Proposal For a Rugby Parkway Station

[White Ant]

Details here - https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/new...plans-for-rugby-parkway-station-have-your-say

Lots of new houses on that side of town in the Houlton Development on some of the land formerly occupied by Rugby Radio Station / Hillmorton Radio Masts.

Not sure it will attract the commuters used to the non-stop Avanti trains at Peak Times.

 

[The Planner]

Details here - https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/new...plans-for-rugby-parkway-station-have-your-say

Lots of new houses on that side of town in the Houlton Development on some of the land formerly occupied by Rugby Radio Station / Hillmorton Radio Masts.

Not sure it will attract the commuters used to the non-stop Avanti trains at Peak Times.

Depends on how many park and ride currently. Rugby station itself has a decent amount of parking but at a cost. If Parkway is free (doubtful), then Id imagine it would do alright with people making the short hop back.

 

[SargeNpton]

Depends on how many park and ride currently. Rugby station itself has a decent amount of parking but at a cost. If Parkway is free (doubtful), then Id imagine it would do alright with people making the short hop back.

As with all Parkway stations, if it's easy to get to and prevents people having to drive into/out of Rugby at busy periods then it will get used. Many of the roads around Rugby station are narrow and residential. Taking traffic away from them would be welcomed by the locals.

 

[swt_passenger]

Neat that the main road through the middle of the new development is already named Station Road. Has this been planned for some time?

 

[pdeaves]

Neat that the main road through the middle of the new development is already named Station Road. Has this been planned for some time?

If the development is on the site of a radio station, might that be the inspiration behind the name?

 

[lachlan]

Its frustrating that the houses have gone up before the railway station and so everyone probably already has a car for commuting. Better late than never I suppose.

 

[zwk500]

Would this station be served by the trains currently stopping at Long Buckby? No extra Rugby terminators or anything proposed?

 

[swt_passenger]

If the development is on the site of a radio station, might that be the inspiration behind the name?

Yes of course, that’s another obvious reason isn’t it.

Would this station be served by the trains currently stopping at Long Buckby? No extra Rugby terminators or anything proposed?

2 tph of existing Birmingham New St to Euston trains is stated on the web page linked in the OP

 

[Bald Rick]

Would this station be served by the trains currently stopping at Long Buckby? No extra Rugby terminators or anything proposed?

That’s all that can serve it.

Id be interested in the business case for this. It won’t be a cheap station, and DfT will need persuading that it makes sense to stop trains there.

 

[Mugby]

I seem to remember, a good few years ago, Chiltern Railways were considering the idea of reinstating the old Great Central line up to a new Parkway station at Rugby.

Probably dismissed it in favour of Oxford instead!

 

[CyrusWuff]

I seem to remember, a good few years ago, Chiltern Railways were considering the idea of reinstating the old Great Central line up to a new Parkway station at Rugby.

Probably dismissed it in favour of Oxford instead!

It was always a long-term aspiration, like West Hampstead Interchange. Oxford was a much simpler (and cheaper!) project to get over the line to secure the full 20-year franchise.

There would have been Parkway stations at Brackley (A43) and Shawell (A5 and M6, North of Rugby) assuming the original alignment (or close thereto) was used, with trains terminating at Leicester. It's left as an exercise for the reader as to how they'd get into Leicester, given the alignment's basically been obliterated from where it crosses the Midland Railway route between Leicester and Burton through to the Heritage GCR's Leicester North station.

 

[The Planner]

That’s all that can serve it.

Id be interested in the business case for this. It won’t be a cheap station, and DfT will need persuading that it makes sense to stop trains there.

Joys of third party proposed stations....

 

[White Ant]

It seems the various planners will have egg on their faces, having built a link road from the new Houlton Development at considerable expense that is focussed on access to the existing Rail Station - with all kinds of restrictions on access to and from other routes - and yet now they want to seriously erode the business case for such a road - https://rugbyobserver.co.uk/news/new-houlton-road-opens-but-with-a-catch/

 

[zwk500]

That’s all that can serve it.

