Bradford Stations Consultation / Improvements

[61653 HTAFC]

Yes. Forster Square was too big for current traffic levels, but I think they should have left it on its original site, just reducing the number of platforms. As others comment, the pedestrian approach to the relocated Forster Square is a bit grim and unfriendly, especially at night.

The original site wouldn't be any better for access to the city centre, though it might be better for integration with buses. This would come at the expense of a pair of slow reverse curves to join the fairly straight alignment through Frizinghall.

I agree that the pedestrian access to and from Forster Square isn't the most welcoming, though this is one of the issues this consultation seeks to address. The proposals outlined sound ambitious, though I'm not sure they would do much towards the bigger problems of Bradford and its dependency on road transport.

Bradford Interchange needs to be completely rebuilt with more platforms and a nicer building that might actually attract people and hopefully some more investment.

At least one of the platforms is barely used at present, can't remember if it's just the one used by Grand Central, or if one of the shorter pair is also under-used. I doubt more are or will be needed for the foreseeable future, though the shorter pair could do with extending if more 6-car working is coming. Can't recall if that's proposed under any current schemes though.

 

[IanXC]

When opened, Interchange was lauded for its bus/rail interchange facilities, boasting extensive servicing/repair facilities under the interchange.

Unfortunately the repair and servicing facilities closed, along with one platform for bus departures/arrivals, and now I gather some services have returned to stopping on the city streets outside the Interchange, leading to the rather reduced site it now is.

I'm intrigued by the idea of these repair facilities under Interchange, does anyone have any more info/images?

 

[swissrailpassion]

Forster Square is too small and needs to be closer to the Westfield centre. Perhaps next to the Midland hotel? Ah that's where it was.
If it were there today it would be 25 metres from the shopping centre. Ah well.

 

[deltic08]

The biggest problem with building Interchange on the opposite side of the road overbridge is that a third of the platform length at the country end is now located on the 1 in 41 gradient towards Leeds and Halifax with trains unable to have a run at the bank.
It would be more passenger friendly to have a lightweight overall roof over half the length of the platforms at each station with side and end walls or glass partitions to enclose the buffer stop ends and buildings as at Man Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime Street, Glasgow Central and Queen Street stations on a smaller scale. This should be easy and relatively cheap if spanning only four platforms. Perhaps something along the lines of the canopy extension at Man Victoria for Interchange using the high retaining wall and possibly similar at FS.
Wind whistling through the open canopies is very uninviting in inclement weather and winter months.
If Bradford City Council had had more than one brain cell between them, the two stations would have been connected by rails whilst the city centre was a bomb site for all those years. There would have been no reversing at either station as Calder Valley trains would have run via Shipley and trains terminating at FS would have returned to or continued to Leeds via Pudsey and vice versa. At the very least an underground pedestrian tunnel could have been built in a straight line between both stations for those who can or want to walk.
After all, Bradford is a sizeable city and deserves better than the two current offerings.

 

[thejuggler]

I'm intrigued by the idea of these repair facilities under Interchange, does anyone have any more info/images?

Its still there. It was the main bus depot, repairs garage with offices above. This all moved to Bowling Back Lane at least 20 years ago.

The old depot is now used as a car park, accessed off Nelson Street.

 

[xotGD]

Yesterday I had to pick someone up from Interchange by car. The dropoff / pickup car park is totally inadequate and seems to be designed to maximise congestion. Once inside the building, the low ceilings and generally tired appearance are not what should greet travellers at the gateway to a major city.

On a positive note, you can park for 20 minutes free of charge.

 

[yorksrob]

If only the superb exchange station with it's magnificent train shed hadn't been destroyed all those years ago.

Of course, those sentiments aren't much use for the consultation !

 

[Old Yard Dog]

The bus station at Bradford Interchange had six separate one-sided platforms when it was first opened on the site of an old goods yard. This was subsequently reduced to three. Then the three were merged into one two-sided platform. Some buses have terminated outside the interchange ever since it opened.

The new railway station retained the name Bradford Exchange for a couple of years after its relocation.

