Linking ferry ports by rail (the decline)

[William3000]

Following the recent post regarding linking airports by rail, which seems a desirable and aspirational thing. Indeed, new spurs and lines to large airports like Stansted, Manchester, and Heathrow, as well as light rail/trams to Newcastle, Luton, Birmingham and Edinburgh represent some of the few new railways that have been built post 1990. However for ferry ports the stats show a different story.

In general there seems to have been something of a decline in ferries, no doubt arising from an increase in short hall flights, the channel tunnel etc. Several stations at ferry terminals have closed, Dover Western Docks, Folkestone Harbour (both of which have found new roles), and Newhaven Marine and Weymouth Quay - which haven’t. Stranraer no longer serves its ferry port which as moved along the coast. Some stations like Harwich International remain but with a shadow of the services that used to runs - Harwich International once had intercity trains from London Liverpool Streets as well as long distance boat trains from the North. Portsmouth Harbour survives but principally because it serves a densely built up area of Portsmouth, is the closest station to Gosport, and still has the Isle of Wight ferry - a significant proportion of which are foot passengers. The five cruise terminals at Southampton are spread across a wide area but Southampton Central seems to serve them - it’s within a 15-20 minute walk of most of them or short can ride away.

My question is -is there a role of future for ferry/port stations? And if so will we ever seen any new dedicated facilities built? I suspect the ones that do survive like Holyhead do so because it serves the town as well.

 

[stadler]

Following the recent post regarding linking airports by rail, which seems a desirable and aspirational thing. Indeed, new spurs and lines to large airports like Stansted, Manchester, and Heathrow, as well as light rail/trams to Newcastle, Luton, Birmingham and Edinburgh represent some of the few new railways that have been built post 1990. However for ferry ports the stats show a different story.

In general there seems to have been something of a decline in ferries, no doubt arising from an increase in short hall flights, the channel tunnel etc. Several stations at ferry terminals have closed, Dover Western Docks, Folkestone Harbour (both of which have found new roles), and Newhaven Marine and Weymouth Quay - which haven’t. Stranraer no longer serves its ferry port which as moved along the coast. Some stations like Harwich International remain but with a shadow of the services that used to runs - Harwich International once had intercity trains from London Liverpool Streets as well as long distance boat trains from the North. Portsmouth Harbour survives but principally because it serves a densely built up area of Portsmouth, is the closest station to Gosport, and still has the Isle of Wight ferry - a significant proportion of which are foot passengers. The five cruise terminals at Southampton are spread across a wide area but Southampton Central seems to serve them - it’s within a 15-20 minute walk of most of them or short can ride away.

My question is -is there a role of future for ferry/port stations? And if so will we ever seen any new dedicated facilities built? I suspect the ones that do survive like Holyhead do so because it serves the town as well.

Newhaven Town is still a very convinient ferry port railway station. The foot passenger terminal is located right next to Newhaven Town station. It is about a sixty second walk from the station platforms to the foot passenger terminal. It confuses quite a lot of people because Newhaven Town station is located right next door to the foot passenger terminal and is where you should alight but Newhaven Harbour station is a long walk from the ferry terminal (in fact if you alight there then you have to walk all the way back to Newhaven Town station) despite its name.

Our international ferries have declined massively in the last few decades. So many old ferry routes have been withdrawn compared to what we had a couple of decades ago. I reckon that the cheap budget airlines have likely played a part in that.

I highly doubt any new ferry port railway stations would ever be built. The amount of foot passengers using our ferries nowadays is probably too small to justify the cost. I can not see the train companies or ferry companies wanting to pay for it.

 

[markymark2000]

While I don't think there is a need for more ferry ports to be linked by rail (Railways are expensive to have just for one or two trains per day), but there is certainly FAR more that the railways could do to improve train/ferry journeys by having coaches link between a main station, and trains. Heysham for example, they should just close the branch line and throw on a few buses per day from Lancaster Station to connect with the ferry times. Train times aren't flexible around the ferry times for many reasons, but buses can be flexible around the ferry times, and can easily link to Lancaster station for many onward trains. Added bonus too that if the ferry is delayed, the bus can hold.

