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Stations which have declined/increased in importance

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LSWR Cavalier

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Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin is a good one, it used to be one of eight termini with long-distance trains, then it was a S-Bahn station with lots of local trains, now it is the top level of the magnificent Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
 
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Ken H

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Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin is a good one, it used to be one of eight termini with long-distance trains, then it was a S-Bahn station with lots of local trains, now it is the top level of the magnificent Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
Berlin ostbanhof. Built by the DDR but now lots of trains but few passengers.
 

D6130

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Any seaside resort terminus (or through station) that you care to mention, with the possible exception of Blackpool North and Bournemouth. The rot set in with the arrival of cheap package holidays in the Med from the early 'sixties onwards....and then accelerated rapidly over the past 30 years following the launch of cheap airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet. Southport, Great Yarmouth, Weymouth and Morecambe have already been mentioned....other such stations which come to mind which are now mere shadows of their former selves include Largs, North Berwick, Saltburn, Whitby, Scarborough, Bridlington, Cleethorpes, Skegness, Margate, Ramsgate, Hastings, Eastbourne, Worthing, Littlehampton, Bognor Regis, Exmouth, Newquay, Aberystwyth, Pwllheli, Llandudno and Rhyl.
 

Red Onion

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One near me that’s managed to decrease and increase in importance is Dyce which went from being an important junction station to closure to later reopening and being an important station for the nearby heliports.
 

70014IronDuke

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Bletchley is a strange one. In steam days a handful of long distance trains stopped there, but it included through trains to/from such diverse places as Blackpool, Windermere and Stranraer!

I think that shows just how tertiary it was considered. ISTR the up Irish Mail (or was it The Emerald Isle?) stopped there - was it around 11.30-ish? - usually behind a Royal Scot or a Britannia. It would be about 14 coaches long, and would have to draw up - so the stop must have added 12-13 minutes to the running time, rather than 7 minutes or so.

Even in 1967, IIRC, the first down inter-city train was the 09.00-ish ex-Euston, 09.47 off Bletchley, to, I think, Barrow and Blackpool. (There might have been one much earlier, but I couldn't catch that one.)

Curiously in most cases the service was in one direction only!
Again, that might well indicate the importance of the place in those days, ie they stopped trains when schedules-pathing allowed for a stop, rather than for genuine traffic purposes, ie there was no special Bletchley-Barrow or Blackpool traffic.
 

Senex

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Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin is a good one, it used to be one of eight termini with long-distance trains, then it was a S-Bahn station with lots of local trains, now it is the top level of the magnificent Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

Berlin ostbanhof. Built by the DDR but now lots of trains but few passengers.
The story of Berlin's stations is a vry complicated one of changing importance over a very long period of time. The Lehrter Bahnhof very early took on the passenger traffic of the Hamburger Bahnhof as well as that of its own line and was the most important station for traffic to the north-west of Germany right up till the end of WW2. Then, of course, partition pretty well took away its functions and the main-line passenger station was finally closed completely in the 50s. The S-Bahn station was always a completely separate station, located on the Stadtbahn at the point where that crossed above the throat of the Lehrter Bahnhof. There was no operational connection between the two.

The Ostbahnhof was not "built by the DDR" — it was only the station-buildings that were first restored and partially rebuilt and then completely rebuilt by the Reichsbahn of the DDR. The station itself goes right back to the early days when it was a terminal station, the Frankfurter Bahnhof. It was later re-named the Niederschlesisch-Märkischer Bahnhof, and then the Schlesischer Bahnhof, which name it kept till after WW2. In the 1880s it was elevated and connected to the new Stadtbahn, and so became part of an early attempt to concentrate traffic by bringing as much long-distance traffic as possible on to the through line. The Schlesischer Bahnhof was the principal eastern station, Charlottenburg the principal western one. Its layout reached something close to its final form before WW1, and that layout was restored after war-damage after WW2 and survived right up to the major renovations of the 1990s. The patform-layout and roof-design (and the subways) would still be recognisable to a Prussian citizen. (The Ostbahnhof re-naming, along with that of the Nordbahnhof, have to be seen in the context of the Oder-Neiße Line: Schlesischer Bahnhof and Stettiner Bahnhof didn't really quite work with the new boundaries.)

