How does the lack of direct train services between large towns in Northern England compare with the South?

[ar10642]

One of the major problems in the area north of London is the lack of east/west connectivity. East West rail will solve that as long as interchange facilities are good.


Not much use for people in Cambridge or St Neots wanting to get to Bedford, MK, or Northampton


Most of the routes you have cited are in East Anglia or the East Midlands though. I agree the South East got away more unscathed.


Kent is one of the best - if not the best county in the UK in terms of rail connectivity. It retained more of its lines than any other county in the UK.

Pretty bad if you want to get into Sussex though. You have the Marshlink and Redhill-Tonbridge otherwise you're going into London and out again for ££££.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

The difference being Huddersfield to Wakefield, Huddersfield to Halifax, Huddersfield to Castleford, Castleford to Brighouse (etc) are all entirely doable very easily by direct trains if the willpower to run the services exists.

Croydon to Bromley isn’t doable. Comparable might be something like Swanley to London Bridge, or Orpington to Sidcup, or even Brixton to Streatham or Tulse Hill to Balham. All doable, just no services.

Swanley to London Bridge will be doable from Dec22.

 

[yorksrob]

Pretty bad if you want to get into Sussex though. You have the Marshlink and Redhill-Tonbridge otherwise you're going into London and out again for ££££.

They're both pretty good services when they're running. Tonbridge - Brighton is definitely a missing link though.

 

[Efini92]

Huddersfield to wakefield no direct service.
Huddersfield to Halifax then bradford 2 hourly.
How does that compare with services between similar sized towns down south?

When did Huddersfield to Wakefield lose the direct service?

 

[zwk500]

They're both pretty good services when they're running. Tonbridge - Brighton is definitely a missing link though.

I wouldn't say Tonbridge-Brighton is a missing link, it's not a massive flow. Gatwick would be worth extending to, although it'd mean major interventions at Redhill and Gatwick to find capacity.

 

[ar10642]

I wouldn't say Tonbridge-Brighton is a missing link, it's not a massive flow. Gatwick would be worth extending to, although it'd mean major interventions at Redhill and Gatwick to find capacity.

I've done Haywards Heath to Tonbridge a couple of times and it's really fiddly to use with changes at Three Bridges and Redhill, and an hour long wait if any of the connections are delayed. Again one of those journeys you'd only do if you really wanted to for some reason (bike ride in my case) or you had no choice.

 

[zwk500]

I've done Haywards Heath to Tonbridge a couple of times and it's really fiddly to use with changes at Three Bridges and Redhill, and an hour long wait if any of the connections are delayed. Again one of those journeys you'd only do if you really wanted to for some reason (bike ride in my case) or you had no choice.

As I say, it's not a massive flow. You can't run a train for every possible potential journey, it's just not feasible. Hence my suggestion of running Kent-Gatwick services: from Brighton, Haywards Heath or indeed either Coastway line, it would be 1 change to Tonbridge. For the few who are making that journey, it becomes much easier and much more reliable. You've got 2tph from either coastway plus the TL from Brighton to provide masses of connections, making the journey planning around 1tph Gatwick-Tonbridge much more straightforward and minimising the risk of a 20+ minute connection.

However, as I've said: neither Redhill nor Gatwick have the space to platform such as service without pretty much starting all over again. The business case for that doesn't add up.

 

[43066]

I've done Haywards Heath to Tonbridge a couple of times and it's really fiddly to use with changes at Three Bridges and Redhill, and an hour long wait if any of the connections are delayed. Again one of those journeys you'd only do if you really wanted to for some reason (bike ride in my case) or you had no choice.

Unfortunately there are lots of journeys like that in the Southeast. It’s geared up for journeys to/from London, not for cross country journeys between the towns.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

What trains are there in the morning from Hartlepool to York?

Tomorrow and certainly all next week, there should be direct trains from Hartlepool to York at 0712, 0915 and 1017.

Journey time 69 minutes. Operator: Grand Central. Intermediate stops at Eaglescliffe, Northallerton and Thirsk. Trains continue to Kings Cross.

 

[Basil Jet]

I wouldn't say Tonbridge-Brighton is a missing link, it's not a massive flow. Gatwick would be worth extending to, although it'd mean major interventions at Redhill and Gatwick to find capacity.

There's a perfectly straight path from west of Nutfield station to East Surrey Hospital - was it built as a corner cut but never opened?

