Linking largest towns in each county without a train station?

[A S Leib]

Of the current largest towns in each county without a (non-preserved railway) train, tram or metro station, which would be the easiest or likeliest to be (re)connected? Of course, they're of rather different sizes; this isn't meant as a list of places I think should be of the highest priority of rail connection. I think the most populous railway-less settlements in each county are

• Bedfordshire – Shefford, if treating Dunstable and Houghton Regis as part of Luton
• Berkshire – Burghfield Common
• Buckinghamshire – Buckingham
• Cambridgeshire – Wisbech
• Cheshire – Middlewich
• Cornwall – Bodmin or Helston, depending on counting Bodmin Parkway
• Cumbria – Cockermouth
• Derbyshire – Swadlincote
• Devon – Tiverton
• Dorset – Ferndown
• County Durham – Consett
• East Riding of Yorkshire – Anlaby
• East Sussex – Hailsham
• Essex – Canvey Island
• Gloucestershire – Kingswood
• Greater Manchester – Leigh
• Hampshire – Gosport
• Herefordshire – Ross-on-Wye
• Hertfordshire – Hoddesdon and Abbots Langley are close enough to Broxbourne and Kings Langley stations that I'd say London Colney's the largest without its own station
• Isle of Wight – Newport
• Kent – Hythe
• Lancashire – Fulwood (or Skelmersdale if counting Fulwood as part of Preston)
• Leicestershire – Oadby (or Coalville if counting Oadby as part of Leicester)
• Lincolnshire – Louth
• Merseyside – Haydock
• Norfolk – Gorleston-on-Sea
• Northamptonshire – Rushden
• Northumberland – Blyth, Ashington and Bedlington until the Northumberland line was / will be fully reopened, Ponteland after
• North Yorkshire – Eston (or Ingleby Barwick if counting Eston as part of Middlesbrough)
• Nottinghamshire – depending on how the extent of Nottingham itself counts, West Bridgford or Arnold (counting Langley Mill for Eastwood and Toton Lane for Stapleford); both look like Nottingham suburbs to me but I'm not sure what the largest otherwise is
• Oxfordshire – Abingdon
• Rutland – Uppingham
• Shropshire – Oswestry
• Somerset – discounting Portishead as under construction, Clevedon
• South Yorkshire – Dinnington
• Staffordshire – Newcastle-under-Lyme
• Suffolk – Haverhill
• Surrey – Cranleigh
• Tyne and Wear – Washington
• Warwickshire – Polesworth as a semi-joking answer, Southam if Polesworth and Whitnash (close to Leamington Spa) are discounted
• West Midlands – I think Dudley or Halesowen depending on the Brierley Hill Metro extension
• West Sussex – Selsey
• West Yorkshire – Holmfirth or Ossett
• Wiltshire – Devizes
• Worcestershire – Stourport-on-Severn

(I know I haven't included Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish counties, but the list's long enough as it is)

There's a lot I'm not sure on, but I'd say

• Ferndown, Anlaby, Fulwood, Oadby, Eston and Arnold would be best-served by trams (or, being even more ambitious, metros)
• The Tyne and Wear Metro's probably the best eventual solution for Ponteland and Washington, but maintaining the existing network needs to be the priority
• A station at Napsbury seems more realistic than rerouting the Midland Main Line through London Colney
• Shefford's too small to justify a station, especially as it isn't really near existing lines; Luton has Rainham services terminating there already but I doubt an extension to Dunstable / Houghton Regis would be particularly cheap
• Buckingham, Hailsham, Consett, Cranleigh, Cockermouth, Newport and Tiverton are too far from existing lines to easily serve as well
• Haydock looks like it's around a mile from the Liverpool – Wigan line, but around fifty minutes by foot, so new roads would probably be needed
• A tunnel for Gosport might be prohibitively expensive, I don't think a bridge is viable (ship height?), and I don't know if there'd be enough demand for Fareham and Southampton to make it worth building a station when the quickest way to Portsmouth and London would probably still be with the ferry

 

[The Planner]

Would disagree that Buckingham is, it had its link to E-W in its day.