Then you look at Newcastle, Liverpool Isle of Man and Birkenhead Stena which all have dedicated bus shuttles, but there is no collaboration with the railways for through ticketing. Birkenhead Stena you can't even find any information on online. Liverpool Isle of Man is only shown because it's registered and so promoted by Merseytravel but otherwise that wouldn't be advertised either. Newcastle isn't too bad advertising wise but they charge £7 single.

The amount of foot passengers using our ferries nowadays is probably too small to justify the cost. I can not see the train companies or ferry companies wanting to pay for it.

How much of that though is due to hostility from ferry companies towards foot passengers? Facilities declining and ports becoming less and less accessible by non bus modes. And the few times bus shuttles are available, ferry companies do their upmost to not promote them or charge through the nose for them (DFDS Newcastle charges £7 single)

 

[fandroid]

Lymington Pier and Ryde Pier Head are both well connected by rail/ferry, even if the latter's rail service is a bit thin (as with the whole of the Island Line).

Oban is a fairly good interchange.

I've never been to Fishguard so don't know how good interchange is there. I think other southwest Wales ports have ferries but I've no idea how good the rail connections are.

Weymouth used to be brilliant (we were on a train connecting with a ferry just once). But no ferries and no tramline any more

There are others where you wonder why the connection seems to never have been better, such as Thurso, where the station is some distance from the sea and the Orkney ferries at Scrabster.

The biggest issue is the demise of passenger ferries. There's another thread (possibly in the International section) listing those that have disappeared. Folkestone has no ferries now and few Dover ferries (from the Eastern Docks) actually allow foot passengers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Dec 2025 ==

How much of that though is due to hostility from ferry passengers towards foot passengers? Facilities declining and ports becoming less and less accessible by non bus modes. And the few times bus shuttles are available, ferry companies do their upmost to not promote them or charge through the nose for them (DFDS Newcastle charges £7 single)

I suspect you mean "ferry companies" not "ferry passengers"

 

[Jaydubya]

Scotland has a fair few stations well integrated for local ferry services such as Gourock, Wemyss Bay, Oban, Mallaig, Ardrossan Harbour. Largs is also really close by to the ferry to Cumbrae.

If riverbus services are also counted then recent stations like Barking Riverside can be thrown into the mix as there is an adjacent pier for Uber boat services.

I think the main issue is the decline of international ferry services and attitude to foot passengers on them.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The other issue is that where rail / ferry links still exist it is often less convenient for foot passengers. Thus at Holyhead, to accommodate bigger ships the inner harbour is no longer used and you have to get a shuttle bus. At the Dublin end you get dumped in the dock area, rather than the more convenient Dún Laoghaire / DART arrangement.

Fishguard is still good but Rosslare is hopeless - the station has been moved and the train timetable is useless.

On Dover to Calais (P & O is the only remaining foot passenger operator) - you have to get to the Eastern Docks and at the Calais end. Ville station is a long and miserable walk away.

 

[cactustwirly]

It's pointless especially with somewhere like Dover. Foot passengers are not the market the ferry companies are interested in. It is freight by and large, the ferries are optimised for truck carrying capacity.
Car traffic is extra profit icing on the cake

I travelled from Dover last week, you could count the car traffic on two hands, but the ferry was rammed full of trucks

 

[markymark2000]

I suspect you mean "ferry companies" not "ferry passengers"

I did indeed. Thank you for spotting that

At the Dublin end you get dumped in the dock area, rather than the more convenient Dún Laoghaire / DART arrangement.

Dublin wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the poor bus links. Dublin Bus random 53 service which doesn't meet most of the ferry times, or having to use the Nolan service which I gather is not always the most reliable but thrives off all of the promotion it's given by the ferry companies.

