Least successful new stations

[Mcr Warrior]

ORR station usage figures (entries + exits) 2019/20
Blackridge 57k
Caldercruix 104k
Robroyston 43.5k in 3 1⁄2 months

Thanks for that. Not exactly stellar useage, but not white elephant-esque, either!

 

[eastwestdivide]

Pre-pandemic I used Ebsfleet International on a number of occasions for Eurostar departures, both on weekdays and at the weekends. My record from parking the car to clearing security and immigration was 9 minutes. For that reason it was a great station to use and avoided the crowds of St Pancras but my abiding memory was just the vast emptiness of the whole place and under utilisation of a pretty substantial facility. It looks like international services will not be stopping there until 2022 at the earliest but I do wonder about the long term viability of Eurostar resuming services.

I’ve also used Ebbsfleet a fair bit, and never had much of a queue there. Maybe seen the departure hall maximum half full for a morning Brussels service. But the Javelins were getting pretty good custom with domestic and commuter traffic.
edit: ORR stats on Wikipedia give Ebbsfleet broadly 2 million passengers versus nearby Gravesend‘s 3 million.

 

[ijmad]

Are the Park-and-ride signs still there on the A38? How many tph to Plymouth; last train back after the Theatre or Opera?

I grew up in Ivybridge - was actually a passenger on the first train from the station as my school was invited. I remember there being Park and Ride signs for many years. I think they've now vanished (or nearly all vanished). Service has improved since the early days and the station now gets around 30 trains a day, it's roughly hourly each way with some gaps and does run quite late into the evening. Though well below their ambitions of a turn up and go service, and frankly passenger demand has never been high enough to justify anything more. The large car park is perennially empty and now largely used by driving instructors and teenagers trying to drift in their Mom's Peugeots.

Part of the problem is that Ivybridge's station isn't in a convenient position for the population centre, it's right on the edge of the town - so even locals end up driving to it. Plymouth is only 15 minutes away by car anyway, so I think a lot of people wonder what the point is in taking the train. Especially as Plymouth station is inconveniently situated too at the far end - most offices and retail would be a rather long walk or a bus ride away at the other end too.

So given the choice between car-train-bus vs car, or a bus all the way to more convenient stops in Plymouth's centre (which is only marginally longer given you don't keep doubling back on yourself), you can see why it's failed.

 

[markem41]

WAW was doing very well pre-Covid despite only having 2 tph instead of the 3 tph in the Northern franchise bid (and despite the eastbound trains not being well spaced).

The departure times from Lime St had already been changed to allow for the stop at WAW (so when the "other" local didn't stop it was waiting time at WAC). Then Northern came up with the daft idea of bringing the local out of Lime St before the Airport express and sending it USL from Wavertree Jn to LPY (two conflicting movements) to let the express past.

TPE have now published a draft timetable for next year when they take over Northern's airport express path - with extra stops at Urmston and Irlam to make up for the Manchester Recovery proposal to have only one local an hour between Manchester and Warrington - but without the stop at WAW. That could leave WAW with 2 tph (Liverpool-Warrington) and no through train to Manchester outside peak hours.

As Network Rail insisted the station was "third party funded" that's a £20m station, publicly funded, where NR and the TOCs between them can't even promise to fulfil the service that justified the business case. In fact it seems someone could build a station for Great British Railways with no guarantee that any train would call there.

Sitting on a fast service serving Oxford Road, Birchwood, Warrington Central, South Parkway and Lime Street you have to wonder why there's any need to stop at Warrington West as well? Good to have a new modern station and it's effectively replaced Sankey for Penketh.

 

[William3000]

It had 343,000 passengers in 2019/20. Is that really a disaster?

That’s less than Waterbeach!

 

[stephen rp]

Sitting on a fast service serving Oxford Road, Birchwood, Warrington Central, South Parkway and Lime Street you have to wonder why there's any need to stop at Warrington West as well? Good to have a new modern station and it's effectively replaced Sankey for Penketh.

1. Stops people from West Warrington from driving into Warrington.
2. It was part of the plan for the new developments
3. The railway industry got other people to pay for the station on the basis of fast trains stopping there

 

[Ianno87]

1. Stops people from West Warrington from driving into Warrington.
2. It was part of the plan for the new developments
3. The railway industry got other people to pay for the station on the basis of fast trains stopping there

4. The CLC is no longer the fast Liverpool-Manchester route - that's the Chat Moss. Trains via the CLC should be picking up more stops.

 

[stephen rp]

4. The CLC is no longer the fast Liverpool-Manchester route - that's the Chat Moss. Trains via the CLC should be picking up more stops.

I'm not sure all the people travelling from Warrington Central to Manchester would agree

 

[Ianno87]

I'm not sure all the people travelling from Warrington Central to Manchester would agree

If they get 3 better spread trains per hour, rather than 2 pairs bunched fasts/stoppers, they will. Journey Time is proportionately unimportant on a short journey - frequency counts for more.

