At how much tph is a station considered "busy" for traffic.

[Peter0124]

My local station which is Newton in Greater Glasgow, south Lanarkshire, sees up to 24-26tph passing the station in the off-peak, and up to 30tph in the peaks, the majority of these trains pass right at the back of the station on the west coast main line, and also during diverts you can see occasional freight workings here, this makes Newton a very good location for train spotting seeing a variety of units from 6 different TOCS.

Another one in the inner city of Glasgow is Partick and Hyndland, these two stations see 28tph off-peak and are only double tracked.

Apart from the obvious terminus stations like Glasgow central or London Waterloo, what other stations/junctions are considered busy for rail traffic?

 

[Clansman]

Clapham Junction is an obvious one.

A little closer to home, Haymarket springs to mind.

 

[fowler9]

Surely it is all down to personal interpretation. If you live by Dovey Junction you would probably think Liverpool South Parkway is mad busy. If you live by Clapham Junction you would probably think Liverpool South Parkway is a rural backwater. Parkway is actually operating close to capacity when it comes to movements on the routes it serves.

 

[swt_passenger]

Realtimetrains suggests Newton itself only sees up to 16 tph in the morning peak. Presumably the passing lines are treated separately at that location.

But that 16 tph shown includes both directions of travel so you'd normally only describe that as 8 tph. That isn't busy by most ways of reckoning.

Likewise Hyndland 28 tph is both directions.

If you look at "track pairs" in many London commuter areas, much higher 'both direction' figures will be fairly common.

 

[Sunset route]

In my little part of the world

Norwood Junction 17 trains per hour per direction (34)
Selhurst 23 trains per hour per direction (46)
East Croydon 28 trains per hour per direction (54)
West Croydon 12* trains per hour per direction (24)

*not including the 8 shunt movements to and from the turnback siding

So 80 trains per hour in the Selhurst triangle off peak and not including west Croydon shunts, ECS, freights and seasonal workings

 

[Peter0124]

Realtimetrains suggests Newton itself only sees up to 16 tph in the morning peak. Presumably the passing lines are treated separately at that location.

But that 16 tph shown includes both directions of travel so you'd normally only describe that as 8 tph. That isn't busy by most ways of reckoning.

Likewise Hyndland 28 tph is both directions.

If you look at "track pairs" in many London commuter areas, much higher 'both direction' figures will be fairly common.

I would use Newton West Junction or Cambuslang for the WCML services then add up the cathcart trains that go to Newton to get the total tph, and yeah it's not counted cause it is not part of the station but instead runs along the back of it at a very close proximity.

 

[Mugby]

I distinctly remember a claim, about four or five years ago that the Midland main line south of Leicester was 'full' - too busy to take any extra services.

I'm sure one of the rail magazines carried an article about it. I thought it sounded ridiculous at the time.

 

[Skie]

Liverpool Central handles a lot of trains. I think it's bandied about as being the most intensively used underground station outside of London.

 

[fowler9]

Liverpool Central handles a lot of trains. I think it's bandied about as being the most intensively used underground station outside of London.

Given the confined space it is used pretty intensively with the number of services both passing through and terminating.