 

[A0wen]

They were mostly short branch lines with some sort of low commuter flows (eg Northampton - Bedford) or longer country routes with even vaguer traffic potential. How many people needed to travel between Kettering and Huntingdon regularly, either then or even now? And the service, just three trains each way per day, reflected this.

Arguably, there were only two 'strategic routes' Oxford - Bletchley - Bedford - Cambridge and Northampton - Wellingboro - Peterborough, and not even these could survive. Once the lines going north hit proper cities, a route did survive: Brum - Leicester - Peterborough - Cambridge/Norwich

Sorry, but Northampton - Bedford wasn't a "commuter" route when it closed. Very few people commuted between Northampton and Bedford in the 1960s and if they did a slow train (which took almost an hour) wasn't their way of travelling. Even now commuter traffic between Northampton and Bedford is limited.

Northampton - Peterboro wasn't "strategic" in any meaningful way, once beyond Wellingborough it served nowhere of any size - you can see that's true even today - between Northampton and Wellingborough the line ran south of the current A45 in the valley, beyond Wellingborough it ran north of the A45 and A605 to Peterboro.

If you're heading from Northampton or Wellingborough to places further north on the ECML for example, it is much quicker to head north on the WCML or MML and change at places like Tamworth or Nottingham.

The only real "gap" in the Herts / Beds / Bucks / Northants area is one which was never rail linked to begin with - Luton to Milton Keynes - and there's no practical way to do that in any case.

 

[miklcct]

I live down on the south coast, near Bournemouth/Poole. For London, Manchester and anywhere on the SWML we're very well connected. And we're one change from Portsmouth, Brighton and Salisbury. But if I want to go west it's not as easy; the journey times are longer, the route is often going in the wrong direction before it joins up with a route going in the correct direction (Bournemouth -> Basingstoke/Reading -> Exeter for example). Taking Exeter as an example, once changes and travel time to get to the station are thrown in, it can take nearly 4 hours to get there. It's a 2 hour drive if the traffic's favourable.

I'll think about Upwey - Yeovil instead.

However, it's still a convoluted journey, so a result I felt that I had no ties to the South West at all and found it annoying that Bournemouth / Poole is in the South West region for sport competitions, while our neighbour New Milton is in South East Region which enabled much more opportunities for them (as the South East regional championship for a certain race had priority entry for their own region, and when it opened for general entry it was already full - and the South West is a deprived region that they don't even have their regional championship, and even if they do it's unlikely that I can get to Devon or Cornwall at all as the transport is so bad)

 

[Deerfold]

When did Huddersfield to Wakefield lose the direct service?

During the Covid period, though I can't recall the exact time it was pulled. During 2021 I think, as it wasn't stopped at the start of the lockdowns. Strictly speaking it hasn't been culled entirely, a few journeys a day run as buses during the peaks.

There's one in the morning peak and two in the evening peak from Huddersfield to Castleford via Wakefield.

Peak is pushing it a bit in the other direction. There's just one a day from Castleford just before 1900 (15 minutes before the bus from Huddersfield arrives...).

 

[zwk500]

There's a perfectly straight path from west of Nutfield station to East Surrey Hospital - was it built as a corner cut but never opened?

Are you talking about Canadian Rd? AFAIK that's nothing to do with the railway. Indeed I've never heard of any proposal for a south facing curve at Redhill, certainly not a serious one.

 

[Basil Jet]

The only real "gap" in the Herts / Beds / Bucks / Northants area is one which was never rail linked to begin with - Luton to Milton Keynes - and there's no practical way to do that in any case.

There was a line from Luton (Bute Street) to Leighton Buzzard, although this closed before Milton Keynes was the thing it is now.

 

[Doomotron]

Kent is one of the best - if not the best county in the UK in terms of rail connectivity. It retained more of its lines than any other county in the UK.

Certainly internally, but getting out of it is quite difficult. There are no cross-country services of any sort, the furthest place I can get from my house on a single train is central London. It can't even be excused by 'Deal is too small of a town for long distance services' because it is surrounded by towns which absolutely are. The key to better connectivity would have been to connect HS1 and HS2 and run services down to Ashford but because we can't have nice things it got cancelled.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Sorry, but Northampton - Bedford wasn't a "commuter" route when it closed. Very few people commuted between Northampton and Bedford in the 1960s and if they did a slow train (which took almost an hour) wasn't their way of travelling. Even now commuter traffic between Northampton and Bedford is limited.