There was, of course, an earlier Ostbahnhof, located just a few yards north of the east end of the Schlesischer Bahnhof. This was the terminal of the Preußische Ostbahn, the main line from Berlin to Königsberg and the Russian frontier (and the startin-point of the longest series of km-posts on any German railway). Its traffic was very early diverted to the Schlesischer Bahnhof, first by a connection at Stralau-Rummelsburg and later over the Vnk-Strecke (which today serves as the connection from the Ostbahnhof to the Berliner Außenring in the northbound direction).
 

Acfb

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If we're talking German examples, I would suggest stations such as Mainz and Bonn have changed in importance and become more regional stations which have now been bypassed by the main 300km/h route from Frankfurt to Cologne.


Back to GB examples I can't think of that many stations which have increased in importance per se. Maybe Leuchars as its the first stop after Haymarket on the express trains to Aberdeen.

Stations between Dundee and Carnoustie have also gained a better service more recently.
 

Ianno87

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Any seaside resort terminus (or through station) that you care to mention, with the possible exception of Blackpool North and Bournemouth. The rot set in with the arrival of cheap package holidays in the Med from the early 'sixties onwards....and then accelerated rapidly over the past 30 years following the launch of cheap airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet. Southport, Great Yarmouth, Weymouth and Morecambe have already been mentioned....other such stations which come to mind which are now mere shadows of their former selves include Largs, North Berwick, Saltburn, Whitby, Scarborough, Bridlington, Cleethorpes, Skegness, Margate, Ramsgate, Hastings, Eastbourne, Worthing, Littlehampton, Bognor Regis, Exmouth, Newquay, Aberystwyth, Pwllheli, Llandudno and Rhyl.

Brighton is probably one of the few exceptions to the “Seaside” rule. And no, losing a couple of XC services per day doesn’t make a different.

Sorry, just set off the forum’s XC to Brighton Klaxon.


If we're talking German examples, I would suggest stations such as Mainz and Bonn have changed in importance and become more regional stations which have now been bypassed by the main 300km/h route from Frankfurt to Cologne.

France’s example would be Paris Austerlitz. Largely relegated to a handful of intercity and regional services by various TGV routes into Montparnasse and Gare de Lyon.
 

Taunton

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Bletchley is a strange one. In steam days a handful of long distance trains stopped there, but it included through trains to/from such diverse places as Blackpool, Windermere and Stranraer!

Curiously in most cases the service was in one direction only!
Bletchley was long regarded as a key point for connections northwards from Cambridge, and presumably Oxford as well, and was as important for mails as passengers, if not more so, hence some once-a-day services. Once the Oxford to Cambridge line was broken it lost this relevance.
 

Halish Railway

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Shipley has rocketed in importance after the following:
- The construction of platforms 1 & 2
- The re-routing of London services from Bradford Interchange to Forster Square allowing a stop at Shipley
- Electrification of the Airedale & Wharfedale lines & the subsequent increase in frequency
- The introduction of a Forster Square to Leeds service
- The construction of Apperley Bridge & Kirkstall Forge which are skipped by most / all of the services going to Skipton & Ilkley, meaning that passengers coming from these stations need to change at Shipley to get to these new stations.
 

coppercapped

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I think I am confused as to the meaning of 'importance' in this context...

Does it refer to:
  • fares income?
  • daily/weekly/annual number of passengers arriving, departing or changing?
  • daily/weekly/annual number of trains?
  • number of destinations served?
  • something else?
Over what period are these parameters to be judged? Years, decades, centuries?
 

D6130

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Brighton is probably one of the few exceptions to the “Seaside” rule. And no, losing a couple of XC services per day doesn’t make a different.
Absolutely....having worked there for nearly four years back in the day, I should have listed it with my other exceptions. Anno Domini! :(
 

Bletchleyite

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Morecambe. More the decline of the town. But the services from Leeds are an afterthought now after the Lancaster stop. And the truncation away from the prom has made it more irrelevant.

But has moved it closer to the town centre, which is actually more useful.

Even though it enables them to directly serve the Universities? I'd have thought that's exactly where they should be stopping.

It would be foolish not to stop them there if they run that way. It is very similar to the way ICEs serve Dammtor as well as Hbf in Hamburg.
 

A0wen

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On a similar theme to Huntington, Hitchin once had “Intercity” services call, but this stopped around the time the resited Stevenage station opened. Hitchin is still a very busy commuter station though, or at least it was until 2020!