 

[Andyh82]

Of course building an interchange with undercover bus to train connections is something which people hold in high regard now, so you can see why they did it. Also factor in that Exchange was apparently too large and probably heading into a Wakefield Kirkgate sort of scenario of a massive building that needed lots of work. The 'magnificent train shed' would probably be a bit like Manchester Victoria was until recently by now.

I'd say the main area that needs work are the platforms outside, which are quite grim and have had little work since the 70s. The main buildings were refurbished and the new bus station built about 15 years ago.

 

[superkev]

Perhaps in a parallel universe somewhere there were some town planners with some flair and where the current Westfield shed is there's a through station/ interchange / shopping precinct and incorporating an exchange style overall arched roof.
Successful generations of incompetent councils have destroyed my home city the UK's 6th largest. I read they've belatedly woken up to HS2 and 3 passing by.
Perhaps things could be relieved by a tram train from the aire/wharfe lines to meet hs3 at huddersfield. The road from Bradford to huddersfield is mostly dual and would accommodate light rail.
K

 

[Dr_Intoxicated]

I was at the University in the early 70s and Exchange was an imposing station and still enjoyed many direct services to London including 1 a day that went direct avoiding Leeds.

 

[Andyh82]

People are always going on about a through route across Bradford, but I can't see what economic benefit it would give to the city.

The benefits would surely be to everyone else around the area except Bradford as they already have all the links just from two places. And that's assuming all these amazing links like Huddersfield to Skipton or Manchester to Ilkley would have actually happened, and not at the detriment to the links we have today.

 

[superkev]

People are always going on about a through route across Bradford, but I can't see what economic benefit it would go

The benefits would surely be to everyone else around the area except Bradford as they already have all the links just from two places. And that's assuming all these amazing links like Huddersfield to Skipton or Manchester to Ilkley would have actually happened, and not at the detriment to the links we have today.

With decent north south links both road and rail accross Bradford and leeds the stiffled industry up Aire valley would bloom like a flower.
K

 

[Bevan Price]

I'm intrigued by the idea of these repair facilities under Interchange, does anyone have any more info/images?

Bradford bus depot (of what was once West Yorkshire PTE) was located below the bus part of the original Bradford Interchange. Post-deregulation, fewer bus services used the Interchange, and it was reduced in size when rebuilt. I am unsure how much remains of the bus depot.

 

[deltic08]

Perhaps things could be relieved by a tram train from the aire/wharfe lines to meet hs3 at huddersfield. The road from Bradford to huddersfield is mostly dual and would accommodate light rail.
K

NO,NO,NO. Not on Aire/Wharfe lines, not anywhere. DfT are about to cancel Sheffield tram-train project due to overrun on time and budget.

 

[MarkyT]

NO,NO,NO. Not on Aire/Wharfe lines, not anywhere. DfT are about to cancel Sheffield tram-train project due to overrun on time and budget.

Cost overruns on this pilot project do not represent likely costs on employing the technology elsewhere, especially now there is experience in implementing it, standards set, vehicles approved etc. I cannot believe Government will cancel the project now most of the money has been spent, remove the new junctions and electrification, sell the trams.

 

[superkev]

Bradford bus depot (of what was once West Yorkshire PTE) was located below the bus part of the original Bradford Interchange. Post-deregulation, fewer bus services used the Interchange, and it was reduced in size when rebuilt. I am unsure how much remains of the bus depot.

The huge bus garage and workshop despite mechanical ventilation suffered from fume problems from the 200 or so buses there and was the reason I believe for its demise.
See https://flic.kr/p/dvvUwc
K

 

[superkev]

Cost overruns on this pilot project do not represent likely costs on employing the technology elsewhere, especially now there is experience in implementing it, standards set, vehicles approved etc. I cannot believe Government will cancel the project now most of the money has been spent, remove the new junctions and electrification, sell the trams.

