Golborne station reopening - How might it be served?

[PTR 444]

Would there be capacity to reverse this at Bank Quay, in addition to the Liverpool service? The track layout means that reversals have to be in Platform 1, then depart wrong road on the Up Slow as far as Winwick Junction. But this line is also used by some Chester services and freights to avoid conflict with the southbound expresses.

Also if reversal at Warrington is not an option, would there be enough capacity to extend this service through to Chester or Ellesmere Port?

 

[Greybeard33]

Also if reversal at Warrington is not an option, would there be enough capacity to extend this service through to Chester or Ellesmere Port?

Not unless the line is electrified!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would there be capacity to reverse this at Bank Quay, in addition to the Liverpool service?

Could you potentially interwork it with that, i.e. run Liverpool-WBQ-Preston-WBQ-Liverpool? That'd give you another Liverpool-Preston too, albeit not a quick one.

 

[Bevan Price]

That was probably one reason why the original Golborne (South) station was closed in 1961. Before closure it was served mainly by a Wigan - Warrington via Earlestown local service.

It probably closed because the timetable was so dire that people preferred the slower, but much more frequent bus services.

Golborne (South) departures, Summer 1955 timetable:
Northbound (Warrington / Wigan locals unless shown otherwise; minor differences between SX and SO times ignored):
06:21 (06:00 Warrington - Carlisle)
07:40 (07:20 Warrington - Morecambe Euston Road)
08:08 (*** - Reduced to SO)
09:54 (09:45 Earlestown - Wigan)
12:25 (SO) (* 12:40 in 1960)
13:41 (SO)
15:29 ***
17:50
18:29 (SX) ***
21:39 ***

Southbound
07:17 (Extended to Llandudno, Summer SO)
08:10 (Wigan - Earlestown) ***
08:47 (Wigan - Warrington direct, not via Newton & Earlestown)
12:48 (Wigan - Earlestown) ***
17:35 (17:40 in 1960)*
18:04 (SX) ***
18:56 ***
21:20 (Preston - Warrington)
22:41 (SO) (Wigan - Earlestown) ***

Edited 9 Feb. 2021.
By the 1960 timetable, the service had been made even more useless, with those marked *** absent from the 1960 timetable.
And for anyone wanting to travel from London to Golborne, the last departure was 10:35 from Euston, and a 2 hour wait at Warrington. The 13:10 from Euston reached Warrington 7 minutes after the 17:29 to Golborne, Earlestown & Wigan had departed.

 

[Greybeard33]

Could you potentially interwork it with that, i.e. run Liverpool-WBQ-Preston-WBQ-Liverpool? That'd give you another Liverpool-Preston too, albeit not a quick one.

Unless you halve the Liverpool frequency you still need 2tph reversing at Warrington BQ, whether interworked or not.

 

[Bevan Price]

Could you potentially interwork it with that, i.e. run Liverpool-WBQ-Preston-WBQ-Liverpool? That'd give you another Liverpool-Preston too, albeit not a quick one.

Pointless. Very few pasengers use the Earlestown / Warrington section. I have spent many hours taking photos at Winwick, and there are rarely more than 2-3 passengers on any of these services. It would be more useful if they were diverted to Manchester, or to Golborne & Wigan.

 

[Greybeard33]

From the Recovery Task Force thread:

I think a new station with Manchester links would create demand and entice leisure travel back to rail once things start getting back to normal.
The trouble with Newton-le-Willows for Manchester is its in the Merseytravel area, so if you have a TFGM ticket product, Newton-le-Willows is out of the question. A Golborne station would be in Greater Manchester.

It would be a lot cheaper to extend GM ticket validity to Newton-le-Willows than to build a new station!

 

[Ianno87]

From the Recovery Task Force thread:

It would be a lot cheaper to extend GM ticket validity to Newton-le-Willows than to build a new station!

Is there any reason why Newton-le-Willows can't fall in both the TfGM and Merseytravel ticketing areas?

 

[Starmill]

Is there any reason why Newton-le-Willows can't fall in both the TfGM and Merseytravel ticketing areas?

