I would also argue that Chesterield on its own doesn’t justify 2tph on the EMT London route, although as with many places on this list is manages to provide the passengers to justify the calls by acting as a railhead, so...

 

[Iskra]

Apples and Pears....
Huddersfield is more economically active, and therefore has more demand!
Population isn't everything!

Rubbish. Huddersfield has some of the lowest wages in the country. Bradford is twice the size, so how is Huddersfield more economically active, whatever that nonsense claim means anyway...

 

[DanTrain]

Rubbish. Huddersfield has some of the lowest wages in the country. Bradford is twice the size, so how is Huddersfield more economically active, whatever that nonsense claim means anyway...

Residents of Ilkley (part of ‘Bradford’) don’t catch trains from Bradford though, why would they when Leeds is a similar distance?

 

[cactustwirly]

Rubbish. Huddersfield has some of the lowest wages in the country. Bradford is twice the size, so how is Huddersfield more economically active, whatever that nonsense claim means anyway...

Um, Bradford is a dump (like Stoke)
Huddersfield has more going for it, much better town centre etc. Therefore it is a much more attractive destination.

 

[Iskra]

Um, Bradford is a dump (like Stoke)
Huddersfield has more going for it, much better town centre etc. Therefore it is a much more attractive destination.

So that’s quite clearly just a personal opinion of yours.

Funny you should mention Stoke, it’s got a similarly depressed economy/wages to Huddersfield. When the Audi garage in Huddersfield weren’t playing ball, Stoke was the only place I could find the same car at the same appealing price. Now why are cars cheaper in Stoke and Huddersfield, than Bradford? Perhaps it’s got something to do with the affluence/economy of the local population...

Huddersfield town centre has a nice train station and a booming university. That is literally all it has going for it. Bradford city centre has been nicely redeveloped and contains some great architecture. I advise you to spend more time in the two places, as I have, and then you will change your mind.

 

[cactustwirly]

So that’s quite clearly just a personal opinion of yours.

Funny you should mention Stoke, it’s got a similarly depressed economy/wages to Huddersfield. When the Audi garage in Huddersfield weren’t playing ball, Stoke was the only place I could find the same car at the same appealing price. Now why are cars cheaper in Stoke and Huddersfield, than Bradford? Perhaps it’s got something to do with the affluence/economy of the local population...

Huddersfield town centre has a nice train station and a booming university. That is literally all it has going for it. Bradford city centre has been nicely redeveloped and contains some great architecture. I advise you to spend more time in the two places, as I have, and then you will change your mind.

Having been to Stoke, Huddersfield and Bradford, Huddersfield definately felt the more affluent place! I saw quite a few nice cars, had a few designer boutiques, artisan coffee shops etc.

 

[Iskra]

Having been to Stoke, Huddersfield and Bradford, Huddersfield definately felt the more affluent place! I saw quite a few nice cars, had a few designer boutiques, artisan coffee shops etc.

Well you are welcome to your opinion, but having been to college in Huddersfield for 2 years and worked in both Huddersfield and Bradford centres, I know which I prefer.

I won't comment on Stoke as I've only been there for the football (Stoke City and Port Vale) the uni and the train station, and feel that you can't accurately judge a town based on those 3 things.

 

[jamesst]

Is it Merseyrail pulling the shots or is it someone within Merseytravel telling them to cut down the frequency at the edges of the network/smaller stations to allow them to run more 6 coach trains to cater for the expected crowds for the horsey event?[/QUOTE]

It's the opening of Maghull North which has stretched the fleet somewhat. The previous all stations service plan during the Aintree meeting with also calling at the new station was never going to happen!

 

[Glenn1969]

So that’s quite clearly just a personal opinion of yours.

Funny you should mention Stoke, it’s got a similarly depressed economy/wages to Huddersfield. When the Audi garage in Huddersfield weren’t playing ball, Stoke was the only place I could find the same car at the same appealing price. Now why are cars cheaper in Stoke and Huddersfield, than Bradford? Perhaps it’s got something to do with the affluence/economy of the local population...

Huddersfield town centre has a nice train station and a booming university. That is literally all it has going for it. Bradford city centre has been nicely redeveloped and contains some great architecture. I advise you to spend more time in the two places, as I have, and then you will change your mind.

Huddersfield station has annual usage of 5.1 million. So clearly deserves its level of service. Even if some of them are looking for the station cat.

 

[Iskra]

Huddersfield station has annual usage of 5.1 million. So clearly deserves its level of service. Even if some of them are looking for the station cat.

I agree it needs a regular service, but does it really need 6tph to Leeds and Manchester?

 

[Glenn1969]

Yes given that for most of the day it is standing room only on TPE services

 

[Iskra]

Yes given that for most of the day it is standing room only on TPE services

That's not true. In the peaks, yes. But not all day.

 

[Glenn1969]

I would say it is most of the day. Then again I live on the Calder Valley Route so am only going by what others tell me

 

[Highlandspring]

Dunblane x1000

Montrose

Totally wrong

 

[randyrippley]

Ribblehead............

 

[trainophile]

Whenever I've stopped at Stafford it's like a ghost station. Quite eerie actually, often literally not a soul to be seen.

 

[Clansman]

Totally wrong

Fair enough.

Apologies if you're a regular to Montrose

100% agree with Dunblane though.