Just because network rail have difficulties with tram trains dosent mean they can be successful. The rest of Europe have had guite a few for a number of years. Perhaps like football managers we should import someone who knows what there doing.
K

 

[IanXC]

The huge bus garage and workshop despite mechanical ventilation suffered from fume problems from the 200 or so buses there and was the reason I believe for its demise.
See https://flic.kr/p/dvvUwc
K

Interesting stuff, thanks!

 

[Dr_Intoxicated]

The huge bus garage and workshop despite mechanical ventilation suffered from fume problems from the 200 or so buses there and was the reason I believe for its demise.
See https://flic.kr/p/dvvUwc
K

While looking at this I came across a picture showing the inside of the old Bradford Exchange station.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/superkevs/5982411791/in/photostream/

and this one shows the magnificent train shed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/superkevs/5982411679/in/photostream/

 

[yorksrob]

While looking at this I came across a picture showing the inside of the old Bradford Exchange station.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/superkevs/5982411791/in/photostream/

and this one shows the magnificent train shed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/superkevs/5982411679/in/photostream/

The sad thing is, it's not as if space has ever been so scarce in Bradford that there was a commercial 'need' to replace Bradford's 'cathedral' station. It was just cost cutting.

The real tragedy is that I've seen a picture of a model of an earlier proposal by BR (late 60's) to retain the trainshed and just replace the buildings fronting it, as at Man Pic. If only this course had been chosen.

 

[Dr Hoo]

The sad thing is, it's not as if space has ever been so scarce in Bradford that there was a commercial 'need' to replace Bradford's 'cathedral' station. It was just cost cutting.

The real tragedy is that I've seen a picture of a model of an earlier proposal by BR (late 60's) to retain the trainshed and just replace the buildings fronting it, as at Man Pic. If only this course had been chosen.

Ah well, at least if BR were still thinking about keeping the original Exchange station train sheds in the late 1960s that lets the good Dr Beeching off the hook for once. The original frontage was pretty nondescript anyway by all accounts. Presumably there wouldn't have been scope for the bus integration in that option?

However, I do struggle to see a case for keeping a ten-platform station for the reduced number of services in the 1960s. Nowadays Bradford Interchange can handle 12 departures in an hour in the morning peak from four platforms, even with limited parallel working in the throat.

I suppose that Hull Paragon is an obvious comparator, where a station with many platforms for long-gone local services (and parcels, etc.) has been retained broadly intact. However, at least the bus station has been brought partially into the footprint.

In Hull's case there was no pressure from a decaying overbridge on the approach.

Furthermore, as Paddington has shown, even the nicest 'cathedral' roofs needs very expensive ongoing maintenance in the face of continued intensive diesel operation underneath.

An interesting discussion. I am surprised that nobody has brought up a 'compare and contrast' with Leeds, where station combination/rationalisation was achieved in the 1960s (starting before Beeching and finally finishing after he had left BR).

 

[yorksrob]

Ah well, at least if BR were still thinking about keeping the original Exchange station train sheds in the late 1960s that lets the good Dr Beeching off the hook for once. The original frontage was pretty nondescript anyway by all accounts. Presumably there wouldn't have been scope for the bus integration in that option?

However, I do struggle to see a case for keeping a ten-platform station for the reduced number of services in the 1960s. Nowadays Bradford Interchange can handle 12 departures in an hour in the morning peak from four platforms, even with limited parallel working in the throat.

I suppose that Hull Paragon is an obvious comparator, where a station with many platforms for long-gone local services (and parcels, etc.) has been retained broadly intact. However, at least the bus station has been brought partially into the footprint.

In Hull's case there was no pressure from a decaying overbridge on the approach.

Furthermore, as Paddington has shown, even the nicest 'cathedral' roofs needs very expensive ongoing maintenance in the face of continued intensive diesel operation underneath.

An interesting discussion. I am surprised that nobody has brought up a 'compare and contrast' with Leeds, where station combination/rationalisation was achieved in the 1960s (starting before Beeching and finally finishing after he had left BR).

Ah well, at least if BR were still thinking about keeping the original Exchange station train sheds in the late 1960s that lets the good Dr Beeching off the hook for once. The original frontage was pretty nondescript anyway by all accounts. Presumably there wouldn't have been scope for the bus integration in that option?