 

[Mikey C]

A shame DFDS discontinued the ferries from Harwich to Hamburg and Esbjerg, as unlike the shorter cross channel trips, the ferry crossing was effectively like a mini cruise, so offering its own USP over a cheap flight. The Harwich to Hoek service is enjoyable as a foot passenger, but a bit short, whereas I have happy memories from my youth of hitting the dance floor on the Esbjerg crossing

 

[TheGrew]

I think, as others have said, that the foot passenger market is basically dead on most crossings, though I have personally done Harwich-Hook and Hull-Europort. I had specific reasons not to fly (and with the latter, I did fly back). If you don't want to fly but want to reach Western European destinations, there are a number of coaches you can get from Victoria coach station, which either take the ferry or Le Shuttle.

 

[barringtoncem]

Yes it was a shame when DFDS stopped the ferries from Harwich to Esbjerg & Hamburg as i enjoyed the times i went to Esbjerg it was an 18 hour journey time if i am remembering correctly

 

[zwk500]

Portsmouth Harbour survives but principally because it serves a densely built up area of Portsmouth, is the closest station to Gosport, and still has the Isle of Wight ferry - a significant proportion of which are foot passengers.

As it happens I've used Portsmouth Harbour to catch a ferry to France via the bus link. I am fairly sure I was the only one doing so (this was about 15 years ago mind).

My question is -is there a role of future for ferry/port stations? And if so will we ever seen any new dedicated facilities built?

Put simply - no. Boats and trains both depend on big volumes of things to make them economic. Foot passengers on ferries are not a big volume when reckoned against either rail or ferry passenger numbers. Pressure on cost, resources and capacity is so high that devoting any of those three to trains that wouldn't be full isn't going to be sustainable.

Some ports will retain rail services through the expansion of ordinary services (e.g. Newhaven has a half-hourly service to Brighton with changes at Lewes for London). Bus links may be laid on at larger ports, and many existing stations will survive until the Ferry terminal moves away to make more room for road vehicle marshalling space. But ones that do not serve their town well will be prime candidates for closure.

And for what it's worth - this is what the railway is supposed to do. Move with the times, and respond to changing passenger demand. Dedicated port facilities made sense when ferries and liners were the only practicable method of international travel, and the revenue from the ships justified the disruption to ordinary services. However neither of those things are true now.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Fishguard Harbour is something of a museum piece, especially since the reopening of Fishguard & Goodwick station serving the town itself. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but FH gained fame /notority as the only mainline station where smoking was permitted on the platforms, a result of the station being owned by Stenna Line rather than NR.

 

[Severnia333]

The only one I could see possibly being viable is a Southampton QE2 terminal as part of the branch being reopened with Ocean Village and a St Mary's/Northam stations.

 

[fishwomp]

Fishguard is still good but Rosslare is hopeless - the station has been moved and the train timetable is useless.

Ironically Rosslare harbour is operated by Irish Railways... it's part owned by them and Stena - they are still the main shareholder of the Fishguard & Rosslare Railways & Harbours Company.

 

[TheWierdOne]

On Dover to Calais (P & O is the only remaining foot passenger operator) - you have to get to the Eastern Docks and at the Calais end. Ville station is a long and miserable walk away.

Dover is certainly a pain, but Calais has a very handy free shuttle bus (more of a large box on wheels really, it’s actually quite adorable) that runs at convenient times.

 

[billio]

Are Rail/Sail tickets still available? The tickets through Harwich looked a bargain, was it from anywhere in eastern England (Peterborough and further south) to anywhere in the Netherlands. Likewise tickets from Belfast to Cairnryan to a station in the UK. I think we paid £25 for Belfast to York pre-pandemic.

 

[Trainbike46]

Are Rail/Sail tickets still available? The tickets through Harwich looked a bargain, was it from anywhere in eastern England (Peterborough and further south) to anywhere in the Netherlands. Likewise tickets from Belfast to Cairnryan to a station in the UK. I think we paid £25 for Belfast to York pre-pandemic.

SailRail is still available on GA services to the Netherlands (buy from Stena line), and to Belfast via Cairnryan (buy from the railway, only one connection per direction per day, change at Ayr, has a very low quota so book in advance! Sometimes booking online doesn't work, if so try at the most knowledgeable/helpful ticket office near you).