As did Welwyn Garden City and the "old" Stevenage station. All long distance services were consolidated on the "new" Stevenage station when it opened in 1973(?).

As I said, Anglo - Scottish expresses no longer stop at Crewe. Something that spends half a day trundling around the West Midlands isn't an express.

But surely that's only relevant to Crewe if you're planning to use the station? So Crewe still has fast London services and fast Glasgow / Edinburgh services - it hasn't "lost out" in terms of service or importance.
 

Arglwydd Golau

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As did Welwyn Garden City and the "old" Stevenage station. All long distance services were consolidated on the "new" Stevenage station when it opened in 1973(?).

Oh, I don't recall Welwyn Garden City or Stevenage 'old' having 'intercity' services! What time period was that? I do remember Huntingdon and Hitchin, I think the last time I caught one from Huntingdon was an overnight train (to Newcastle/) in 1980.
 

Purple Orange

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Even though it enables them to directly serve the Universities? I'd have thought that's exactly where they should be stopping.

University students do not need a service to Oxford Road. The benefit of a link to Oxford Road is mostly to the people who work down Oxford Road and the wider area, which will be mostly people who live within the region. Therefore Oxford Road should be focussed upon services from places like Liverpool, Blackpool, Leeds & Huddersfield stoppers via Victoria, Stoke, Crewe, the airport, Buxton. Not Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Middlesbrough.

Oxford Road, Deansgate, Salford Central and Salford Crescent should all be on the same level. I.e. no long distance services, but local and regional services should stop at all four.
 

A0wen

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Oh, I don't recall Welwyn Garden City or Stevenage 'old' having 'intercity' services! What time period was that? I do remember Huntingdon and Hitchin, I think the last time I caught one from Huntingdon was an overnight train (to Newcastle/) in 1980.

I believe in the 50s and 60s - pre "new" Stevenage.

Huntingdon kept stops on services like York ones into the late 80s. It was only when the line was electrified and the suburban services were extended to Peterboro did Huntingdon lose its longer distance service stops and all Inter City stops were focused on Stevenage and Peterboro.
 

Ianno87

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University students do not need a service to Oxford Road. The benefit of a link to Oxford Road is mostly to the people who work down Oxford Road and the wider area, which will be mostly people who live within the region. Therefore Oxford Road should be focussed upon services from places like Liverpool, Blackpool, Leeds & Huddersfield stoppers via Victoria, Stoke, Crewe, the airport, Buxton. Not Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Middlesbrough.

Travel to Universities is about more than just the students.....
 

davetheguard

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No! Exmouth had 946,880 entries and exits in the last pre-covid set of figures; nearly a million passengers. And surely it's best ever timetable with trains to Exeter every half-hour seven days a week. I don't see that overall as a decline, despite the loss of the odd Summer Saturday Waterloo trains that operated in steam days.

The story of Berlin's stations is a vry complicated one of changing importance over a very long period of time. The Lehrter Bahnhof very early took on the passenger traffic of the Hamburger Bahnhof as well as that of its own line and was the most important station for traffic to the north-west of Germany right up till the end of WW2. Then, of course, partition pretty well took away its functions and the main-line passenger station was finally closed completely in the 50s. The S-Bahn station was always a completely separate station, located on the Stadtbahn at the point where that crossed above the throat of the Lehrter Bahnhof. There was no operational connection between the two.

The Ostbahnhof was not "built by the DDR" — it was only the station-buildings that were first restored and partially rebuilt and then completely rebuilt by the Reichsbahn of the DDR. The station itself goes right back to the early days when it was a terminal station, the Frankfurter Bahnhof. It was later re-named the Niederschlesisch-Märkischer Bahnhof, and then the Schlesischer Bahnhof, which name it kept till after WW2. In the 1880s it was elevated and connected to the new Stadtbahn, and so became part of an early attempt to concentrate traffic by bringing as much long-distance traffic as possible on to the through line. The Schlesischer Bahnhof was the principal eastern station, Charlottenburg the principal western one. Its layout reached something close to its final form before WW1, and that layout was restored after war-damage after WW2 and survived right up to the major renovations of the 1990s. The patform-layout and roof-design (and the subways) would still be recognisable to a Prussian citizen. (The Ostbahnhof re-naming, along with that of the Nordbahnhof, have to be seen in the context of the Oder-Neiße Line: Schlesischer Bahnhof and Stettiner Bahnhof didn't really quite work with the new boundaries.)

