Trivia - Local Authorities with no National Rail Stations

[Altnabreac]

This question arose on the Borders Rail thread and I did a bit of research with the ORR station statistics but it was off topic there so thought I'd create a new thread for it:

There are 9 top level local authorities in the UK with no National Rail Station at present.

2 will be served by the Borders Rail reopening in 2015, with Scottish Borders potentially also served by a new Reston station on the ECML in future:

• Midlothian
• Scottish Borders

4 are Island authorities with no historical rail services:

• Isles of Scilly
• Orkney Islands
• Shetland Islands
• Eilean Siar (Western Isles)

3 are Metropolitan Boroughs served by Light Rail but not by Heavy Rail:

• Bury - Metrolink but no National Rail
• South Tyneside - Metro but no National Rail
• North Tyneside - Metro but no National Rail

There are also 8 English districts with no National Rail stations.

4 have National Rail lines running through them but no station:

• Torridge - Part of the Barnstaple line but no station.
• East Northamptonshire - Parts of NR lines near Stamford and Corby but no station. (although Wellingborough, Corby and Stamford very close by)
• North West Leicestershire - Freight lines at Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Castle Donington but no stations (although MML and East Midlands Parkway very close by)
• Richmondshire - Contains both the ECML and the Settle and Carlisle line but no stations. (although Garsdale, Darlington and Northallerton very close by)

2 have preserved railways but no National Rail services:

• Rossendale - East Lancashire Railway at Rawtenstall but no National Rail line.
• West Somerset - West Somerset Railway at Minehead but no National Rail line.

2 have no rail presence at all:

• Gosport
• East Dorset

 

[Busaholic]

A very interesting piece of research, many thanks for conducting it.

The Isles of Scilly are still mourning the loss of the helicopter service from Penzance two years ago but I don't see any pent-up demand for a rail service, there's barely room for a bus service!

 

[The Ham]

A very interesting piece of research, many thanks for conducting it.

The Isles of Scilly are still mourning the loss of the helicopter service from Penzance two years ago but I don't see any pent-up demand for a rail service, there's barely room for a bus service!

Maybe they could kill two birds with one stone and (by channel tunnel style route) be the avoiding line for Dawlish too!

 

[Western Lord]

A very interesting piece of research, many thanks for conducting it.

The Isles of Scilly are still mourning the loss of the helicopter service from Penzance two years ago but I don't see any pent-up demand for a rail service, there's barely room for a bus service!

Surely the Penzance-Hugh Town link will be part of the super-duper all singing all dancing 300mph high speed line from London to Cornwall, or mine name's not D1074 Western Fantasy. Oh, hang on, it isn't.

 

[Railsigns]

There are 9 top level local authorities in the UK with no National Rail Station at present.

Plus those in Northern Ireland.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Plus those in Northern Ireland.

At least eight from what I can see: Fermanagh, Omagh, Strabane, Cookstown, Dungannon, Megherafelt, Armagh and Ards (though the Downpatrick Railway may be in the latter).

Edit - 9 with Moyle.

 

[Railsigns]

At least eight from what I can see: Fermanagh, Omagh, Strabane, Cookstown, Dungannon, Megherafelt, Armagh and Ards (though the Downpatrick Railway may be in the latter).

Edit - 9 with Moyle.

There are no National Rail stations anywhere in Northern Ireland.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

There are no National Rail stations anywhere in Northern Ireland.

Fair point, but for those of us less pedantically inclined I was just providing a list. It turns out it's ten that are railway station-less: eight as above minus Armagh, plus Castlereagh and Down.

 

[backontrack]

I was going to make a similar thread to find out which British counties and unitary authorities had the least National Rail stations.

The Borders and Midlothian have none, of course. Rutland has one...

 

[Busaholic]

I was going to make a similar thread to find out which British counties and unitary authorities had the least National Rail stations.

The Borders and Midlothian have none, of course. Rutland has one...[/Qp

Putting my pedant's hat on (it's never far away) you can add the Isles of Scilly to that list as well, as it is technically a County Council. Also discovered in my local paper today that it is the only publicly-owned water authority in Britain and has just scrapped the only hosepipe ban anywhere this year! Don't say you don't get a lot of useless info on here among the gems.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I was going to make a similar thread to find out which British counties and unitary authorities had the least National Rail stations.

The Borders and Midlothian have none, of course. Rutland has one...

while all three of these have the ECML running through them!

When I made the point about Borders having no railway station (in the Borders Rail thread), it was a serious issue about our maximisation of the asset base we have. All 3 of these districts used to have stations on the lines that still run through them, but now that these lines are so intensively operated for long-distance, high speed passenger services and long freight services, the viability of rural stations located on a mainline is always going to be immensely challenging.