Yes, but if you note what I wrote, I did say "low commuter flows" - and I stand by that. Mostly school kids and the odd worker and shopper to Bedford. And of course, there was the odd traveller.
But, I'm pretty sure, nobody would commute from Olney or Turvey to London - the train service just did not support ath.

And almost nobody would, say, travel from Birmingham to Bedford that way, even less likely, Birmingham to Hitchen or Stevenage. As you point out, it was very slow, and (I'm pretty certain), the trains rarely connected at Bedford (and Hitchen). My point is, it was very local, certainly with the poor service provided at the time.

Northampton - Peterboro wasn't "strategic" in any meaningful way, once beyond Wellingborough it served nowhere of any size - you can see that's true even today - between Northampton and Wellingborough the line ran south of the current A45 in the valley, beyond Wellingborough it ran north of the A45 and A605 to Peterboro.

Peterborough isn't, or wasn't strategic? OK, the line served Peterboro EAst, but it was, even then, a serious town, and the line continued to Ely (for Norwich) and Cambridge (and even Ipswich, though I'm not sure what the service was like back then.

It served a much more far flung set of populations - which would be potentially useful today. But truth is, not that many people wanted to use the service back in those times.

If you're heading from Northampton or Wellingborough to places further north on the ECML for example, it is much quicker to head north on the WCML or MML and change at places like Tamworth or Nottingham.

Today, for sure. But back then? I doubt it would be easy to go to Tamworth from Northampton, and then get a connection even to Derby (though I agree, if you only wanted to get to Derby, that would probably have been an option).

The only real "gap" in the Herts / Beds / Bucks / Northants area is one which was never rail linked to begin with - Luton to Milton Keynes - and there's no practical way to do that in any case.

Because there never was, because a) Milton Keynes was three houses, a church and cow shed in 1961 and b) even the Luton Bute Street to Leighton Buzzard line had a miserable service, usually necessitating change at Dunstable.

I can even remember a letter in Trains Illustrated (or possibly MR) back then about exactly this line - asking why BR did not run the trains on to Bletchley (as opposed to terminating at Leighton Buzzard) to give better connections into the WCML. Of course, there were v few expresses stopping at Bletchley then either.

For those that needed to travel anything beyond a train into the nearby town (such as Dunstable to Luton) it was the age of the car.

 

[miklcct]

It can't even be excused by 'Deal is too small of a town for long distance services' because it is surrounded by towns which absolutely are.

I don't think anywhere in Kent is worthy to have a long-distance service at all.

There are no big cities in Kent and the whole region is geared towards London. Local services, services to London and along the coast to Sussex is all Kent needs. The HS1 and Elizabeth line from Abbey Wood has already vastly improved the connection in London to the north of the country.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because there never was, because a) Milton Keynes was three houses, a church and cow shed in 1961 and b) even the Luton Bute Street to Leighton Buzzard line had a miserable service, usually necessitating change at Dunstable.

And (c) you can run a bus up the M1 just as fast as any branch line railway ever would be, and indeed Stagecoach do (the 99). It'd be nice to have that properly integrated into the railway (it used to be a RailLinks service, but you could only tack it on the start or end of a journey, not in the middle as would often be useful).

Of course you can go from Luton to MK changing at Bedford and Bletchley, anyway, but if I recall rightly Bedford to Bletchley on its own is slower than the whole 99 route.

 

[miklcct]

it used to be a RailLinks service, but you could only tack it on the start or end of a journey, not in the middle as would often be useful

In the era of public transport navigation apps, this becomes less relevant anyway as the computer can parse the timetable and tells you to change approximately even if the bus is in the middle. Better software can even have a direct link for you to buy the tickets, leg by leg as well.

 

[Doomotron]

I don't think anywhere in Kent is worthy to have a long-distance service at all.

There are no big cities in Kent and the whole region is geared towards London. Local services, services to London and along the coast to Sussex is all Kent needs. The HS1 and Elizabeth line from Abbey Wood has already vastly improved the connection in London to the north of the country.

The services to the London haven't been a problem this side of World War 2. I'm not complaining about them (although I do want non-HS1 fast services back), I am complaining about the lack of services beyond London. With Thameslink to Ashford cancelled (and painfully slow if it actually ran), all long distance travel from Kent requires at least one change and likely an Underground trip as well.

