The UK and white elephant stations

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Altnabreac, until if ever matters are resolved is definitely a runner in the white elephant stakes....

 

[ABB125]

Worcestershire Parkway has 335,000 passengers a year, making it significantly busier than any of the other stations on the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester. It has been an undoubted success. I don't think the station promoters are the people suffering from a lack of "rationality" right here.

I wonder how many of those are "fake" passengers though? WOP is a very handy ticket splitting point for XC services...

(Not that I dispute the station being a success - it's also quite handy for me!)

 

[Western Sunset]

Bristol Parkway on the other hand also opened in the 1970s and has been a resounding success. Maybe for another thread but I wonder what helps a station NOT to be a white elephant?

Although in South Glos, Bristol Parkway is to all intents now within the built-up area of Bristol itself. Close to industry (RR at Filton), educational establishments (UWE is not far) and growing housing around the area. So not in the middle of nowhere, unlike EM Parkway currently is.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Worcestershire Parkway has 335,000 passengers a year, making it significantly busier than any of the other stations on the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester. It has been an undoubted success. I don't think the station promoters are the people suffering from a lack of "rationality" right here.

Being busier than Hanborough, Combe, Finstock, Charlbury, Ascott-under-Wychwood etc. is quite a low bar...

 

[paul1609]

Stratford International is another prime example of a white elephant. Built for HS1 and for Eurostar services to serve East London only to later be abandoned because it made no sense stopping a high speed train a mere seven minutes out of St. Pancras. Even with Southeastern's Javelin services it's an underutilised station, even more so than Ebbsfleet which at least had international services at one point. Much like HS2 they were the symptoms of the UK's problems with long-term thinking with infrastructure projects or going back on some of the original intentions later down the line when it's almost too late.

Really? Stratford International has 2.5 million entries and extis in the latest ORR figures thats more than Wigan NW and Warrington combined.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Stratford International is another prime example of a white elephant.

It’s a very busy station. No Eurostar, but the Javelins are very busy.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Being busier than Hanborough, Combe, Finstock, Charlbury, Ascott-under-Wychwood etc. is quite a low bar...

You’ve never been to Hanborough or Charlbury, have you?

 

[Transilien]

A historical example could be the Sinfin Branch Line stations near Derby which were opened in the 70s and closed in the 90's. Also Peartree could fall into this category.

 

[dodecahedron67]

Woolwich is very quickly becoming a victim of its own unexpected success. Its three escalators and one entrance are mostly choked with passengers, which will only get worse with the completion of more housing and leisure developments around it and nearby feeder communities.

Having grown up in Woolwich, the one entrance was always going to be inadequate! Massive catchment area with the bus network, indeed it is quicker for a relative to take a 30min bus to Woolwich then the EL to Central than it is to take the train from their local!

 

[Western Sunset]

Derby Ramsline Halt...

 

[NSEWonderer]

Having grown up in Woolwich, the one entrance was always going to be inadequate! Massive catchment area with the bus network, indeed it is quicker for a relative to take a 30min bus to Woolwich then the EL to Central than it is to take the train from their local!

Haha indeed, tbh there was a point where Lizzy line trains would have just went from Custom house to Abbey Wood and vice versa due to the same statistics that deemed one entrance adequate.

Greenwich council and Berkley homes I believe were the main reason Woolwich Station was built.

 

[MontyP]

Re East Midlands Parkway, Maybe a little waiting is in order...

Redeveloping the site of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power station

Arup, working with Uniper, supported Rushcliffe Borough Council to establish a Local Development Order (LDO) to make the most out of the potential development opportunities on the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station site. Learn more.

www.arup.com

East Midlands Parkway doesn't even have a taxi rank, never mind a bus service. I was a regular user a few years ago and I had to ring the local taxi firm from the train when I was at Leicester to make sure there was someone there to pick me up.

Plus it didn't help that the 2 trains per hour to London departed within 5 mins of each other, with a subsequent 55 min gap to the next one ...