There are also SailRail tickets to Dublin via Holyhead and Rosslare via Fishguard, but there have been issues there caused by the (inability to) cooperate between TfW and the ferry companies (see the Holyhead Sail rail thread).

 

[Magdalia]

Some stations like Harwich International remain but with a shadow of the services that used to runs - Harwich International once had intercity trains from London Liverpool Streets as well as long distance boat trains from the North.

The rail/sea link at Harwich has not disappeared completely.

Although the station has been renamed, it still uses the HPQ code, and the Hoek van Holland sailings show up in Real Time Trains. Various rail locations in the area still have Parkeston in their official names.

And although there are no boat trains in the historic sense the Greater Anglia timetable does pay some reference to the sailing times. All of these are out of pattern trains providing some sort of connection with the Hoek van Holland sailings (arrivals 0630/1945, departures 0900/2300):

1A19/1A33 0703/0842 Harwich Town-Liverpool Street
2W08 0745 Parkeston-Cambridge

2A04 0524 Lowestoft-Parkeston
1A06 0630 Liverpool Street-Harwich Town

1A97 2045 Parkeston-Liverpool Street
2D98 2147 Parkeston-Lowestoft

2A48 1948 Cambridge-Parkeston
1A94/1A98 1936/2036 Liverpool Street-Parkeston

The Lowestoft/Cambridge trains I think are the only services via the Manningtree North curve and still run at times to connect with the sailings. The Cambridge trains are the last remnants of the North Country Continental.

But usage is very low. The biggest station to station flow at Parkeston is with Colchester at 14705 one way journeys. Liverpool Street is 10832 and Stratford 2480. The Cambridge figure is 521 despite having the through train.

 

[MikeFromLFE]

I've used the HPQ <> Cambridge 'boat train' a few times and you are right, the usage is very low. On the last crossing we went from HPQ to Stratford, again there were not many passengers getting on at Harwich.

 

[Trainbike46]

But usage is very low. The biggest station to station flow at Parkeston is with Colchester at 14705 one way journeys. Liverpool Street is 10832 and Stratford 2480. The Cambridge figure is 521 despite having the through train.

Are Harwich SailRail tickets actually included in these statistics?

The tickets are not sold through the normal rail ticket sellers, but by stena line. I just did a dummy booking, and I was not asked to specify what Greater Anglia station I would be travelling from, I only had to select a SailRail ticket. This does suggest that it is fairly likely that the SailRail tickets will be missing from the usage statistics.

 

[berneyarms]

The other issue is that where rail / ferry links still exist it is often less convenient for foot passengers. Thus at Holyhead, to accommodate bigger ships the inner harbour is no longer used and you have to get a shuttle bus. At the Dublin end you get dumped in the dock area, rather than the more convenient Dún Laoghaire / DART arrangement.

Fishguard is still good but Rosslare is hopeless - the station has been moved and the train timetable is useless.

Dún Laoghaire was not a suitable port for the levels of freight traffic that use the ferries. It had to move to Dublin Port.

As far as Rosslare is concerned, the ferry company changed the timetables unilaterally and broke all of the rail connections. The trains on the Dublin-Rosslare line are timed to facilitate local traffic along the east coast of Ireland, which is far greater than the handful of foot passengers that might use the ferry.

 

[cactustwirly]

Dún Laoghaire was not a suitable port for the levels of freight traffic that use the ferries. It had to move to Dublin Port.

As far as Rosslare is concerned, the ferry company changed the timetables unilaterally and broke all of the rail connections. The trains on the Dublin-Rosslare line are timed to facilitate local traffic along the east coast of Ireland, which is far greater than the handful of foot passengers that might use the ferry.

Stena broke the connections to facilitate the freight, which is what makes them the money

 

[Trainbike46]

Dún Laoghaire was not a suitable port for the levels of freight traffic that use the ferries. It had to move to Dublin Port.

As far as Rosslare is concerned, the ferry company changed the timetables unilaterally and broke all of the rail connections. The trains on the Dublin-Rosslare line are timed to facilitate local traffic along the east coast of Ireland, which is far greater than the handful of foot passengers that might use the ferry.

