Which little-used stations might be candidates for closure in the new age of cost-cutting?

[geoffk]

There's a new thread about Tees-side Airport but there are other stations with fewer than, say, 1,000 entries and exits per year. Polesworth and Pilning are effectively closed as they have a train in one direction only, likewise Reddish South and Denton. The need for capital investment such as a new footbridge might be the deciding factor.

 

[zwk500]

Berney Arms

 

[Starmill]

Shippea Hill and Berney Arms don't really serve any housing or local attractions. Dolgarrog if the river footpath to the town closes. Barlaston and Wedgwood have no train service and neither is in the best location for a modern station between Stoke-on-Trent and Stone so I'd suggest both should close. Barrhill has only stayed open because of the signal box. Clifton is in a very poor state structurally although it clearly has a case for a decent service. Golf Street is completely pointless given the proximity of Carnoustie and in a very poor condition.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Lakenheath and Havenhouse don't seem to serve much purpose.

Must be a few in Scotland (as well as Barrhill mentioned just now by @Starmill).

 

[bramling]

Berney Arms

Berney Arms does serve *some* purpose in terms of being used by walkers and ramblers. I’ve used it - okay admittedly mainly to photograph the station, but we were by no means the only people to alight, and that was on a weekday. The cost of maintaining it can’t be that great, though if it was ever decided to dispense with the line then that would of course be another matter.

 

[Kite159]

Shippea Hill and Berney Arms don't really serve any housing or local attractions. Dolgarrog if the river footpath to the town closes. Barlaston and Wedgwood have no train service and neither is in the best location for a modern station between Stoke-on-Trent and Stone so I'd suggest both should close. Barrhill has only stayed open because of the signal box. Clifton is in a very poor state structurally although it clearly has a case for a decent service.

I suspect the boat has gone to closing Dolgarrog, especially after it got rebuilt in the last couple years after the original platform got damaged in a flood.

The footbridge over the river is meant to be getting repaired so it won't be as pointless as it currently is.

----

Any 'closures' will be down to any platform structure issues (like Teesside Airport) or access issues if the bridge needs work doing to it (Stanlow). Ardwick could probably be a candidate if that footbridge gets deemed unsafe.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

To be honest I was surprised Ravensthorpe is set to survive the upgrade. There's not much immediately surrounding the station besides light industry. The upgrade does however separate the fast and slow services as well as allowing the currently non-existent Wakefield service to call, so perhaps this fancy rebuilt station could encourage development in the area.

There was at one point a suggestion to close both Ravensthorpe and Mirfield, replacing them with a new Mirfield station somewhere between the two (so not serving either place particularly well). Thankfully this crackpot idea seems to have died.

 

[noddingdonkey]

Heysham Port might be at risk, being awkward operationally?

Perhaps less as a result of cost cutting, but I gather Cottingley is at risk of closure due to being made redundant by the new White Rose station.

 

[richard1976]

Brigg
Kirton Lindsey

 

[railwaytrack]

Newhaven Harbour really needs to be permanently closed. It is a pointless station. There is nothing there. The ferry terminal is located right next to Newhaven Town station so it is not even used by ferry passengers. Nor is it near any houses or shops or any main parts of the town. It is just a derelict run down industrial area. It is only five minutes walk from Newhaven Town station so it is not like closing it would inconvenience any of the very tiny amount of passengers who use it. Honestly i think that Newhaven Harbour is really a pointless station and they ought to just permanently close it.

 

[Western Sunset]

Does Spondon have much purpose, following the closure of the adjacent Courtaulds plant?

 

[RPI]

Heysham Port might be at risk, being awkward operationally?

Perhaps less as a result of cost cutting, but I gather Cottingley is at risk of closure due to being made redundant by the new White Rose station.

Heysham can be busy though for the one train a day, I caught it once to go to the Isle of Man and there were 50 or so other passengers that alighted also catching the ferry

 

[richard1976]

Sugar Loaf, pre covid it only saw 156 passengers in a year

 

[Kite159]

Ince & Elton.

Northern to run a replacement bus from Helsby to Ellesmere Port in place of the train, the same minibus which can serve the entrance to Stanlow.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Newhaven Harbour really needs to be permanently closed.