There was, of course, an earlier Ostbahnhof, located just a few yards north of the east end of the Schlesischer Bahnhof. This was the terminal of the Preußische Ostbahn, the main line from Berlin to Königsberg and the Russian frontier (and the startin-point of the longest series of km-posts on any German railway). Its traffic was very early diverted to the Schlesischer Bahnhof, first by a connection at Stralau-Rummelsburg and later over the Vnk-Strecke (which today serves as the connection from the Ostbahnhof to the Berliner Außenring in the northbound direction).

I remember a toe-in-the water visit to Berlin Ostbahnhof on a through train from Hamburg to, I think, Prague (complete with Czech restaurant car) just after the Berlin wall came down. It was very austere, with no obvious catering outlets or capitalist-style advertising; just bare concrete. I think it was named Berlin Hauptbahnhof -rather than Ostbahnhof- at the time by the DDR authoraties.

As an aside, senex, you appear to know a lot about Berlin's stations. Are there any illustrated English language books that you are aware of that tell the story of their history?
 
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Killingworth

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Travel to Universities is about more than just the students.....

Quite a number of staff used to commute on season tickets from Sheffield every day pre-Covid, and no doubt from other directions as well. Probably far better paying for the railway than students.
 

geoffk

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Whilst still in the Bristol area, Stapleton Road was once served by cross-country services that avoided reversal at Temple Meads. And even further back, before the Badminton line was built, South Wales expresses called there.
Reading West in the same category. I've never been there so don't know what facilities it had, but Stapleton Road had (late 50s/early 60s) a station announcer and refreshment room. Templecombe is another which has declined in importance.
 

RH Liner

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Maybe outside the 30-year limit, but Retford is certainly not the station it once was. Once an important junction, it lost that status to a large extent when the underpass replaced the old flat crossing, giving a route march from the booking hall on platform 1 to the now distant 3&4 for the low level ex-GCR lines. Passengers heading for Sheffield, for instance, or Grimsby/Cleethorpes are now routed a longer way round via Doncaster, so comparatively few ECML services now call at what has become just a small town stop.
 

Old Yard Dog

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Some more losers (fewer connections or stops) ...

Carstairs
Helsby
Normanton
Hunts Cross
St Helens Junction
Stanlow & Thornton
Teesside Airport
Salford Crescent
 

61653 HTAFC

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Oh, I don't recall Welwyn Garden City or Stevenage 'old' having 'intercity' services! What time period was that? I do remember Huntingdon and Hitchin, I think the last time I caught one from Huntingdon was an overnight train (to Newcastle/) in 1980.
This may be a false memory generated by the mists of time, but I think I can vaguely recall hearing "Welwyn Garden City" on announcements at Wakefield Westgate in the late 1980s, prior to electrification.
 

urbophile

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Liverpool Central: before the 1960s was the terminus for intercity trains for Manchester and beyond. Then it struggled on as a semi-ghost station with one local DMU an hour. The station that was is now but a memory, but its underground replacement is the tenth busiest in the country (outside London) with 16.5 million passengers a year. Those figures include of course the Wirral line which was always there (apart from temporary closure during reconstruction), but I would be very surprised if the usage figures for both parts of the station before the late 70s came anywhere near that.
 

Dr_Paul

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Vauxhall has seen a considerable increase in use. Although the opening of the Victoria Line in the 1960s gave what was a poorly used station a new lease of life, I noticed from the early 1970s, when I started to commute to central London and alighted and boarded there, an increase decade by decade, with more services stopping there -- Shepperton and semi-fasts to Woking stop at platforms 7/8; Windsor services also stop on platforms 2 and 3 (mostly); they didn't back in the 1970s and maybe the 1980s -- and a second staircase to platforms 7/8 has had to be built as these platforms get dangerously crowded at rush-hour. I don't know why this is: I don't know enough about population or employment changes in the local area to make any suggestions.

Earlsfield has also gained for services during this time, Shepperton and semi-fasts to Woking now stop. However, recently some off-peak Shepperton services have stopped stopping there, I don't know why.

The rejuvenation of the South London Line and its extension through to Dalston must have revived Clapham High Street and Wandsworth Road, which I remember as semi-derelict and barely used.