Here are some examples of journeys I realistically do from my station, based on a weekday timetable:

• To Portsmouth, Southampton, Weymouth, Guildford: Deal to Dover Priory, Dover Priory to London Waterloo, Waterloo to the final destination.
• To Edinburgh: Deal to St Pancras, St Pancras to Edinburgh.
• To Glasgow: Deal to St Pancras, Underground to Euston, Euston to Glasgow.
• To Southend: Deal to St Pancras, Underground to Fenchurch Street, Fenchurch Street to Southend.

With every respect, "I don't think anywhere in Kent is worthy to have a long-distance service at all" is truly a ridiculous statement. Lostwithiel and many other stations in Cornwall and nationwide get comparatively microscopic passenger numbers but get frequent long-distance services, to London is this case or even Scotland. How do Ashford, Dover, Folkestone, Ramsgate, Margate, Canterbury, Maidstone and the Medway towns, which all get over 1 million passengers per year, and with Canterbury being a major city, NOT deserve trains to anywhere beyond London?

 

[JonathanH]

How do Ashford, Dover, Folkestone, Ramsgate, Margate, Canterbury, Maidstone and the Medway towns, which all get over 1 million passengers per year, and with Canterbury being a major city, NOT deserve trains to anywhere beyond London?

The demand for travel beyond London from Kent, Sussex and Surrey, not to mention places in South and East London, is satisfied by the ability to change in London for destinations across the country. Arriving in London enables an efficient, frequent and straightforward switch into other services, particularly since HS1 services have been in place.

 

[zwk500]

With every respect, "I don't think anywhere in Kent is worthy to have a long-distance service at all" is truly a ridiculous statement.

I would not pay too close attention to that poster, he or she has had a hard time comprehending that the world isn't like Hong Kong.

Lostwithiel and many other stations in Cornwall and nationwide get comparatively microscopic passenger numbers but get frequent long-distance services, to London is this case or even Scotland.

Tbf, they get those services because it's not economic to run separate local trains. It's politically unacceptable to close the stations, so they get served by whatever can be made to fit.

How do Ashford, Dover, Folkestone, Ramsgate, Margate, Canterbury, Maidstone and the Medway towns, which all get over 1 million passengers per year, and with Canterbury being a major city, NOT deserve trains to anywhere beyond London?

Canterbury is, with the greatest respect, not a Major city, in the sense that London or Manchester are. It's a busy tourist destination and important regional center, to be sure, but not a nationally significant one. As said above, links from Kent to London are very good, and from there to the rest of the country much better than many other parts of the country. HS1 lands you within spitting distance of King's Cross and into St Pancras, with Euston a 10minute walk down the road, in less than an hour from more than half the county in 140mph comfort, calling at Stratford on the way for lots of great connectivity to East London and East Anglia. Brighton would love to not have to wade through the City on Thameslink to reach Euston Road!
Given the HS1 links, and the fact that SE serve London Bridge, Waterloo East, Cannon Street, Charing Cross and Victoria, the only terminals SE does not have a <10minute walking distance to are Paddington and Marylebone. That's probably the best connected County in England!

 

[Mikey C]

Certainly internally, but getting out of it is quite difficult. There are no cross-country services of any sort, the furthest place I can get from my house on a single train is central London. It can't even be excused by 'Deal is too small of a town for long distance services' because it is surrounded by towns which absolutely are. The key to better connectivity would have been to connect HS1 and HS2 and run services down to Ashford but because we can't have nice things it got cancelled.

Why do you need cross country services for everything? What passenger flows would justify a direct train from Manchester or Leeds to Ashford and East Kent? When HS1 runs into St Pancras diving direct access to the MML and ECML, with the WCML a short walk away.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Tomorrow and certainly all next week, there should be direct trains from Hartlepool to York at 0712, 0915 and 1017.

Journey time 69 minutes. Operator: Grand Central. Intermediate stops at Eaglescliffe, Northallerton and Thirsk. Trains continue to Kings Cross.

Thank you. So, referring back to post 205, anyone travelling from Hartlepool to Liverpool does not need to take a bus to Durham. He/she can change trains at York.

