Place With Biggest Need of Direct London Train?

[wnr1990]

Bolton is the most poulated town/city (277,000) in England without a direct train link

What are your thoughts?

 

[KNN]

Bolton is the most poulated town/city (277,000) in England without a direct train link

What are your thoughts?

Bolton is really close to Manchester which has very good links to London.

Looking at a rough equivalent, Bradford, there is a direct train and it takes 2 hours 47

Your one change from Bolton to London also takes 2 hours 47. So the people of Bolton are hardly put out, should they want to visit Tower Bridge.

 

[John R]

But what is the demand from Bolton direct to London? There may be places much closer to the capital that although smaller would have greater demand because of their proximity to it.

 

[BrianW]

Bolton is the most poulated town/city (277,000) in England without a direct train link

What are your thoughts?

East Lancs is poorly 'connected' to London; but then why would one wish to visit London, or indeed amywhre 'down south'?

 

[Acfb]

I guess somewhere like Shrewsbury perhaps seeing as the direct connection has been recently withdrawn although there are efficient connections at Crewe/Wolverhampton/Birmingham with a journey time of just over 2.5 hours if things run to time.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I guess somewhere like Shrewsbury perhaps seeing as the direct connection has been recently withdrawn although there are efficient connections at Crewe/Wolverhampton/Birmingham with a journey time of just over 2.5 hours if things run to time.

I wish people would give Shrewsbury a rest. If there were either the demand or the paths, then a Shrewsbury to London service wouldn't have failed three times.

 

[A S Leib]

In terms of places which would have the most demand, maybe places like Henley, Marlow or Mortimer / Bramley? Places in the southeast without London links already at least (almost) always have frequent connections already though.

 

[AlterEgo]

Dunstable, possibly.

 

[godfreycomplex]

East Lancs is poorly 'connected' to London; but then why would one wish to visit London, or indeed amywhre 'down south'?

I grant you that East Lancs is quite staggeringly poorly connected with just about everywhere for somewhere of its size and cultural importance (my answer to the question would probably be Blackburn, Accrington & Burnley), but London is one of the cultural and educational hubs of the whole of Europe, so people are going to want to go to it.

Also the South (particularly outside the London commuter belt) is full of a rich heritage and fabric, with a life and spirit all its own, which it’s just as wrong to lazily erase as it is for anywhere else

 

[brad465]

Scarborough? Pop. over 60,000 and the station has nearly a million annual passengers. Maybe do-able with some extensions to LNER's York terminators.

 

[KNN]

I wish people would give Shrewsbury a rest. If there were either the demand or the paths, then a Shrewsbury to London service wouldn't have failed three times.

A more reliable and quicker service to Birmingham would be more useful, I'd think.

 

[A S Leib]

Newmarket and Bury St. Edmunds? They're sizable towns within reasonable commutable distance, including compared to Lowestoft.

At the moment I'd suspect most people would go via Cambridge to Kings Cross services when that distinction should matter less post-GBR, although I can't see Ely and Kings Lynn having their fast services removed, bimodes being used or Cambridge to Stowmarket being electrified soon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jul 2025 ==

A more reliable and quicker service to Birmingham would be more useful, I'd think.

I'd suspect the list of places which would appreciate better services to their nearest large city more than solely to London would be longer. Evesham, Ludlow and Bedworth (frequency from Coventry aside) as places in biggest need of a direct Birmingham train?

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Bolton is the most poulated town/city (277,000) in England without a direct train link

What are your thoughts?

Virgin did propose extending some Manchester services in marginal time to Bolton when electrification was complete, but they lost the contract soon after. The biggest issue would the unacceptably long dwell time at Platforms 13/14 at Piccadilly loading / unloading Pendolino passengers. The about to be completed electrification to Wigan NW means you could reverse there I suppose, but that is never going to be viable.

 

[billio]

Funny that the marginally quicker journeys from Bolton to London are via Wigan, which include a walk from Wallgate to North Western. (Many services via Piccadilly allow 10 minutes to change platforms. I can run, can you? )
When electric trains run from Bolton into North Western then presumably the times could be better.
To me this illustrates the advantage of a service network rather than a few trains direct to London.

 

[465fan]

Bolton is really close to Manchester which has very good links to London.

Looking at a rough equivalent, Bradford, there is a direct train and it takes 2 hours 47

Your one change from Bolton to London also takes 2 hours 47. So the people of Bolton are hardly put out, should they want to visit Tower Bridge.