Needless to say, a stop at Warrington West doesn't affect the Warrington Central-Manchester journey time. Especially if some passengers currently using Central switch to West instead.

 

[stephen rp]

If they get 3 better spread trains per hour, rather than 2 pairs bunched fasts/stoppers, they will. Journey Time is proportionately unimportant on a short journey - frequency counts for more.

Needless to say, a stop at Warrington West doesn't affect the Warrington Central-Manchester journey time. Especially if some passengers currently using Central switch to West instead.

They end up with the latest proposals with one slow train instead of two, and one of the "fast" trains with 3 stops instead of two (and 25/35 mins apart out of Manchester).

 

[WatcherZero]

Dont have the time to read through 7 pages but the local least successful station, at least initially was Liverpool South Parkway, it was getting under 700,000 users a year until about 2013 despite a lot of subsidy being thrown at a bus connections and infrastructure improvements when the passenger forecasts were like 3-5 million passengers a year. I think what finally saved it was they sorted the issue that you could only buy rail tickets at the airport and installed a ticket vending machine at the station itself.

 

[Ianno87]

Dont have the time to read through 7 pages but the local least successful station, at least initially was Liverpool South Parkway, it was getting under 700,000 users a year until about 2013 despite a lot of subsidy being thrown at a bus connections and infrastructure improvements when the passenger forecasts were like 3-5 million passengers a year. I think what finally saved it was they sorted the issue that you could only buy rail tickets at the airport and installed a ticket vending machine at the station itself.

Now doing not far off forecasts - just shy of 2.7 million in 2019/20.

 

[Robertj21a]

Presumably, somewhere, East Midlands Parkway has been mentioned. Hardly ever seen anybody there.

 

[WatcherZero]

Yes, just a decade behind its 10 year plan. Uptick was a close shave as they were about to withdraw services to it for lack of use.

 

[RPI]

Newcourt on the Exmouth line is rarely busy, passenger numbers similar to Polsloe Bridge yet the latter only receives an hourly service, with the former having every train call.

 

[Stephen1001]

Ebbw Vale Parkway was extremely successful for eight years after opening, but numbers fell off a cliff when the line was extended to Ebbw Vale Town and it attracted only 44,000 passengers in the last set of yearly stats, less than one-fifth of what Town managed. It's a strange one as it was completely necessary at the time, since going the whole way was all but impossible until the old steelworks was redeveloped, but its presence on the line feels odd nowadays given the size of some of the places the same line passes through without stopping at (Crumlin, Abercarn and Cwm in particular).

 

[Starmill]

Ebbw Vale Parkway was extremely successful for eight years after opening, but numbers fell off a cliff when the line was extended to Ebbw Vale Town and it attracted only 44,000 passengers in the last set of yearly stats, less than one-fifth of what Town managed. It's a strange one as it was completely necessary at the time, since going the whole way was all but impossible until the old steelworks was redeveloped, but its presence on the line feels odd nowadays given the size of some of the places the same line passes through without stopping at (Crumlin, Abercarn and Cwm in particular).

Maybe renaming it to Waun-Lwyd could improve its fortunes! More seriously, it's a shame that Parkway station can't effectively just be moved to Cwm. It would attract more people there than in its odd location, but of course once it's there for historical purposes you're pretty much stuck with it. A station at Cwm would be feasible but if it came in addition to Parkway it would bring the disbenefit of extending journeys for end-to-end customers. As such it won't be a priority.

It's easy to see why initially Llanhilleth and Newbridge were te locations chosen from among the rest.

 

[geoffk]

One the subject of Parkways, Stratford-on-Avon Parkway, opened in May 2013, had only 110,000 users in 2019/20, compared with 911,000 for Stratford itself.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

A slightly odd one, Cottingley.
Opened in the early 1990s as the last of the West Yorkshire "flatpack" stations, it struggled for many years with only the 1970s estate nearby. Over the years, more and more housing was built around it including the large "Churwell New Village" development on the opposite side of the railway from the original entrance. Then, the issue became poor service levels, as the frequency of expresses increased.

Now, the station is set to close (effectively if not officially) once White Rose opens nearby.

 

[YorksLad12]

A slightly odd one, Cottingley.
Opened in the early 1990s as the last of the West Yorkshire "flatpack" stations, it struggled for many years with only the 1970s estate nearby. Over the years, more and more housing was built around it including the large "Churwell New Village" development on the opposite side of the railway from the original entrance. Then, the issue became poor service levels, as the frequency of expresses increased.

Now, the station is set to close (effectively if not officially) once White Rose opens nearby.

I would class that as successful, despite the service level (and platform length); there's nothing wrong with the station per se, more with the way it was served. A bit like Kirkstall Forge which had 1tph and nothing else on the site when it opened; the difference there is that there are now 2tph, but still not much else on site (I'm still waiting for those apartments...).