 

[A S Leib]

Apart from the infrequent and irregular service (no Edinburgh services between 10:46 and 14:37), I find it slightly annoying that there's no bus service from East Linton station to the National Museum of Flight. For the 34th-most visited attraction in Scotland (https://news.stv.tv/scotland/nation...mong-most-visited-tourist-attractions-in-2022), the fact that it can take close to two hours to get to a railway station a ten minutes' drive away is far from attractive. (I think there are buses to North Berwick, but that's less useful from southeast of Edinburgh.)

 

[cactustwirly]

East Midlands Parkway may have succeeded had easyJet not withdrawn from the airport, sending it firmly into the "backwater" territory.

It's nowhere near the Airport!

East Midlands has Jet2, Ryanair and TUI. Just because easyJet don't serve it doesn't mean it's a backwater.

Birmingham has only just got a easyJet base and I wouldn't exactly call it a backwater

 

[Mikey C]

Woolwich is very quickly becoming a victim of its own unexpected success. Its three escalators and one entrance are mostly choked with passengers, which will only get worse with the completion of more housing and leisure developments around it and nearby feeder communities.

It should never have been a late and cheap addition to the Crossrail project, as it was blindingly obvious to anyone who knows the area that it would be well used.

Especially as not only are services more regular than from Woolwich Arsenal, they're cheaper too (being TfL fares).

 

[DelW]

Thanks; it was a franchise 'promise' for the 1997-ish original M.M.L. T.O.C. - presumably their franchise contract reflected a credit for the cost of doing this, but they never did. Possibly, when it was re-activated the aim was changed.

Construction of East Midlands Parkway was delayed for several years by site access issues. I worked on planning and programming our tender when it first came out for pricing, and it became evident that (a) access would be required through the power station land to the east (IIRC the "dust siding" location) and (b) some of the times allowed for the sequences of construction operations and track slews were quite insufficient.

We had no option but to qualify our tender, and I assume our competitors did likewise as nothing went forward at that time. By the time it came out to retender several years later, my employer had sold our railways division and exited railway work, so I don't know what changes had been made.

The original programmes were quite intricate and for my own interest I kept copies for years, but all were scrapped when I retired.

 

[Merle Haggard]

You’ve never been to Hanborough or Charlbury, have you?

Coincidentally I caught the 10.45 from Oxford, travelling to Evesham last Wednesday (4th). It was a 9 car I.E.T. (800317) and I was in one of 1st class coaches, with at-seat service = there was a separately-staffed trolley in Standard.. There were 4 people altogether in the 1st, and one of them did indeed get off at Charlbury. On my return, there were about half a dozen people waiting at Evesham, presumably a larger town/village than the others to the East.
Leaving Oxford, Evesham is the 10th station on the line. That's twice the number of stations in the whole of neighbouring Northamptonshire, and for those few stations there the provision is a standard class only emu with, on one line always 2+3 seating; on the other, that's about half the provision.

What did I miss by not getting off at either of the stations you mention? It's a frequent service, I could have easily broken my journey there.

 

[The exile]

Although in South Glos, Bristol Parkway is to all intents now within the built-up area of Bristol itself. Close to industry (RR at Filton), educational establishments (UWE is not far) and growing housing around the area. So not in the middle of nowhere, unlike EM Parkway currently is.

Yes - the idea of Bristol Parkway as an inbound destination in 1972 would have seemed very “niche” - plenty of us do it now!

 

[Cricketer8for9]

Great Central Railway London Extension (joke - I know this thread is about more recent builds).

 

[The exile]

Great Central Railway London Extension (joke - I know this thread is about more recent builds).

Although you could argue that with the current capacity issues on WCML south it was just 100 years ahead of its time!

 

[ivanhoe]

East Midlands Parkway may have succeeded had easyJet not withdrawn from the airport, sending it firmly into the "backwater" territory.

By the time EasyJet had left EMA sometime around 2007, another airline , namely Jet2 , was beginning to grow plus Ryanair increased their activity. Unless a station is within walking distance of a terminal, passengers will opt for the car. The loss of EasyJet had nothing to do with making the station a backwater. Its position and rail connectivity is the issue.

 

[zwk500]

Altnabreac, until if ever matters are resolved is definitely a runner in the white elephant stakes....