Bolton is vastly better-served by its existing services to Manchester, to connect. If anything, the likes of Burnley and Blackburn might have a claim to pain, as they really are stuck out there.

I wish people would give Shrewsbury a rest. If there were either the demand or the paths, then a Shrewsbury to London service wouldn't have failed three times.

Is the correct answer.

In terms of places which would have the most demand, maybe places like Henley, Marlow or Mortimer / Bramley? Places in the southeast without London links already at least (almost) always have frequent connections already though.

So much connectivity on all of those places, mind. You're not going to get a Mortimer / Bramley to London service that's much better than just changing at Reading. As for Henley, the branch service might be a bit crap, but the connections at Twyford now to both a 'fast' London 387, and the Crossrail, is absolutely fine.

Scarborough? Pop. over 60,000 and the station has nearly a million annual passengers. Maybe do-able with some extensions to LNER's York terminators.

No. Please no. Just run a reliable, half-hourly service to York. It would do the world of good.

Newmarket and Bury St. Edmunds? They're sizable towns within reasonable commutable distance, including compared to Lowestoft.

At the moment I'd suspect most people would go via Cambridge to Kings Cross services when that distinction should matter less post-GBR, although I can't see Ely and Kings Lynn having their fast services removed, bimodes being used or Cambridge to Stowmarket being electrified soon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jul 2025 ==


I'd suspect the list of places which would appreciate better services to their nearest large city more than solely to London would be longer. Evesham, Ludlow and Bedworth (frequency from Coventry aside) as places in biggest need of a direct Birmingham train?

Newmarket and Bury to Cambridge, if you really wanted a better service, should just have a better service to Cambridge itself. You can't, however, justify extending London trains without wires, and when the lovely 12 car 379s coming from Kings Cross now would probably have 2/3 coaches of people on them beyond Cambridge for that.

 

[Magdalia]

Bolton is the most poulated town/city (277,000) in England without a direct train link

What are your thoughts?

What this discussion demonstrates is that, for most places that don't have a direct service to London, getting a direct service to London isn't the top priority. The top priority is the service to the nearest big city.

Newmarket and Bury St. Edmunds? They're sizable towns within reasonable commutable distance, including compared to Lowestoft.

I am old enough to remember the daily Ipswich-Bury St Edmunds-Liverpool Street and Lowestoft-Ipswich-Liverpool Street direct loco hauled trains that ran until the early 1980s, also the Peterborough-Bury St Edmunds-Liverpool Street and Lowestoft-Ipswich-Liverpool Street direct services operated by Anglia Railways in the early days of privatisation.

The loco hauled trains operated in the days when Ipswich-Lowestoft was all double track and the only single track section on the Cambridge-Ipswich line was at Newmarket. The DMU service operated with a lot more single track sections, with an impact on timekeeping, both importing delays from the single track sections onto the main lines and vice versa. A similar thing could be attempted now with class 755s but I doubt that it would be tried on a railway that is much more congested now than it was 20-30 years ago.

Newmarket and Bury to Cambridge, if you really wanted a better service, should just have a better service to Cambridge itself.

This is absolutely right: about half of all entrances and exits at Newmarket are to/from Cambridge, and at Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge is also the most important destination.

 

[A S Leib]

Sudbury? There's the same issues with a lack of electrification and likely overprovision of capacity on the branch line (and, unlike Bury St. Edmunds, it would be an additional service rather than joining existing ones, there'd be the issue of reversing, and I can't see anywhere having London services reduced in order to fit Sudbury ones in).

Liverpool Street, Stratford and Chelmsford make up 75,000 annual journeys from Sudbury against 13,000 for Marks Tey and 18,000 for Colchester, but an alternative interpretation is that connections to London are good enough now that the need to change isn't suppressing demand.

 

[d70g]

The West of Scotland down the GSWL springs to mind.

 

[Matt P]

I've never really understood the obsession with the idea that every large town/small to medium sized city needs or should have a direct rail link to London. The UK economy is too London centric as it is. As is our political system, despite devolution to Scotland, Wales and, albeit in a more limited form, to parts of England.

Good connectivity to London from other parts of the UK is undeniably important, but improving connectivity within city regions, wider regions and between them is just as important. Improving links between our major metropolitan areas and core cities and also adding to the list of places with light rail and metro systems would be more of a priority for me than adding cities to the list with a London service.