So it's going to be a similar journey time to just driving to rugby and getting an Avanti... maybe there's enough development for it to just serve as a Rugby east local station on its own.

Id be interested in the business case for this. It won’t be a cheap station, and DfT will need persuading that it makes sense to stop trains there.

Isn't there quite a long dwell at Northamoton that can relatively easily be eaten into for these trains? I expect the dft will be so keen to demonstrate private funding on the railway that it'll go ahead regardless.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Arguably, the arrival of HS2 will give scope for development of local services like this, as fast line services are removed/reduced.
But I can imagine that a station at this location, even if on the Northampton loop, would not be on the railway's preferred list.
The old maps have the legend "liable to flooding" across the area on the east side of the WCML.

 

[Bald Rick]

Isn't there quite a long dwell at Northamoton that can relatively easily be eaten into for these trains?

There is, although I’m not sure how that relates to pathing of freight and operations at DIRFT.

I expect the dft will be so keen to demonstrate private funding on the railway that it'll go ahead regardless.

Not if it costs DfT money.

 

[xydancer]

Arguably, the arrival of HS2 will give scope for development of local services like this, as fast line services are removed/reduced.

As a general point, I think that's questionable. What I suspect will happen is that HS2 will create new demand, but that the cheaper, slower (although depending where your starting point and final destination are, perhaps not that much) services will remain very popular. That has certainly been my experience in the Far East when high-speed lines open.

Back to Rugby Parkway or whatever it will be called... Apart from it only getting slow trains (not so much an issue towards Birmingham), and issues of line capacity (presumably to get worse when the railfreight terminal at Roade opens) there is also the question of getting to the station in the first place if you do not actually live in Houlton. I live close to the development, which is being deliberately built with relatively few 'ways in' from the existing roads so as to avoid rat runs developing. And thanks to the need for expensive bridges or whatever, access from anywhere in town or around that's south/west of the WCML is not the easiest anyway.

 

[White Ant]

There is now a set of information flyers and links available at https://ask.warwickshire.gov.uk/insights-service/rugby-parkway/ along with an online survey about the new initiative.

They include an observation that the current station is limited by its Town Centre location. Thats a very moot point, as anyone who has walked from the station to the centre of town will testify.

I can't see any details of planned charges for access or parking - the trend these days seems to try to fleece as much money as possible for both parking and drop-off.

 

[The Planner]

I can't see any details of planned charges for access or parking - the trend these days seems to try to fleece as much money as possible for both parking and drop-off.

I doubt anyone has even considered them yet. Its a minimum of two years away.

 

[xydancer]

They include an observation that the current station is limited by its Town Centre location. Thats a very moot point, as anyone who has walked from the station to the centre of town will testify.

Yes, Murray Road and Railway Terrace are busy at peak times but the present station has decent bus links (which, being realistic, Houlton is never going to match), and there are car parks both sides of the 'tunnel', neither of which I have seen full post-Covid. North side, there's also the significantly cheaper private car park that's as close as Avanti's multi-storey. I would argue that the proposed new station is considerably less accessible to most people living south or south/west of the WCML, which is a fair chunk of the population.

But do they really think a station at Houlton - with just two stopping trains an hour (I suspect unlikely to increase with all the freight the Northampton loop already carries) - is going to drag people over there anyway? Certainly not if you are headed to London.

I live just outside the town to the south-east. In terms of distance, Houlton/Rugby Parkway would probably be slightly closer to home. But there's no way I would use it - under the present timetable/frequency at least.

Its a minimum of two years away.

I suspect you can at least treble that, if not more. We are still at first consultation. There are no firm plans, no funding (and Warwickshire CC certainly doesn't have the money). Nothing more than an aspiration.

 

[White Ant]

I doubt anyone has even considered them yet. Its a minimum of two years away.

Maybe not - but they should be made to consider these at an early stage. If they build something decent but impose serious parking charges / access charges people will baulk against it.