I imagine that Thameslink has revived the fortunes of various stations, such as Kentish Town, Elephant and Castle and Loughborough Junction, perhaps someone can advise.
 

Ianno87

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. However, recently some off-peak Shepperton services have stopped stopping there, I don't know why.

I understand to build a bit more recovery time into them, as they are on minimum turnround times all day.
 

JRT

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IN WEST YORKSHIRE

Bramley was designed as a small suburban station with narrow platforms, but nowadays (pre-covid) struggles to cope with peak hour commuters. Similarly nearby New Pudsey (the first ‘Parkway’ station) usually has a full car park. Both less busy after 10 am.

Halifax–Hebden Bridge as mentioned earlier going back early 1980s had a limited hourly service (two-hourly on an evening), gradually increased to 3 tph.

North Bradford Electrics

The Bradford–Ilkley line has been such a success that it has seen off ALL of the parallel bus services.

Many of the smaller stations have also seen greater usage.
 

William3000

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Surely the obvious one is Bletchley which used to be an Intercity station until Milton Keynes Central opened in 1982. Now it is a fraction of its former self but could once again regain its importance with the onset of EWR.
With EWR, there must be more of an argument for that to serve as the InterCity stop rather than Milton Keynes Central, to allow for connections etc.? And given that Milton Keynes/Bletchley is very spread out, so no obvious benefits for MK Central being the main long distance stop.

On a similar theme to Huntington, Hitchin once had “Intercity” services call, but this stopped around the time the resited Stevenage station opened. Hitchin is still a very busy commuter station though, or at least it was until 2020!
I guess Hitchin was also a useful interchange for passengers heading north from places like Letchworth, Baldock, Royston instead of having to double back on themselves. But as Stevenage grew a much larger town than Hitchin there wasn’t room for two such closely located ‘inter city’ stations.

Agree with the points about Normanton. It always surprises people when they find out there were two routes south as well as north and that it acted as an interchange/junction. Plus all of that unused railway land to the west of the current effort.

Penistone as well was a junction with four routes outwards, towards Barnsley, Huddersfield (as now), Woodhead and Sheffield (both closed). Mirfield I think was similarly a junction between several routes, dropped back to one or two stoppers then has picked up enough to be rebuilt as part of TRU. Castleford services and facilities were cut back, then increased in the late 1980s when Altofts closed and will soon get its second platform back.

Leeds was two stations in 1967, with City 9old plus new) cut from 17 to 12 even though Central closed - now back up to 17 from 2002, 18 from this year. Could we count Manchester Airport? It seems to be partly used as a place to get trains away from central Manchester as much as a destination, hence all of the new platforms. At the other end, both Bradford stations are less than half of what they were.
Interestingly over the past 30 or so years we have season the rise of the ‘airport’ station: Manchester, Stansted, Luton, Heathrow etc (Gatwick and Birmingham were always on mainlines) and the decline or in some cases closure of ‘port’ stations like Harwich International, Dover Western Docks, Folkestone Harbour. I guess reflecting the rise in flying and decline in ferries.

A very limited service, although my memory from the 1950s says only 5 platforms were bring used for passenger services even then. 2 each for the coast bound services via Heaton and Benton and one for the 'Blyth Flyer'.

Most of the old services are now better served by the more frequent Metro at Monumenr.
Manors must be an obvious contender for an additional improved service on the Ashingtob line.

Any seaside resort terminus (or through station) that you care to mention, with the possible exception of Blackpool North and Bournemouth. The rot set in with the arrival of cheap package holidays in the Med from the early 'sixties onwards....and then accelerated rapidly over the past 30 years following the launch of cheap airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet. Southport, Great Yarmouth, Weymouth and Morecambe have already been mentioned....other such stations which come to mind which are now mere shadows of their former selves include Largs, North Berwick, Saltburn, Whitby, Scarborough, Bridlington, Cleethorpes, Skegness, Margate, Ramsgate, Hastings, Eastbourne, Worthing, Littlehampton, Bognor Regis, Exmouth, Newquay, Aberystwyth, Pwllheli, Llandudno and Rhyl.
That’s true - I think there are a few exceptions though especially in the south east: Bournemouth, Brighton, Worthing, Eastbourne, Hastings, Whistable but in other regions yes I agree.
 
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