 

[Merle Haggard]

The distortion in only taking the 'largest town in each county without a station' is that it doesn't allow for the other than the largest unserved town in one badly served county being more important than the largest in a well-served one. For example, you quote Shefford - population 7300 - as the largest in Beds, when in neighgborouring Northamptonshire I can think of Daventry (28,000) Brackley (17,000) and then in descending order of population Desborough,Towcester, Burton Latimer, Rounds, Higham Ferrers, Rothwell and finally, about the same size as Sheffiord, Thrapston..

 

[A S Leib]

The distortion in only taking the 'largest town in each county without a station' is that it doesn't allow for the other than the largest unserved town in one badly served county being more important than the largest in a well-served one. For example, you quote Shefford - population 7300 - as the largest in Beds, when in neighgborouring Northamptonshire I can think of Daventry (28,000) Brackley (17,000) and then in descending order of population Desborough,Towcester, Burton Latimer, Rounds, Higham Ferrers, Rothwell and finally, about the same size as Sheffiord, Thrapston..

I agree.

Of course, they're of rather different sizes; this isn't meant as a list of places I think should be of the highest priority of rail connection

For Buckingham, I assumed that the postponement / cancellation of the Aylesbury branch meant that attempts to reconnect Buckingham wouldn't go far.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I agree.

Thanks.
However, it does neatly show the far from even way that rail services have been withdrawn. It might also be used to show that having the town's railway station closed is no bar to expansion - Daventry being the best example - rather weakening the economic argument for rail re-opening. Corby also expanded considerably during the period it had no station, rather than because of the recent pre-opening. All the other towns I listed had railway stations until (mostly) the Beeching cuts.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Bideford in North Devon - just a few hundred behind Tiverton at the 2021 Census - is a more likely reinstatement. The trackbed is intact throughout (as the 'Tarka Trail'), wheras the station site in Tiverton has been lost and, of course, there is the Parkway station.

Also in Devon, of course, is Tavistock ...... ducks for cover.

 

[Magdalia]

Wisbech and Haverhill massively depend on the deliberations of the Cambridge Growth Company and the New Towns Taskforce, plus what happens with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority. Who will be mayor after the 2025 election and how much they want to use the devolution agenda to push Great British Railways as part of their transport strategy? Both are feasible if the political will is there, but both might end up with busways like St Ives, though not guided.

Shefford and Canvey Island effectively already have stations at Arlesey and Benfleet respectively. They aren't much different from Hoddesdon having its station at Broxbourne. Another example of a town where their station is a few miles away is Saffron Walden which has its station at Audley End.

 

[A S Leib]

Shefford and Canvey Island effectively already have stations at Arlesey and Benfleet respectively. They aren't much different from Hoddesdon having its station at Broxbourne. Another example of a town where their station is a few miles away is Saffron Walden which has its station at Audley End.

Although Hoddesdon's close enough to walk to Broxbourne; I doubt anybody commutes from Shefford to Peterborough by walking from there to Arlesey.

 

[Magdalia]

I doubt anybody commutes from Shefford to Peterborough by walking from there to Arlesey.

That sentence ends with Peterborough. Almost nobody commutes to Peterborough from Arlesey.

But plenty commute from Arlesey to to London, mainly St Pancras and Farringdon, and also Hitchin and Stevenage. Where does Arlesey get about 600k entries and exits from without lots of them being people who live in Shefford?

Similarly Benfleet has way over 2 million entries and exits who are mainly people from Canvey Island, and Audley End has about 750k entries and exits who are mainly people from Saffron Walden.

 

[A S Leib]

That sentence ends with Peterborough. Almost nobody commutes to Peterborough from Arlesey.

But plenty commute from Arlesey to to London, mainly St Pancras and Farringdon, and also Hitchin and Stevenage. Where does Arlesey get about 600k entries and exits from without lots of them being people who live in Shefford?

Similarly Benfleet has way over 2 million entries and exits who are mainly people from Canvey Island, and Audley End has about 750k entries and exits who are mainly people from Saffron Walden.

My point was that I was only counting stations as serving a town if it was close enough to walk (~30 minutes by foot).