 

[Bevan Price]

It looks as if a new station would be close to the site of the former Kilsby & Crick station.

 

[zwk500]

Maybe not - but they should be made to consider these at an early stage. If they build something decent but impose serious parking charges / access charges people will baulk against it.

Somebody will have done an analysis on it, but parking charges are hardly a neglected area of business studies in the country and any number you come up with now isn't going to be relevant when you open, so you may as well not play this card straight away and wait until nearer the day so that you see what the going rates are.

 

[The Planner]

I suspect you can at least treble that, if not more. We are still at first consultation. There are no firm plans, no funding (and Warwickshire CC certainly doesn't have the money). Nothing more than an aspiration.

Its not that bad, it has sponsorship within NR and has done for a good while.

 

[Class 170101]

Is it really going tyo draw people to it? At best its going to get a half hourly service to both Birmingham and London for most of the day and at weekends. Is it really likely to draw people away from Rugby or generate new traffic given its location?

For me it doesn't seem like the right place for the station given the service it will receive and might well have been better placed on the Weedon route.

In general terms its all well and good building new stations but as @Bald Rick keeps suggesting to us there isn't the money for new rail projects (I happen to think there is an issue on the priorities of this government but thats for its own thread) and indeed cutbacks to services have being suggested elsewhere on this forum. New station may generate demand but is the industry prepared to provide the services to convey all those that want to be carried in the standard they expect or perhaps more worryingly will it divert demand from the nearest main station and lead to cutbacks as existing services are spread more thinly and becomes necessary to have a car to reach the sort of stations like Rugby Parkway that are being proposed / constructed rather than the use of bikes, walking and buses to complete a door to door journey, cars having their own environmental issues including the non-petrol ones.

 

[Bald Rick]

In general terms its all well and good building new stations but as @Bald Rick keeps suggesting to us there isn't the money for new rail projects (I happen to think there is an issue on the priorities of this government but thats for its own thread) and indeed cutbacks to services have being suggested elsewhere on this forum.

In this case, if it is largely funded from outside the industry (perhaps by developer contributions: a new station on the doorstep has a beneficial effect on the sale prices of new housing), and if it is modelled to generate a decent level of net new revenue, I can see it happening. I don’t know what the development plans are there, but a couple of thousand new homes could easily generate some decent revenue.

 

[InOban]

Yes, Murray Road and Railway Terrace are busy at peak times but the present station has decent bus links (which, being realistic, Houlton is never going to match), and there are car parks both sides of the 'tunnel', neither of which I have seen full post-Covid. North side, there's also the significantly cheaper private car park that's as close as Avanti's multi-storey. I would argue that the proposed new station is considerably less accessible to most people living south or south/west of the WCML, which is a fair chunk of the population.

But do they really think a station at Houlton - with just two stopping trains an hour (I suspect unlikely to increase with all the freight the Northampton loop already carries) - is going to drag people over there anyway? Certainly not if you are headed to London.

I live just outside the town to the south-east. In terms of distance, Houlton/Rugby Parkway would probably be slightly closer to home. But there's no way I would use it - under the present timetable/frequency at least.

I suspect you can at least treble that, if not more. We are still at first consultation. There are no firm plans, no funding (and Warwickshire CC certainly doesn't have the money). Nothing more than an aspiration.

Presumably after HS2 the freight won't need to go via Northampton?

 

[zwk500]

Presumably after HS2 the freight won't need to go via Northampton?

Most of it still will - not least because it means they can run past Daventry. But also because there will still be lots of MK-Rugby service that skip Northampton, and there are Loops at Northampton freights can use to hide.

 

[Bald Rick]

Presumably after HS2 the freight won't need to go via Northampton?

There will still be 5/6 fast passenger services per hour via Weedon; whilst a couple will be flighted, a 75mph liner will still take 10 minutes longer from Rugby to Hanslope; it might just fit but would need paths to align perfectly (including crossing fasts to slows at Hanslope).