We know from elsewhere that modest passenger numbers in rural locations can provide vital benefits to communities where the railway is predominantly used by local passenger operators. But when the occupacy of the infrastucture is predominatly allocated to high frequency, high speed, passenger services, then any rural stations along the line will be doomed (Reston in Borders, Gorebridge in Midlothian [though historically all of Edinburgh fell within Midlothian County], and Essendine in Rutland). It is hard to see that modest passenger numbers at a station on such intensively operated mainlines can be brought back into use. It's certainly not the mainline operator who would be calling at any of these stations.

 

[Altnabreac]

while all three of these have the ECML running through them!

When I made the point about Borders having no railway station (in the Borders Rail thread), it was a serious issue about our maximisation of the asset base we have. All 3 of these districts used to have stations on the lines that still run through them, but now that these lines are so intensively operated for long-distance, high speed passenger services and long freight services, the viability of rural stations located on a mainline is always going to be immensely challenging.

We know from elsewhere that modest passenger numbers in rural locations can provide vital benefits to communities where the railway is predominantly used by local passenger operators. But when the occupacy of the infrastucture is predominatly allocated to high frequency, high speed, passenger services, then any rural stations along the line will be doomed (Reston in Borders, Gorebridge in Midlothian [though historically all of Edinburgh fell within Midlothian County], and Essendine in Rutland). It is hard to see that modest passenger numbers at a station on such intensively operated mainlines can be brought back into use. It's certainly not the mainline operator who would be calling at any of these stations.

The current local authority of Midlothian doesn't quite stretch far enough north to contain any of the ECML. From Edinburgh to Berwick the ECML only runs through City of Edinburgh, East Lothian and Scottish Borders.

While historically Edinburgh was part of the county of Midlothian it was removed from it as a separate County of City by the Local Government Scotland Act 1889, so its been a while since Edinburgh was in Midlothian.

Intersting the 1890 county boundaries of Midlothian covered an area containing no less than 8 current National Rail stations:

• Breich, Addiewell, West Calder, Livingston South, Kirknewton (lost to West Lothian)
• Curriehill, (lost to City of Edinburgh)
• and Musselburgh, Wallyford (lost to East Lothian).

3 of those stations obviously did not exist on current sites in 1890 - Livingston South, Musselburgh and Wallyford.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Putting my pedant's hat on (it's never far away) you can add the Isles of Scilly to that list as well, as it is technically a County Council. Also discovered in my local paper today that it is the only publicly-owned water authority in Britain and has just scrapped the only hosepipe ban anywhere this year! Don't say you don't get a lot of useless info on here among the gems.

Scilly was mentioned in the first post as one of the unitaries with no stations. As regards water I think you mean it's the only publically owned water authority in England as Scottish Water is still publically owned as well.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Local Authorities with only 1 National Rail Station

So here are the eight top level local authorities of Britain that have only one National Rail Station, ordered by population:

329,600 Leicester
275,300 Sunderland
249,470 Wolverhampton
225,200 Oldham (Greenfield)
209,700 Swindon
184,500 Peterborough
50,600 Clackmannanshire (Alloa)
37,600 Rutland (Oakham)

Until the opening of James Cook University Hospital this list would also have included 138,400 Middlesborough. Note - ORR considers Gypsy Lane and Nunthorpe to be in Redcar & Cleveland although the railway line forms the boundary between the two authorities and at Gypsy Lane the only platform is located on the Middlesborough side of the line so this is a slightly strange designation.

There are a further 38 English districts with only 1 station with a particular concentration around Leicestershire and Northamptonshire:

Derbyshire

• Chesterfield
• Erewash (Long Eaton)
• North East Derbyshire (Dronfield)

Dorset

• Christchurch
• North Dorset (Gillingham)

Essex

• Castle Point (Benfleet)
• Epping Forest (Roydon)

Gloucestershire

• Cheltenham
• Forest Of Dean (Lydney)
• Gloucester
• Tewkesbury (Ashchurch)

Hertfordshire

• Stevenage

Lancashire

• Preston
• Wyre (Poulton-le-Fylde)

Leicestershire

• Blaby (Narborough)
• Harborough (Market Harborough)
• Hinckley And Bosworth (Hinckley)
• Oadby And Wigston (South Wigston)

Lincolnshire

• Lincoln
• South Holland (Spalding)

Norfolk

• Great Yarmouth
• Norwich

North Yorkshire

• Ryedale (Malton)

Northamptonshire

• Corby
• Daventry (Long Buckby)
• Kettering
• Northampton
• South Northamptonshire (King's Sutton)
• Wellingborough

Oxfordshire

• Oxford

Somerset

• Mendip (Frome)
• Taunton Deane (Taunton)

Staffordshire

• Newcastle-Under-Lyme (Kidsgrove)
• Staffordshire Moorlands (Blythe Bridge)

Suffolk

• Babergh (Sudbury)
• St. Edmundsbury (Bury St Edmunds)

Warwickshire

• Rugby

Worcestershire

• Redditch