I was going to mention this one

Nor is it near any houses or shops or any main parts of the town. It is just a derelict run down industrial area. It is only five minutes walk from Newhaven Town station so it is not like closing it would inconvenience any of the very tiny amount of passengers who use it. Honestly i think that Newhaven Harbour is really a pointless station and they ought to just permanently close it.

There is a large housing development/starter/shared ownership homes going up along Railway Road between Town and Harbour stations and maybe, the latter station "may" start to get busier. I can't imagine any money being spent to spruce it up though

 

[pdeaves]

I suppose a very basic measure would be to sort the ORR usage figures and start with the smallest numbers. Naturally there would be cases to be made why any given proposal ought to be exempt!

 

[Bletchleyite]

A lot of these suggestions are stations that don't really cost an awful lot to keep, which is why they have been kept. Dolgarrog for instance is already there (just rebuilt, albeit as something about as quaint as a 1960s tower block) and so serving it as a request stop is of little penalty. Roman Bridge is basically pointless (essentially serving one house) but hardly costs anything to keep. Sugar Loaf is similar, as is Berney Arms - as long as the route is needed it's no sweat to serve it and it requires minimal maintenance.

It's probably worth looking at what has been closed in the past - smaller stations like Roade*, Barton and Broughton** etc on the WCML were lopped because serving them was inconvenient as those sections of route have no stopper. So it's this sort of station that might go, give or take those where there's another reason to close e.g. a footbridge being in an unsafe condition (see Polesworth). So we would want to look for stations where there could be a whole service withdrawn, a whole line closed or improved in efficiency if they were closed, or where the running time is such that you can't do clockface but could if one or two stations were lopped out (the Swiss often close stations in this sort of situation).

There are certainly some of these on the Marston Vale, with EWR's proposal to reduce to five. Others might include the likes of New Lane, Bescar Lane and Hoscar which are a barrier to providing a regular-interval half-hourly service from Southport to Manchester and are barely used at all. Cheddington is a bit of a faff (and requires a new platform) but is probably too well-used, and I'd expect to see development there at some point. If we consider that Manchester Airport is always going to have long distance services, Mauldeth Road, Burnage and East Didsbury are a faff - the former two served reasonably by bus, the latter has a tram stop and frequent (if slow) buses, though I doubt they would go as Burnham would make too much of a fuss about it. Glazebrook serves basically no purpose but again development might occur around there at some point. Capenhurst gets in the way on Merseyrail but again there are developments planned. There are probably surprisingly few - arguably Beeching did a good job!

One that could happen is the Conwy Valley south of Betws if there was a major collapse in the unlined tunnel. That would allow a two hourly service with one unit so would have upsides. Perhaps it's a good example of operational convenience from a closure.

* It's sort of a junction, so "Roade Junction" would be an entertaining name
** Reston is almost the same as these two...

 

[zwk500]

There is a large housing development/starter/shared ownership homes going up along Railway Road between Town and Harbour stations and maybe, the latter station "may" start to get busier. I can't imagine any money being spent to spruce it up though

Harbour will stay because there's no advantage to getting rid of it. Saving 1 or 2 minutes from the Seaford train is probably benefitting as many people as you inconvenience by closing harbour (which is convenient for the old dockers' terraces). The cost of closure is probably several times higher than the annual maintenance budget.

It's probably worth looking at what has been closed in the past - smaller stations like Roade*, Barton and Broughton** etc on the WCML were lopped because serving them was inconvenient as those sections of route have no stopper. So it's this sort of station that might go, give or take those where there's another reason to close e.g. a footbridge being in an unsafe condition (see Polesworth). So we would want to look for stations where there could be a whole service withdrawn, a whole line closed or improved in efficiency if they were closed.

Being sensible, stations that are served by only 1 train a week (in theory and practice) would be the first ones I'd look at, then (as you suggest) those where it's not been deemed worth it to repair a footbridge or similar. Either serve them properly or go through the proper purpose and end this purgatory.