A key part of something being a 'white elephant' is that it's a very expensive thing to own and maintain. A lot of the suggestions on this thread have rather overlooked the fact that white elephants were sacred animals and extravagant gifts of royalty!
Something being barely used is not of itself a white elephant.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

What did I miss by not getting off at either of the stations you mention? It's a frequent service, I could have easily broken my journey there.

There are now four stations on the Cotswold Line with passenger numbers in the 250k-270k mark: Hanborough, Charlbury, Moreton and Evesham.

Evesham is a simpler story because it's a large market town (30k population) which looks to Worcester and Birmingham. The other three, though nominally in small settlements, are very successful railheads for their local area. Hanborough is effectively the parkway station for Witney (also 30k population) and nearby places like Woodstock and Eynsham. Charlbury and Moreton are railheads for the prosperous north/east Cotswolds - in the past couple of years the decline in Mon-Fri London commuters at Charlbury, for example, has been countered by big numbers of daytime travellers using it as the station for Soho Farmhouse and similar attractions. The car parks at all of them, even despite recent expansions, are full most days of the week.

I was on the 21.44 departure from Oxford last night and about 30-40 people got off at Charlbury - pretty good for a rural station at 10pm.

 

[ScotGG]

Woolwich is very quickly becoming a victim of its own unexpected success. Its three escalators and one entrance are mostly choked with passengers, which will only get worse with the completion of more housing and leisure developments around it and nearby feeder communities.

I wouldn't say unexpected in terms of what people in the area expected. They long called for two entrances.

The powers that be perhaps as they didn't even want to build it of course! Then did it cheaply so no second entrance.

Always found that odd as new housing was a given on a mass scale nearby.

Some other stations that are labelled white elephants will do very well once housing is built around them. Thanet Parkway being one.

 

[Tetchytyke]

East Midlands Parkway may have succeeded had easyJet not withdrawn from the airport, sending it firmly into the "backwater" territory.

The airport is very far from being a backwater, being a major Ryanair hub as well as Jet2 and Tui. Not to mention its importance as a major freight hub.

The problem is that the station is so far from the airport and with such poor transport links to the airport that it is useless.

Liverpool South Parkway is similar in that respect, it's pretty useless at doing the job it was constructed for. It's just that Liverpool South Parkway replaced two existing stations with established demand and it is in a residential area.

 

[Dfatcontroller]

Although in South Glos, Bristol Parkway is to all intents now within the built-up area of Bristol itself. Close to industry (RR at Filton), educational establishments (UWE is not far) and growing housing around the area. So not in the middle of nowhere, unlike EM Parkway currently is.

But when opened - Bristol Parkway WAS in the middle of nowhere!

 

[The exile]

But when opened - Bristol Parkway WAS in the middle of nowhere!

Don’t tell that to the good folks of Stoke Gifford!!!!!!

 

[lachlan]

Although in South Glos, Bristol Parkway is to all intents now within the built-up area of Bristol itself. Close to industry (RR at Filton), educational establishments (UWE is not far) and growing housing around the area. So not in the middle of nowhere, unlike EM Parkway currently is.

Bristol Parkway is definitely not a white elephant, but it could benefit from direct services to the other local stations in Bristol (Patchway, Stapleton Road, Lawrence Hill)

 

[Fidelis]

Being busier than Hanborough, Combe, Finstock, Charlbury, Ascott-under-Wychwood etc. is quite a low bar...

In September 2023 there was an event with the Lord Lieutenant at Worcestershire Parkway to celebrate 544,270 passengers in the previous 12 months based on Leon. 10,000 homes are to be built around the station specifically mentioned by the Deputy Prime Minister in one of her first speeches on Housing investment. Planning applications for 2,500 homes are already with the Local Authorities. My journey on Wednesday on the five car 08.21 departure to Paddington was half full at Parkway and standing from Moreton in Marsh showed that split ticketing has no impact on the GWR services.

 

[NSEWonderer]

I wouldn't say unexpected in terms of what people in the area expected. They long called for two entrances.

The powers that be perhaps as they didn't even want to build it of course! Then did it cheaply so no second entrance.

Always found that odd as new housing was a given on a mass scale nearby.

Some other stations that are labelled white elephants will do very well once housing is built around them. Thanet Parkway being one.

Indeed but to TFL it was "unexpected"