Really though, the rail service should be hourly to Rosslare, and then the connections would work regardless of what time the ferries run

 

[berneyarms]

Really though, the rail service should be hourly to Rosslare, and then the connections would work regardless of what time the ferries run

For a start there isn’t sufficient rolling stock or drivers to do that, and secondly the infrastructure won’t support it without significant investment.

It’s not going to happen anytime soon.

 

[flitwickbeds]

Honourable mention to Heysham Harbour with its one train per day actually connecting to (I think?) the only daytime ferry to run from the port.

 

[Mikey C]

With the overnight services from out of Harwich, it's not as if most people just want to arrive "early enough" to get through check in etc, like you would do on Eurostar. If you have a cabin, as the crossing is quite short, many people will want to arrive as early as possible to make the most of it, have a meal etc

 

[Trainbike46]

For a start there isn’t sufficient rolling stock or drivers to do that, and secondly the infrastructure won’t support it without significant investment.

It’s not going to happen anytime soon.

An entirely fair point, and I should have clarified that should be a long term aspiration, not an "introduce at the next timetable change"

 

[AlastairFraser]

My question is -is there a role of future for ferry/port stations? And if so will we ever seen any new dedicated facilities built? I suspect the ones that do survive like Holyhead do so because it serves the town as well.

I think there is in a few isolated situations.
You've mentioned Holyhead, and others have mentioned the Scottish domestic network with decent integration between ferry and train.

I do see Cairnryan supporting a short rail spur and station if ferry economics for foot passengers changes in future (e.g. electric ships make energy costs much lower + crossings slightly faster and foot passenger travel becomes much more viable, plus railfreight becomes more economical with the rise in HGV based logistics costs).
It would be interesting to see if the Port Road could reopen initially as a freight-only line in that scenario, as the fastest rail route from southern England to NI.

Stranraer could be served by a shuttle bus from an interchange station nearby (future transport innovations will assist here too, with the advent of autonomous shuttles to transfer passengers cheaply and rapidly on demand).

 

[fishwomp]

I do see Cairnryan supporting a short rail spur and station if ferry economics for foot passengers changes in future .(e.g. electric ships make energy costs much lower + [,,]

Lower energy cost via electric isn't remotely likely for next few decades, by which time we might as well think of other futuristic travel options - why build a rail link when we can use flying bicycles to the port?

crossings slightly faster and foot passenger travel becomes much more viable, plus railfreight becomes more economical with the rise in HGV based logistics costs).
[,,]

The only thing that IMHO will help is a change in the economies of the adjacent areas. Holyhead to Dublin benefits from proximity of people and businesses at one or both ends of the trip (in spite of the awkward connection of Dublin port).

If you live anywhere like Bangor, Caernarfon, Holyhead then trekking to Manchester or Liverpool for a flight to Dublin is likely bonkers. However each of those places is small.. but if Bangor was larger and thriving but yet too small for an airport, then users would be far higher.

Same for Stranraer - the problem is there is nowhere big where flying isn't a more sensible foot option. Same for Pembrokeshire and Rosslare (both ends sparse).

New towns or vast expansion of the existing ones and their fortunes is needed

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Dec 2025 ==

I'd also add - there are other things that could play to improve the fortunes of rail here: electric cars. I know we're talking foot passengers in this thread, but ..

Plenty of people still take cars across the Irish sea - often filled with all the paraphernalia of infants that make flying hard work or other home comforts and pets.

Electric cars take a long time to charge - a motorail service with pantographs to recharge the cars could be interesting due to the journey time savings (and long drives are not actually fun), perhaps it'd also work with a battery bank in a GUV or on a container flat.

Strategic pick up places to aim for like ..
* the M4/M5 intersection (say actually Llanwern or Severn Tunnel Jct) would currently get 30 mins of charge .. but 90 mins once Swansea gets the wires.
* Warrington / M6/M62 - Newton-le-Willows - hardly any time under wires for Holyhead, but 2.5-3 hours ish for Stranraer.
* M25 Watford Gap for Holyhead and Stranraer.
* J12 Reading for Fishguard