Leeds-Shipley-Bradford F Square wires

[Waverley125]

AFAIK the morning & evening London-Bradford services are 225-run, contrasting to the Skipton services which are HST-run. This presumably means that the wires between Leeds City and Bradford Forster Square can cope with the power drain of a 91, while the Airedale line wires cannot.

I this is the case, why not eliminate the need for the Grand Union open access service, which would have to use the awful Kirkgate station, and further eat into the Franchisee's Doncaster-London market, by running the proposed 3rd hourly leeds servce through to Bradford, calling only at Doncaster, Leeds & Shipley.

This would give Doncaster a much faster (1hr 30 in my estimation) hourly service to London, as well as giving Britain's worst-served major city a regular link to London.

Personally, I'm hoping first win the EC franchise, as it would allow them to merge in their existing Hull Trains operation and give more joined-up thinking on the ECML.

 

[tbtc]

I thought the plan was for a bi hourly London - Leeds - Harrogate and a bi hourly London - Leeds - Bradford service?

(both via Hambleton, run by 180s)

 

[yorkie]

I thought the plan was for a bi hourly London - Leeds - Harrogate and a bi hourly London - Leeds - Bradford service?

(both via Hambleton, run by 180s)

Is there a source that quotes Bradford instead of Lincoln?

It's questionable whether these services will happen given the state of NXEC at the moment.

 

[Waverley125]

Still, every 2 hours to a city the size of Bradford is shambolic. And those would have to be in addition to the present half-hourly service as it currently runs with 9 mk4s, and is usually full.

 

[Bayum]

But really, looking at it...

How much interest passenger wise is there, for people wanting to get to London from Bradford?

 

[AndyHA]

' How much interest is there in wanting to go from Bradford to London''
Well we do get quite a few people at BEDFORD ,who asked for BRADFORD at St Pancras instead of Kings Cross . (Mainly from the ''sub-continent '' so there may well be a laguage problem ).
They are then sent on their way via Leicester , Sheffield and Leeds !

 

[Bayum]

What about from Kings Cross though??

Surely thats more of a EMT issue, than a NXEC issue in that case?

 

[tbtc]

But really, looking at it...

How much interest passenger wise is there, for people wanting to get to London from Bradford?

Bradford suffers like Sunderland does, both being reasonable sizes, both just a few miles from a city with a frequent London service, and for a long time the railway was run on the assumption that anyone foing to/from London would change at Newcastle/ Leeds.

Hard to say how much demand is there, but there's a lot of much smaller places (around the same distance away) that have regular daytime services to the capital

 

[Oswyntail]

But really, looking at it...

How much interest passenger wise is there, for people wanting to get to London from Bradford?

I suspect it would be quite an eye-opener. A very large proportion of passengers on the early morning trains into Leeds from Bradford/Skipton/Ilkley are heading for the London trains. Often these are regular commuters using metrocards for the first leg of the journey, so would only show up as Leeds passengers. And this carries on through the day. Perhaps Leeds should be treated as a hub station rather than a prime destination in its own right.

 

[Waverley125]

Bradford is a city of 500,000 people. The major towns in the aire valley (Shipley, bingley, Keigley & Skipton) have pops. totalling 130,000 people-that's bigger than Newcastle (Bradford) and tonnes bigger than the northumberland towns (airedale).

I can't remember the stat, but wasn't there a 60% drop or something in passenger numbers when they had to change trains? Just makes sense to run through to Skipton/Harrogate (2 hourly for each) and Bradford (hourly) IMO, makes more sense than sitting them in City station taking up platform space.

 

[johnb]

Bradford suffers like Sunderland does, both being reasonable sizes, both just a few miles from a city with a frequent London service, and for a long time the railway was run on the assumption that anyone foing to/from London would change at Newcastle/ Leeds.

Hard to say how much demand is there, but there's a lot of much smaller places (around the same distance away) that have regular daytime services to the capital

Similarly, there aren't direct trains from Newcastle to Westminster, nor from Bristol to Camden.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Bradford is a city of 500,000 people.

500K is the population of the Metropolitan Borough of Bradford which includes Shipley, Bingley, Keighley and several other places

 

[bluenoxid]

The problem is that do we want a regular service on both routes or worst services for a 2 hourly service.

Chat with the Kildwick motorist waiting for yet another train to pass over the level crossing.

 

[Spaceflower]

That's the problem with figures. They can be manipul;ated to ones own advantage. Now try comparing that figure with the population of Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland and Gateshead authority areas.

 

[Waverley125]

'newcastle urban district' covers all of those but Sunderland IIRC, and it's still smaller than Bradford.