 

[station_road]

Peartree - in theory close to housing, retail and Rolls Royce but in practice little used and requires remote access control to help reduce trespass so closure would allow those access gates to be permanently closed

 

[Bald Rick]

Harbour will stay because there's no advantage to getting rid of it. Saving 1 or 2 minutes from the Seaford train is probably benefitting as many people as you inconvenience by closing harbour (which is convenient for the old dockers' terraces). The cost of closure is probably several times higher than the annual maintenance budget.

it wouldn’t surprise me if the cost of closing stations became somewhat cheaper in the post GBR world.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Being sensible, stations that are served by only 1 train a week (in theory and practice) would be the first ones I'd look at, then (as you suggest) those where it's not been deemed worth it to repair a footbridge or similar. Either serve them properly or go through the proper purpose and end this purgatory.

In a sensible world it would be possible to mothball a station without serving it once a week. It would make sense to mothball Denton and Reddish South but not smash up the platforms, for instance, as they could be useful again in future. It seems this has happened with IBM as one example - "put on hold" until it's useful again.

Closure doesn't have to mean ripping it up never to return, and there are cases where that does make sense. Ardwick is definitely one - it's knackered and a bit useless now, but I would be astonished if it wasn't the centre of some tower-block-style urban sprawl within probably 10, certainly 20 years.

 

[zwk500]

it wouldn’t surprise me if the cost of closing stations became somewhat cheaper in the post GBR world.

Quite possibly, but it also wouldn't surprise me if more than a few MPs were very keen to keep it as hard as possible to close more out-of-the-way stations. I am trying very hard not to draw any firm conclusions about how GBR will look until after it has passed through the parliamentary process. A lot can change when MPs start prodding at things, despite the hard work already put in by the GBR transition team!

In a sensible world it would be possible to mothball a station without serving it once a week. It would make sense to mothball Denton and Reddish South but not smash up the platforms, for instance, as they could be useful again in future. It seems this has happened with IBM as one example - "put on hold" until it's useful again.

With these ones yes, to a point. They're never going to be useful until the junction north of Stockport Viaduct is sorted out and I'd be somewhat surprised if the necessary solution for a local service to operate (grade separation or massive fast line service reduction) ever happens.

 

[geoffk]

Have there been any proposals to make the closure procedure less onerous? I imagine this would be resisted by user groups as the thin end of the wedge.

Chapelton and Portsmouth Arms on the Barnstaple line might be candidates - odd that no stations were closed on this line when the rationalisation of the 60s and 70s took place. On the Barton-on-Humber branch, Thornton Abbey and Barrow Haven seem to be in the middle of nowhere but closing them just means the train sitting at Barton for an extra 8 minutes.

 

[richard1976]

Coombe Junction Halt

 

[Mikey C]

In a sensible world it would be possible to mothball a station without serving it once a week. It would make sense to mothball Denton and Reddish South but not smash up the platforms, for instance, as they could be useful again in future. It seems this has happened with IBM as one example - "put on hold" until it's useful again.

Closure doesn't have to mean ripping it up never to return, and there are cases where that does make sense. Ardwick is definitely one - it's knackered and a bit useless now, but I would be astonished if it wasn't the centre of some tower-block-style urban sprawl within probably 10, certainly 20 years.

Indeed and closing such stations (without it being a terminal action) benefits those other passengers on the line who never use the station, and now will have a faster journey

 

[BeijingDave]

Berney Arms does serve *some* purpose in terms of being used by walkers and ramblers. I’ve used it - okay admittedly mainly to photograph the station, but we were by no means the only people to alight, and that was on a weekday. The cost of maintaining it can’t be that great, though if it was ever decided to dispense with the line then that would of course be another matter.

I would be genuinely interested in knowing the cost of keeping a station like this open.

When it's just a small halt, it can't be that much. How frequent must maintenance of the platform be?

 

[AlterEgo]

I would be genuinely interested in knowing the cost of keeping a station like this open.

When it's just a small halt, it can't be that much. How frequent must maintenance of the platform be?

The station is on its own branch line! You could close the entire stretch of track.

 

[bramling]

The station is on its own branch line! You could close the entire stretch of track.

The line isn’t there to serve Berney Arms though. It’s retained to provide a relief route / track capacity to Yarmouth. Whether that level of track provision is necessary these days is open to a separate discussion!

 

[zwk500]

Coombe Junction Halt

But doesn't the train have to stop here anyway for the guard to operate the ground frame and token? Give that you'd have to provide a platform for the guard anyway, I'd have thought its very marginal cost to keep it as a public station.

 

[Trainfan2019]

What about the Manchester United station? Is it officially open still?