Absolutely not. Darton, South Elmsall and Moorthorpe are all available on both South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire zonal tickets. It's simply a question of mutual agreement.

 

[Gathursty]

Absolutely not. Darton, South Elmsall and Moorthorpe are all available on both South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire zonal tickets. It's simply a question of mutual agreement.

A chance for Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham to improve railway in the North West by working together. I know they are both Labour but these regional councils tend to pretend other regions don't exist which causes these problems to linger and exacerbate. Example: Skelmersdale/Headbolt Lane/Kirkby line.

 

[Djgr]

Is there any reason why Newton-le-Willows can't fall in both the TfGM and Merseytravel ticketing areas?

Absolutely not. Darton, South Elmsall and Moorthorpe are all available on both South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire zonal tickets. It's simply a question of mutual agreement.

Is there not also an annoying Cheshire/Lancashire gap to be addressed?

 

[andyj158]

Is there any reason why Newton-le-Willows can't fall in both the TfGM and Merseytravel ticketing areas?

That would a good move.

 

[Djgr]

A chance for Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham to improve railway in the North West by working together. I know they are both Labour but these regional councils tend to pretend other regions don't exist which causes these problems to linger and exacerbate. Example: Skelmersdale/Headbolt Lane/Kirkby line.

To be honest I think the problem lies more with the other local councils (rather than Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester), whose focus appears elsewhere.

 

[andyj158]

It would be good if both a Manchester and Liverpool service were offered.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Absolutely not. Darton, South Elmsall and Moorthorpe are all available on both South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire zonal tickets. It's simply a question of mutual agreement.

Rainford used to be in both even though it's in Merseyside and Upholland is in Lancashire, with GM starting at Orrell (I got caught out by that once years ago when doing a bit of riding around on a set of the two, though the guard let me off paying when I showed him the map I had, which was out of date, as that showed I was doing it in good faith and not wilfully fare-dodging).

 

[seagull]

I have always been surprised at the lack of connectivity between Preston (or specifically, Warrington BQ) and Crewe (and even more so for residents of Acton Bridge, Hartford and Winsford wanting to go north). Very dispiriting (pre-Covid) to just miss the XX.17 Avanti southbound service at Preston and have to wait for an hour to get to Crewe and stations south.
So to my mind the suggestion of a Preston-Crewe shuttle which could then serve Golborne would have some potential, even if it only called at, say, Hartford, between Crewe and Warrington BQ, to improve pathing in that bottleneck area.

 

[Hey 3]

I think the best way to serve a new Golborne station is to stop Cumbria-Manchester Airport services there and not reroute them via Bolton.
If they are rerouted via Bolton, then a rerouted Blackpool service(or maybe Scottish service) should stop there(ideally the Blackpool one) or maybe a peak Scottish service

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Feb 2021 ==

It would be good if both a Manchester and Liverpool service were offered.

Yes, that is true. As long as also the Warrington market is catered for then it would be a good enough offering at Golborne

 

[Gathursty]

I've got the solution for Golborne now thanks to SouthEastern and SWR. We can make use of circular services to help Golborne out:
Liverpool Lime Street to Wigan via Prescot and return via Lea Green.
Manchester (whichever is best) to Wigan via Hindley (Bolton or Atherton) and return via Golborne/Chat Moss.

 

[HST43257]

The whole idea of Golborne station is not something I’m keen on. Newton-le-Willows has space for more parking, though this may be up rather than across.

It is a pain to give it a Liverpool/Manchester service, so I’d just suggest a Warrington - Earlestown - NLW - Golborne - Wigan service, maybe extending to Preston calling at Euxton and Leyland.

 

[Gathursty]

The whole idea of Golborne station is not something I’m keen on. Newton-le-Willows has space for more parking, though this may be up rather than across.

It is a pain to give it a Liverpool/Manchester service, so I’d just suggest a Warrington - Earlestown - NLW - Golborne - Wigan service, maybe extending to Preston calling at Euxton and Leyland.

