How can you tell if no one provides a decent rail service ?
Modelling helps, and there is a great deal of evidnece out there to support it.
Just one random example, that is a useful comparison.
Cantley in Norfolk has a population of about 750, and a rather large factory (sugar) which attracts inward commuting to boost numbers. The station has an hourly service, with a few two hour gaps in the middle of the day but extra services at peak time. Less than 20 minutes from Norwich (the nearest regional centre), and about half an hour from Lowestoft, 20 mins from Gt Yarmouth (peak services).
Reston has a population of about 450. No industry or commerce for inward commuting. 40 minutes from the regional centre (Edinburgh) and over an hour to Newcastle. It won’t attract much park and ride from the hinterland as a) there isn’t much in the hinterland and b) Berwick is better suited to that for trips to the south.
I think you’ll agree that Cantley has a decent service for a settlement of its size. It averages 1 passenger per train.
It‘s reasonable to assume that were a similar level of service be provided at Reston as at Cantley, it would average fewer than 1 passenger per train (once we get all the station scratchers out of the system).
That’s how we tell, even at a very basic level.
Meanwhile, providing services to stop at this station takes up capacity that could be far better used by other services running more quickly between London (or the Midlands / SW, or the North West and Yorkshire) to Edinburgh, which has been proven to increase passenger numbers significantly, taking many of them from air and the roads, to the benefit of many, many more people, and taxpayers too.
Or put another way, providing a new station that benefits maybe 40 people a day on shortish journeys means that several hundred, probably well over a thousand, other people per day on long journeys are not attracted to rail. How can that be right?