 

[AlastairFraser]

Indeed, when looked at in the cold light of the 21st century, reopening the former Repton & Willington station as part of the aborted Ivanhoe project has most definitely held back further development. If a new station for Willington was being planned today, the obvious location would be where the North Staffs line crosses Etwall Road - not only is there a ready-made hourly local service but there would have been space for a car park and step-free access as well. But as one of the tiny number of passengers who travels to Willington from the Birmingham direction, I never said this...

What should happen is they should reopen Lichfield Trent Valley to Burton back to passenger operation, Alrewas station (perhaps stations at Barton-under Needwood and Branston if you had the money) and electrify through at least through to Derby. It would be a quite low cost extension and one of the reopened stations could easily be a parkway with the proximity to the A38. Take those stops off the interregional XC service there (apart from Burton) and give a proper service to Pear Tree.

Unlike Corby which subsequently closed then reopened, Bicester to Oxford managed to sustain a service to Oxford throughout. Even with a 27 minute journey time it was competitive with the bus for getting to Oxford. But the frequency was never good, not helped by some large gaps in the timetable to accommodate freight. However patronage was increasing even before transfer to Chiltern and subsequent rebuilding; hardly unsuccessful though.

The rebuilding for Evergreen 3 and East West Rail has been transformational, particularly for Bicester and at Oxford Parkway. Usage of Islip meanwhile is disappointing but given Chiltern only stop a minimum number of trains there not unsurprising.

Oxford Parkway has effectively replaced Islip. Islip station had to be rebuilt when the line was redoubled but I suspect Chiltern might well have preferred it’s closure.

Islip may have not much usage, but Charlton on Otmoor and Weston-on-the-Green are both sizeable villages without a bus service at all. Closing Islip would be a huge mistake for Islip itself and those villages because it would leave most of the Otmoor area without a viable public transport option (mostly not served by the hourly H5 bus).
More should be made of its' proximity to the RSPB Otmoor reserve, some promotional material and the usage would shoot up.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I would class that as successful, despite the service level (and platform length); there's nothing wrong with the station per se, more with the way it was served. A bit like Kirkstall Forge which had 1tph and nothing else on the site when it opened; the difference there is that there are now 2tph, but still not much else on site (I'm still waiting for those apartments...).

My point was more that until around 10-15 years ago, it served a fairly low-density estate and not much else... and then when significant housing WAS built nearby, Leeds City Council decided that White Rose was worthwhile.

 

[YorksLad12]

My point was more that until around 10-15 years ago, it served a fairly low-density estate and not much else... and then when significant housing WAS built nearby, Leeds City Council decided that White Rose was worthwhile.

I take your point.

 

[Spaceflower]

Sunderland? Teesside Airport then.....

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Luebeck Airport International was downgraded to a request stop after cheapair stopped using the airport.

 

[froggy9]

Lostock Hall. I had to carry out a daily car parking count for some time after it opened because of the hoo haa by residents over traffic when the station was proposed. I never counted more than 3.

 

[david1212]

One the subject of Parkways, Stratford-on-Avon Parkway, opened in May 2013, had only 110,000 users in 2019/20, compared with 911,000 for Stratford itself.

Was though the idea as much to provide a predominantly bus operated park and ride for tourists into Stratford as a Parkway for local rail users to Birmingham ? Regardless it is under utilised.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that Kenilworth has no services from, given a train is leaving in around half an hour for Leamington Spa, and in 50 minutes for Nuneaton via Coventry. However, longer platforms would have cost more and been pretty fruitless as the CrossCountry services weren't ever going to be stopping anyway. You might not like the service the station has, and it's not amazing, but that's not the station's issue.

The real issue is that when Kenilworth was originally proposed most if not all of the single line from Leamington to Coventry was to redoubled so it was a two platform station with a more frequent service.
While indeed realistically XC were never going to stop if there were short i.e. < 10 minute connections with XC to/from Leamington and Coventry IMO the usage would be higher. Maybe more local travel too although given the locations of both Leamington and Coventry stations overall buses can be as quick and more convenient.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

One the subject of Parkways, Stratford-on-Avon Parkway, opened in May 2013, had only 110,000 users in 2019/20, compared with 911,000 for Stratford itself.

How did that work out in useage per calling service? Believe there's currently something like 76 calls on a weekday, 71 on a Saturday and 33 on a Sunday, so something like 4 or 5 persons on average per train if the service pattern was similar in 2019/20.

 

[Bald Rick]

Was though the idea as much to provide a predominantly bus operated park and ride for tourists into Stratford as a Parkway for local rail users to Birmingham ?

not sure about that, but there’s lots of new housing going up near there now.

 

[Caboose Class]

I notice that things are about to take off again (literally) once more at Southend Airport. Flights to Bucharest (Wizz Air) are due to start from 28th March next year.