basically a lot of people would use a service if it were provided. We saw this at Hull where usage leapt after a regular service was introduced rather than a once daily service. As we are so often told, 50% of people won't use the train if it means changing, even locally. We see this with other 'branch' services e.g. Blackpool on the WCML, Liverpool (change at Wigan/Preston/Crewe) etc. This is the 'railheads' idea beeching proposed, which as we know is incorrect. The public are inherently irrational, but faced with a 20 minute ride into Leeds (on a pacer for most who go through interchange) or a drive, they'll drive.
Certainly for the OA service via Penistone, there are no services (or the near changes) for Huddersfield, Halifax, Penistone or Barnsley to London. This service could be EMT rather than OA, running as the second hourly sheffield service, on top of a London-Leicester-Derby-Chesterfield run.
The reason Bradford gets two routes is the nature of the stations. Forster Square sends you an entirely different route to London, down an entirely different main line. The same as New Street & Moor Street. Personally I'm also in favour of MML Electrification through to Leeds with an hourly service, which could run alternately with the Bradford diesel service.
There are other routes Bradford could be better served on too. I'm also in favour of reversing the Leeds-Morecambe and Leeds-Carlisle services into Forster Square to give better connections to the North, as well as a 'fast' hourly caldvervale service (Hull-Southport) giving the city connections either side of Manchester and Leeds (Calling pattern would be Brough, Selby, Garforth, Leeds, Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Todmorden, Rochdale, Manchester Victoria, Salford Central, Salford Crescent, Bolton, Wigan Wallgate, Southport)-running time 3hr15min end to end, giving Bradford a 1hr20min service to hull, and a similar service to Bolton & Wigan
I don't agree that Hull and Bradford are comparable situations. Hull is at one end of a long, effectively branch, line with an infrequent service in comparison with Bradford's short distance and high frequency. A through Hull > Kings X train can gain benefit between Hull and Doncaster by being faster than the local trains and not stopping so frequently. There is no time benefit on the short and relatively station-free route between Leeds and Bradford, and nobody is going to omit the stop at Shipley, where at least half of the Bradford traffic originates (well sited for the north of the city, large car park etc). Bradford effectively has a turn-up-and-go service for open ticket holders, whereas even with Hull Trains, Hull still only has a handful of attractive services. Up until about 5 years ago, Bradford had 4 direct GNER services to Kings Cross, all of which were poorly used and all but the early morning one withdrawn. This remaining one is presumably funded by Bradford Council, which, in the absence of a proper service, I (as a council tax payer) would prefer them not to waste money on. Also, Bradford > Kings X trains require a reversal at Leeds, which given the frequency of services between the two cities, destroys any time saving of a through train. Indeed, Men Of Steel can leave Shipley 8 minutes
after the Bradford > Kings X service has called and still have a fighting chance of joining it at Leeds! This feature of lengthy turnarounds at Leeds is probably unavoidable even in a more frequent service scenario: trying to merge the inherent unreliability of a long-distance working into a wholly self-contained part of the local network could cause chaos at the complex and intensively worked set of junctions at Shipley if there wasn't the safety valve of 10 or so minutes layover at Leeds to ensure punctual departure from there to Forster Square.
Only one train in four from Bradford Interchange to Leeds is ever a pacer (the one from Huddersfield), and even this service is often worked by a 158. The Railheads idea is
not incorrect, which you seem to take as some sort of axiom. The notion that people will catch a train to a railhead is not 100% correct, maybe, but put in the car parking at the railhead and people will drive to it. In West Yorkshire we see this in action in the disproportionately heavy use of Wakefield Westgate, far higher than a small and relatively unprosperous city like Wakefield could be expected to generate. Indeed, I have colleagues who live in Bradford who find it preferable to drive to Wakefield rather than mess about with trying to get on the through train, or get to Interchange/Forster Square (no parking) and then change at Leeds. Or even to drive to Leeds where, like everything else in that city, the parking is ludicrously expensive. This is the modern reality of long distance train travel: that railheads and 'core routes' very much exist, but that local rail services aren't the only feeder option.
However, I don't disagree that Bradford would benefit from being properly integrated into the Trans-Pennine network. Let's concentrate on this, rather than on some status symbol direct service to London.
So far as sending Leeds > Carlisle/Morecambe trains into Forster Square is concerned, I'd be against this as the time penalty would be 15 minutes on an already slow journey. There are 6 trains an hour from Shipley to Forster Square, which ensures short and reliable connections. Shipley is the de facto hub of Bradford's railway services for a large part of the city, and many people use it that way, rather like people in Kendal using Oxenholme as their main station. If you renamed it 'Bradford North' maybe the issue would disappear!
I'd like to see a two hourly frequency Leeds > Glasgow service, operated by TPE using high quality DMU stock, and calling only at Shipley (for Bradford), Keighley, Skipton, Carlisle, Lockerbie and Motherwell. This would provide a quality service from West Yorkshire to South West Scotland, as well as a decent, basic interval service for Lockerbie. Overlaid with this would be a two hourly Leeds > Carlisle local service (semi-fast to Settle). A single set can make a train every 3 hours between Skipton and Lancaster, so this seems a good use for a 2-car Pacer, providing a more frequent service on that line (which could then be singled between Carnforth and Settle Junction, with a locked out emergency loop at Bentham, as the line would be one engine in steam), albeit at the cost of changing at Skipton onto the 333s every time (good cross-platform connections could surely be provided).
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