However, I do struggle to see a case for keeping a ten-platform station for the reduced number of services in the 1960s. Nowadays Bradford Interchange can handle 12 departures in an hour in the morning peak from four platforms, even with limited parallel working in the throat.

I suppose that Hull Paragon is an obvious comparator, where a station with many platforms for long-gone local services (and parcels, etc.) has been retained broadly intact. However, at least the bus station has been brought partially into the footprint.

In Hull's case there was no pressure from a decaying overbridge on the approach.

Furthermore, as Paddington has shown, even the nicest 'cathedral' roofs needs very expensive ongoing maintenance in the face of continued intensive diesel operation underneath.

An interesting discussion. I am surprised that nobody has brought up a 'compare and contrast' with Leeds, where station combination/rationalisation was achieved in the 1960s (starting before Beeching and finally finishing after he had left BR).

To be fair, I think the Doctor had left by the time BR drew up it's preferable plans for Bradford exchange. Sir Stanley Raymond might be nearer the mark.

On the broader discussion point about Victorian trainsheds, they generally seem to make preferable waiting environments to the underground 'car parks' that characterise many modern stations, regardless of the traction.

The old train shed only had one row of columns within it's footprint, so it would have been very easy to reconfigure the layout and use the space more effectively, e.g. have just four or six wider platforms.

 

[IanXC]

While looking at this I came across a picture showing the inside of the old Bradford Exchange station.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/superkevs/5982411791/in/photostream/

and this one shows the magnificent train shed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/superkevs/5982411679/in/photostream/

If the newly constructed station is what is now Interchange, it looks to me as if the old trainshed extended not only into what is now the frontage of the station where the taxi rank is, but also that the adjacent road now impinges on the previous station footprint?

I suppose that Hull Paragon is an obvious comparator, where a station with many platforms for long-gone local services (and parcels, etc.) has been retained broadly intact. However, at least the bus station has been brought partially into the footprint.

In Hull's case there was no pressure from a decaying overbridge on the approach.

I'm not sure about 'broadly intact' at one time Hull Paragon had 14 platforms. 3 of those were at the (now) bus station side of the station and principally were used for the Hornsea and Withernsea branches, 4 of them are now the stabling roads at the opposite side of the station, leaving what are now 2-7 as the 6 platforms in use, and the current platform 1 which has been a passenger platform in the post 1984 set up but currently is not used for this purpose.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

If the Royal Mail building is no longer used, why not have Forster Square reloacted on the site? OK, it does mean having to stick in a double bend from the present site to this one that I'm suggesting but it does mean that it would be on the doorstep of Broadway.

 

[superkev]

The original exchange was located where the law courts are now and was moved to the other side of Bridge Street to its present location. Three was rather a nice BR plan to reconstruct the concourse an retain one of the 2 train sheds but never happened.
I suppose to make best of a bad job some sort of futuristic people mover could link the station's.
As for foster square I hear the tax office people at the end of the platform are following the adjacent vacant royal mail and relocting to more expensive Leeds so some possibilities there.
K

 

[Tetchytyke]

Unfortunately the repair and servicing facilities closed, along with one platform for bus departures/arrivals, and now I gather some services have returned to stopping on the city streets outside the Interchange, leading to the rather reduced site it now is.

The bus station part of the interchange was always too big for what was needed, it never needed six piers of bus stops and a large overall roof. It was a grim and grotty place and most of the bus station wasn't regularly used, it always felt half-abandoned, and it never felt safe. Nearly all the women in my family circle refused to use the place after dark.

The rebuild of the bus station in the late 90s, getting rid of the expensive to maintain glass roof and merging the stops into one pier, was exactly what it needed. Some buses, such as the 640, have never gone into the Interchange, even back in the 80s and 90s. Much of the footprint of the bus station is more used now as an office block than it ever was as a bus station.

As for the train station, it needs a lick of paint and a clean up, but it works perfectly well for what it is.