The line of argument of nearby stations being better would surely reduce to let's keep one of:
Catford or Catford Bridge
Upper Tyndrum or Tyndrum Lower
Etc..

 

[HST43257]

The line of argument of nearby stations being better would surely reduce to let's keep one of:
Catford or Catford Bridge
Upper Tyndrum or Tyndrum Lower
Etc..

Not really, because Catford and Catford Bridge serve different termini in both directions and the Tyndrums go to very different locations (Oban and Fort William/Mallaig). Golborne services would be going to any 1 or more of Warrington, Liverpool and Manchester. NLW goes to all of these. No need.

 

[Ianno87]

The line of argument of nearby stations being better would surely reduce to let's keep one of:
Catford or Catford Bridge
Upper Tyndrum or Tyndrum Lower
Etc..

None of them have an entire service group routed that way (and potentially dictating the whole regional timetable structure) purely to serve one station.

 

[Gathursty]

On reflection, Golborne and Newton have a bus 3 times an hour. For me it's still not good enough to say that Golborne shouldn't have services because it's too hard to fit it in with other services. We are a densely populated area like London yet they have built Meriden Water and Lea Bridge recently on a particularly busy route.

 

[Ianno87]

On reflection, Golborne and Newton have a bus 3 times an hour. For me it's still not good enough to say that Golborne shouldn't have services because it's too hard to fit it in with other services. We are a densely populated area like London yet they have built Meriden Water and Lea Bridge recently on a particularly busy route.

Median Water basically substituted for Angel Road, so no loss in capacity (plus a third track was added)

Lea Bridge is on the much quieter route past Temple Mills.

 

[Hey 3]

I've got the solution for Golborne now thanks to SouthEastern and SWR. We can make use of circular services to help Golborne out:
Liverpool Lime Street to Wigan via Prescot and return via Lea Green.
Manchester (whichever is best) to Wigan via Hindley (Bolton or Atherton) and return via Golborne/Chat Moss.

No please don't force it to reverse at Wigan, just force it to run up the Liverpool-Wigan line and take the south to west chord to Bamfurlong, that way no reversals happen and we don't have to run a diesel under the wires for most of the way.

 

[Gathursty]

No please don't force it to reverse at Wigan, just force it to run up the Liverpool-Wigan line and take the south to west chord to Bamfurlong, that way no reversals happen and we don't have to run a diesel under the wires for most of the way.

I live in hope that electrification will occur from Lostock to Wigan.

 

[The Planner]

No please don't force it to reverse at Wigan, just force it to run up the Liverpool-Wigan line and take the south to west chord to Bamfurlong, that way no reversals happen and we don't have to run a diesel under the wires for most of the way.

Why would you avoid quite likely one of the biggest draws of passengers? Why is diesel an issue too, which bit doesn't have OLE on the Liverpool circuit?

 

[Hey 3]

Why would you avoid quite likely one of the biggest draws of passengers? Why is diesel an issue too, which bit doesn't have OLE on the Liverpool circuit?

The bit between Wigan NW and Salford Crecsent/Lostock, while running from Ince Moss Jn to Bamfurlong Jn stops DMUs under the wires and uses electric power instead

 

[The Planner]

The bit between Wigan NW and Salford Crecsent/Lostock, while running from Ince Moss Jn to Bamfurlong Jn stops DMUs under the wires and uses electric power instead

That isn't what they were suggesting? I read it as Huyton - St Helens - Wigan - Golborne - Earlestown - Huyton.

 

[Hey 3]

That isn't what they were suggesting? I read it as Huyton - St Helens - Wigan - Golborne - Earlestown - Huyton.

They suggested
Liverpool- Wavertee Technolgy Park-Huyton- St Helens Central- Bryn- Wigan NW(reverse)-Hindley- Westhoughton-Bolton- Salford Crescent then into Manchester and the return to
Liverpool
Manchester-Eccles-Chat Moss- Golborne(possible reversal via Newton-le-Willows and Lea Green) or Bryn and as above