 

[notverydeep]

Stone Crossing, Swanscombe and Northfleet don't need 4tph off peak.

High off peak frequencies encourage greater numbers of people to travel. On a turn up and go metro service, you increase service to reduce waiting times. On less frequent routes increases allow passengers can match their journey more closely to the time they need to be at their destination. Often there is a good case for increased frequency off peak, even if all the existing passengers were easily accommodated on the previous service. Trains have high fixed (capital costs) but relatively low marginal costs making getting more out of trains you have already bought a good bet. Off peak travellers are more reponsive than peak passengers to better total journey times (inluding waiting time) increasing trip rates and therefore revenue, even if that generated at Stone Crossing won't pay all the cost...!

 

[Kite159]

Godalming (from May)

4tph to London, 3tph to Portsmouth & 1tph to Haslemere.

 

[tbtc]

Sorry, can't help...don't smoke!

(the "back of a fag packet" quip is going to be hard to explain to Millennials who've only ever known vaping!)

In South Wales, I do find it baffling that Merthyr Tydfil (with a population of 63,546) has a half hourly service all day, when Barry (54,673) has a fifteen minute service. Just along the coast then is Penarth (which only has a population of 22,083) which also has a fifteen minute service!

In the way that Manchester Airport's over-provision is often justified by "we need somewhere to terminate services from the north/west", I think the same is true of Barry/ Penarth, given the large numbers of services from Queen Street into Cardiff Central needing somewhere to terminate.

Same problem in reverse for the heads of the valleys - limited capacity through Queen Street so little scope to increase the frequency, given the large number of branches to serve (until you introduce light rail with faster acceleration and "line of sight" frequencies etc).

I agree it needs a regular service, but does it really need 6tph to Leeds and Manchester?

Without trying to get involved in the Huddersfield/ Bradford squabbles (!), the problem with the argument that somewhere like Huddersfield gets too many services is... what would be the appropriate level (based on the current frequency on the lines)?

I can certainly buy the argument that the trans-pennine route should have fewer/longer services - maybe four per hour but 150m long minimum - but since we currently have six/hour on the route then (if not all stopping at Huddersfield) how many should stop? The semi-fasts would have to stop there (otherwise Huddersfield would have no trains to local places like Marsden), so do you drop it down to four/hour (i.e. only two "fast" services to Manchester/ Leeds)? Seems a huge cut in the Leeds service (down from four fast services to just two fast services per hour? In comparison central Bradford gets six Leeds services per hour, Wakefield gets eight Leeds services per hour (ignoring the one that reverses at Castleford).

Dropping just one Huddersfield service would be a waste of time and confusing to passengers used to *everything* stopping there (and it'd just end up sitting waiting outside Manchester/ Leeds for a couple of minutes longer, benefitting nobody).

Same goes for other stations mentioned on here that have everything stopping there - to drop the frequency is going to be off-putting and (unless you "do a Breich") you won't actually speed services up so what's the point? (that's not to say that "doing a Breich" is a bad option, mind)

 

[Kite159]

Same problem in reverse for the heads of the valleys - limited capacity through Queen Street so little scope to increase the frequency, given the large number of branches to serve (until you introduce light rail with faster acceleration and "line of sight" frequencies etc).

I would have pictured the large single track sections north of Pontypridd being a limiting factor to providing more than a half hourly service on the three branches.

 

[Ianigsy]

Skipton has at least two trains to Bradford and between two and four to Leeds most hours, largely for operational convenience and to maximise connections between the local stations in the Aire Valley and the Carlisle and Morecambe services.

It's probably unfair to compare Bradford and Huddersfield at the moment - Bradford had a lost decade where half of the shopping area was flattened while the redevelopment was put on hold, while at the same time Huddersfield developed as a university town and built up its cultural life.

 

[Killingworth]

Or for that reason the village of Alnmouth...or even the smaller village of Hisburn where the station actually is! All are overserved on their own, and the region is too really but that’s one benefit of being right on the ECML.

I would also argue that Chesterield on its own doesn’t justify 2tph on the EMT London route, although as with many places on this list is manages to provide the passengers to justify the calls by acting as a railhead, so...

Alnmouth is hardly a town but is effectively a North Northumberland Parkway station, also drawing passengers from second home owners who may work in the big cities 3 or 4 days a week and have long weekends in the country. Long stay parking has been a problem in the station car parks.

Chesterfield's passenger numbers come from North Derbyshire and the Peak District as well as South Sheffield. It takes about the same time for me to drive north through heavy traffic into Sheffield as to go south to Chesterfield and pick up a London train at least 10 minutes later.

I'd add Chathill to the list, but it's not even a village. An historical anachronism, there's nothing there bar half a dozen houses and the rail service provided to let the stopping service that's really to and from Alnmouth turn back. It used to be a junction for the long closed Seahouses branch. Current services aren't convenient for the holiday trade and not good for commuting to Newcastle so it's a minor miracle that as many use it as they do, although numbers are in danger of falling below 2,000 at the present rate of decline. The long gone Post Office had an impressively large building for such a small community .

 

[61653 HTAFC]

There's nowhere else that could provide a decent railhead for the City and surrounding area. Last time I got a taxi from Leeds, it was over £30 and Doncaster's even further.

I agree, and my last paragraph says as much... but other than being a convenient railhead due to location, there's not all that much to write home about with Wakey itself.

 

[Owen]

Ely!!