Forster Square needs some facilities- a proper waiting room and some toilets wouldn't go amiss, nor would doing something about the arches on the ramp down from Kirkgate. But the station itself again is fine for what it is, and is a lot better than the scary squalid hole the old Forster Square station was.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If the newly constructed station is what is now Interchange, it looks to me as if the old trainshed extended not only into what is now the frontage of the station where the taxi rank is, but also that the adjacent road now impinges on the previous station footprint?

Not quite. Bridge Street bridge was pulled down and rebuilt as an embankmentnas part of the development- that was one of the justifications for the change IIRC. The road now is roughly where the concrete wall by the front of the unit is. The overall roof went a long way back the other way- the main entrance was over on Hall Ings opposite where the car park entrance to the Broadway shopping centre now is

 

[Bantamzen]

If the newly constructed station is what is now Interchange, it looks to me as if the old trainshed extended not only into what is now the frontage of the station where the taxi rank is, but also that the adjacent road now impinges on the previous station footprint?

If you walk from the Interchange, turning right onto Hall Ings and past St Georges Hall & the old T&A building you can see the remnants of the front of the station still in situ:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.7...uIXRYblPAqtrs1TJ71Qw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

The original exchange was located where the law courts are now and was moved to the other side of Bridge Street to its present location. Three was rather a nice BR plan to reconstruct the concourse an retain one of the 2 train sheds but never happened.
I suppose to make best of a bad job some sort of futuristic people mover could link the station's.
As for foster square I hear the tax office people at the end of the platform are following the adjacent vacant royal mail and relocting to more expensive Leeds so some possibilities there.
K

Currently, subject to a further review, the tax office is to be relocated to Leeds which would leave that building empty. However to tear it down and extend towards the Broadway would probably be far too expensive to justify saving a couple of minutes walk for passengers. A link would be nice, and perhaps should have been considered as part of the Broadway build, even if it just involved a walkway across Hall Ings and into the complex.

The bus station part of the interchange was always too big for what was needed, it never needed six piers of bus stops and a large overall roof. It was a grim and grotty place and most of the bus station wasn't regularly used, it always felt half-abandoned, and it never felt safe. Nearly all the women in my family circle refused to use the place after dark.

The rebuild of the bus station in the late 90s, getting rid of the expensive to maintain glass roof and merging the stops into one pier, was exactly what it needed. Some buses, such as the 640, have never gone into the Interchange, even back in the 80s and 90s. Much of the footprint of the bus station is more used now as an office block than it ever was as a bus station.

The biggest problem was that the stands were way too short for most buses, which meant that only alternate stands were ever used. So for example you'd have on the first tier A2, A4, A6 up to A12 used, with the others left empty. But it did become grim, and a real pain to make connections in the early days if you bus came in on tier A and your next bus on tier E. The new design is much more suitable although at certain times feels a bit too small, with buses sometimes competing for the same stand. The OCD in me also wishes that the services were better grouped together, so that services travelling in roughly the same orientation are closer together. But that's just me.......

As for the train station, it needs a lick of paint and a clean up, but it works perfectly well for what it is.

I remember it going back to just after it was built, and it hasn't changed much since then. I'd say it might benefit for better facilities at platform level (and there probably is space in the building for at least some) at the very least. Back in the day what is now the bus drivers lounge was actually a public bar, which was a handy place to dive into if there were delays and you didn't feel like either getting frozen to death on the platform, or hanging around on the concourse looking for something to pass the time.

Forster Square needs some facilities- a proper waiting room and some toilets wouldn't go amiss, nor would doing something about the arches on the ramp down from Kirkgate. But the station itself again is fine for what it is, and is a lot better than the scary squalid hole the old Forster Square station was.

This is pretty much what is proposed, including a cafe area (with presumably toilets). Hopefully it comes off.

 

[HSTEd]

Given that 'Northern Powerhouse Rail' (I hate that name, so focus groupy as to be idiotic) is proposed to route between Manchester and Leeds via Bradford, anyone got any ideas how that will effect the current station map?