I think
for concept). If a through station costs vastly more than a stub terminus, destroys major tracts of the city centre, disrupts rail or other transport significantly during construction, or has to be moved miles out of the centre to avoid all these or even fit physically at all, then the mitigated slight disadvantages of the stub terminal must offer a better BCR and a better transport facility from a user point of view. Yeah great that huge new station on the outskirts is perfectly honed for operational efficiency. Shame it's Sunday evening and the bus going there is only once an hour, if it turns up. It's sad Andy Burnham became so fixated on the underground through station idea for Manchester. Yes that would be 'perfect' but the much cheaper and more easily constructed terminal with the flyover and modern train operations could be 'good enough'. Such a reversal point en route is also a perfect place for splitting and joining units, so for instance at Manchester, an incoming full-length HS2 train from London might spawn a half portion at the back reversing to Huddersfield, Halifax and Bradford. Going back to Bradford, at Interchange the throat junction form and signalling has been enhanced recently, but I can't see there's space for a flyover as proposed at Manchester. The service is never likely to be as intense at Bradford as envisaged for Piccadilly though, so the conflicts could and are being managed. There is also space around Interchange for additional terminal platforms if desired. The station might benefit from some significant pedestrian access and facility improvements, maybe a wide new landscaped walkway through the car parks next to the courts building towards the shopping center. I'm saying Interchange is good enough for any kind of service proposed unless they actually routed the new NPR mainline through Bradford city centre which I think is highly unlikely. The idea to move calls by regional trains out of the city centre to St James strikes me as a mistake, if implemented, almost as monumental as Beograd Centar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrade_Centre_railway_station.
I think people are getting obsessed with over-exaggerated disadvantages of terminal stations through which some service routes have to reverse partway along a journey. Yes, a through station has some advantages over that, but in the age of rolling stock with cabs at both ends and no need to attach or detach motive power, reversals can be accomplished very quickly, especially if there's a relief driver waiting at the outer end of the train to take over, and (importantly) the trains are designed and built to be able to quickly and reliably hand over cab control without complete shutdown and restart etc. Throat junction conflict can be mitigated dramatically by means of a flyover as proposed for the surface dead-end terminal proposed for HS2/NPR (see