 

[zwk500]

Why do you need cross country services for everything? What passenger flows would justify a direct train from Manchester or Leeds to Ashford and East Kent? When HS1 runs into St Pancras diving direct access to the MML and ECML, with the WCML a short walk away.

It's probably the nostalgia effect, as direct trains from Manchester to Dover probably did previously justify themselves when the Ferry was the only way to France. However, as you say nowadays with HS1 taking cross-channel passenger traffic right into London, the justification for these long-distance services simply isn't there.

 

[JonathanH]

Thank you. So, referring back to post 205, anyone travelling from Hartlepool to Liverpool does not need to take a bus to Durham. He/she can change trains at York.

However, going back to post 91, the OP lived in a village on a bus route between Hartlepool and Durham, rather than in Durham or Hartlepool themselves. The bus timetable is set up around getting into the towns at either end rather than longer distance travel.

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...are-with-the-south.235036/page-4#post-5780936

 

[miklcct]

Here are some examples of journeys I realistically do from my station, based on a weekday timetable:

• To Portsmouth, Southampton, Weymouth, Guildford: Deal to Dover Priory, Dover Priory to London Waterloo, Waterloo to the final destination.
• To Edinburgh: Deal to St Pancras, St Pancras to Edinburgh.
• To Glasgow: Deal to St Pancras, Underground to Euston, Euston to Glasgow.
• To Southend: Deal to St Pancras, Underground to Fenchurch Street, Fenchurch Street to Southend.

With every respect, "I don't think anywhere in Kent is worthy to have a long-distance service at all" is truly a ridiculous statement. Lostwithiel and many other stations in Cornwall and nationwide get comparatively microscopic passenger numbers but get frequent long-distance services, to London is this case or even Scotland. How do Ashford, Dover, Folkestone, Ramsgate, Margate, Canterbury, Maidstone and the Medway towns, which all get over 1 million passengers per year, and with Canterbury being a major city, NOT deserve trains to anywhere beyond London?

To be honest the journey to Southend can be made better by a cross-country link - however a Thames Estuary crossing needs to be built.

All the other long-distance journeys are now adequately served by a change at London through the HS1. To improve such journeys it's better to place infrastructure improvements within London to reduce the cross-London connection time (especially to Waterloo - however the slow line to Waterloo East exists as an alternative which may be cheaper to run express trains on it if the demand is really there), or alternately, to improve the coastal link for journeys to Brighton or beyond.

 

[Starmill]

The services to the London haven't been a problem this side of World War 2. I'm not complaining about them (although I do want non-HS1 fast services back), I am complaining about the lack of services beyond London. With Thameslink to Ashford cancelled (and painfully slow if it actually ran), all long distance travel from Kent requires at least one change and likely an Underground trip as well.

Here are some examples of journeys I realistically do from my station, based on a weekday timetable:

• To Portsmouth, Southampton, Weymouth, Guildford: Deal to Dover Priory, Dover Priory to London Waterloo, Waterloo to the final destination.
• To Edinburgh: Deal to St Pancras, St Pancras to Edinburgh.
• To Glasgow: Deal to St Pancras, Underground to Euston, Euston to Glasgow.
• To Southend: Deal to St Pancras, Underground to Fenchurch Street, Fenchurch Street to Southend.

With every respect, "I don't think anywhere in Kent is worthy to have a long-distance service at all" is truly a ridiculous statement. Lostwithiel and many other stations in Cornwall and nationwide get comparatively microscopic passenger numbers but get frequent long-distance services, to London is this case or even Scotland. How do Ashford, Dover, Folkestone, Ramsgate, Margate, Canterbury, Maidstone and the Medway towns, which all get over 1 million passengers per year, and with Canterbury being a major city, NOT deserve trains to anywhere beyond London?

Lostwithiel isn't a particularly strong example it must be said. It's really not served by long distance trains otherwise than because it works out conveniently i.e. they're passing anyway because Penzance, Truro and St Austell have strong demand from London and the wider country. Also because there are servicing facilities at Penzance for the long distance trains. If you'd offered Truro in comparison with Canterbury it would be more realistic.

 

[A0wen]

There was a line from Luton (Bute Street) to Leighton Buzzard, although this closed before Milton Keynes was the thing it is now.

Not quite - there were few if any through trains.

It was Welwyn GC to Dunstable via Luton and Dunstable to Leighton Buzzard the latter closing long before the former.