 

[dk1]

Bury St Edmunds did have a 2-hourly service to Liverpool St from 2004-2011.

Sudbury is restricted by not only the fact the junction faces North but also extra traffic across the foot crossing is not permitted hence why the ridiculous 2016 franchise commitment of through Colchester Town services was never going to happen.

 

[NCT]

This is like saying Croydon doesn't have a direct link to Manchester ...

 

[Zomboid]

What station has the most London traffic but no London trains?
Probably something like Bromley North, I'd expect.

 

[frankmoh]

What station has the most London traffic but no London trains?
Probably something like Bromley North, I'd expect.

I was on the Bromley North line twice last week, one at peak and one off peak.

The peak train at 8 in the morning was pretty much full, and then there was a big traffic jam on that footbridge trying to get on the northbound trains.

2pm off peak however, about 10 people on that train including me. I see why they haven't run a direct service since 1990.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

I've never really understood the obsession with the idea that every large town/small to medium sized city needs or should have a direct rail link to London. The UK economy is too London centric as it is. As is our political system, despite devolution to Scotland, Wales and, albeit in a more limited form, to parts of England.

Good connectivity to London from other parts of the UK is undeniably important, but improving connectivity within city regions, wider regions and between them is just as important. Improving links between our major metropolitan areas and core cities and also adding to the list of places with light rail and metro systems would be more of a priority for me than adding cities to the list with a London service.

Indeed. I would go further and say that connectivity to the nearest large city is not 'just as' important - it's considerably more important. There is a tendency for many to assume that people from everywhere want to go to London fairly regularly. In fact, many in the north don't - they are far more likely to visit or commute to the regional centres - Manchester and Leeds primarily, but also Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle in the areas around those cities.

 

[Zomboid]

Or is off peak demand suppressed by the lack of a service?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jul 2025 ==

As for Bolton, maybe there's a reason why no open access chancers have tried it. It'd be an ideal place to siphon off Manchester to London traffic by running via some convoluted and slow route. (Victoria - Denton - Stockport, for example)

 

[A S Leib]

What station has the most London traffic but no London trains?
Probably something like Bromley North, I'd expect.

From a quick look from some termini (annual thousands):

Euston: Shrewsbury (52)
St. Pancras: Rye (72)
Kings Cross: Grimsby Town (19)
Marylebone: Stratford-upon-Avon (29)
Paddington: Henley (117)

Edit:
Cannon Street: Bromley North (12)
Charing Cross: Sundridge Park (22)
Victoria: Seaford (63)

 

[William3000]

Bolton is vastly better-served by its existing services to Manchester, to connect. If anything, the likes of Burnley and Blackburn might have a claim to pain, as they really are stuck out there.



Is the correct answer.



So much connectivity on all of those places, mind. You're not going to get a Mortimer / Bramley to London service that's much better than just changing at Reading. As for Henley, the branch service might be a bit crap, but the connections at Twyford now to both a 'fast' London 387, and the Crossrail, is absolutely fine.



No. Please no. Just run a reliable, half-hourly service to York. It would do the world of good.



Newmarket and Bury to Cambridge, if you really wanted a better service, should just have a better service to Cambridge itself. You can't, however, justify extending London trains without wires, and when the lovely 12 car 379s coming from Kings Cross now would probably have 2/3 coaches of people on them beyond Cambridge for that.

The 12 car trains are packed going north to Ely! Huge numbers commute from Ely to Cambridge by rail. I think it’s as many as 42% of all journeys.

 

[A S Leib]

The 12 car trains are packed going north to Ely! Huge numbers commute from Ely to Cambridge by rail. I think it’s as many as 42% of all journeys

I think they meant with speculative new services northeast towards Bury St. Edmunds.

 

[stadler]

The stations on the North Downs Line must be contenders. The stations are mostly small villages but they have always had a large amount of London commuters. Currently they have to change at Dorking or Guildford or Redhill so a direct service could be very useful.

 

[The Mercian]

I've never really understood the obsession with the idea that every large town/small to medium sized city needs or should have a direct rail link to London. The UK economy is too London centric as it is. As is our political system, despite devolution to Scotland, Wales and, albeit in a more limited form, to parts of England.

Good connectivity to London from other parts of the UK is undeniably important, but improving connectivity within city regions, wider regions and between them is just as important. Improving links between our major metropolitan areas and core cities and also adding to the list of places with light rail and metro systems would be more of a priority for me than adding cities to the list with a London service.

Is the correct answer.