 

[Magdalia]

My point was that I was only counting stations as serving a town if it was close enough to walk (~30 minutes by foot).

That is an arbitrary constraint that does not reflect how people use the railway.

There are some fairly big cities with only one station, where large parts are more than 30 minutes walk from the station, for example Peterborough and Norwich.

The usage statistics show that the people of Canvey Island, Shefford and Saffron Walden aren't being prevented from using the train just because it would take a bit more than 30 minutes to walk to the nearest station.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Why is Bodmin Parkway a possible consideration in Cornwall, but Tiverton Parkway isn't a possible consideration for Devon?

On the West Yorkshire contenders, it would be lovely if there was any chance at all to reopen the Holmfirth branch, but with the missing viaduct and the (expensive) houses built over the line at Brockholes it's close to impossible. You'd also need to reinstate double track from Brockholes to Huddersfield, or at the very least add an additional loop or two.
The former routes that served Ossett have been obliterated, and weren't exactly useful routes when they did exist. Any reopening would likely have to be a Parkway station in the Healey Mills area.

 

[A S Leib]

That is an arbitrary constraint that does not reflect how people use the railway.

It's much less arbitrary to those of us who are unable to drive.

Why is Bodmin Parkway a possible consideration in Cornwall, but Tiverton Parkway isn't a possible consideration for Devon?

I originally counted preserved railways when making the list then decided not to.

 

[Magdalia]

It's much less arbitrary to those of us who are unable to drive.

I don't drive either, the 30 minute walk constraint is still arbitrary. Most people who don't drive also use buses and/or cycles.

The Canvey-Southend bus service, which stops outside Benfleet station, is 3bph. That's probably a better service than some parts of Peterborough or Norwich have to get to the station.

Saffron Walden and Shefford are smaller, so their buses are not as frequent. But they are in a much better place to use the rail network than, for example, Wisbech or Haverhill.

 

[TheGuy77]

Reinstating the South Yorkshire Joint Railway would link quite a few unconnected towns in South Yorkshire, including Dinnington. I think there was a bid for RYR for this to happen.

 

[Bertie the bus]

I have had associations with Preston for decades and I've never come across anybody who considers Fulwood to be a town. Skem has a larger population anyway.

 

[urban]

A Skelmersdale link was knocked back a few years ago so it's unlikely it'll happen for a while. It does have Upholland station right on its outskirts, but it's very poorly connected to the town. It could be a much more useful station with a Merseyrail extension to Wigan and some shuttle buses.

 

[Some guy]

For Lancashire the main ones would be thornton/cleveleys, fleetwood to Preston

 

[Howardh]

For Lancashire the main ones would be thornton/cleveleys, fleetwood to Preston

...extended to Longridge please! Thinking the sheer amount of new builds could justify the rail or tram returning with a decent P+R.

 

[Some guy]

...extended to Longridge please! Thinking the sheer amount of new builds could justify the rail or tram returning with a decent P+R.

I agree longridge definitely needs a rail link it’s a big enough town to justify it and has a large commuter flow into Preston

 

[Howardh]

I agree longridge definitely needs a rail link it’s a big enough town to justify it and has a large commuter flow into Preston

Think it's relatively easy to do, much of the line and tunnels exist, probably wouldn't run to the old station but terminate still within the town.

 

[Bevan Price]

Of the current largest towns in each county without a (non-preserved railway) train, tram or metro station, which would be the easiest or likeliest to be (re)connected? Of course, they're of rather different sizes; this isn't meant as a list of places I think should be of the highest priority of rail connection. I think the most populous railway-less settlements in each county are



(I know I haven't included Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish counties, but the list's long enough as it is)

There's a lot I'm not sure on, but I'd say

• Ferndown, Anlaby, Fulwood, Oadby, Eston and Arnold would be best-served by trams (or, being even more ambitious, metros)
• The Tyne and Wear Metro's probably the best eventual solution for Ponteland and Washington, but maintaining the existing network needs to be the priority
• A station at Napsbury seems more realistic than rerouting the Midland Main Line through London Colney
• Shefford's too small to justify a station, especially as it isn't really near existing lines; Luton has Rainham services terminating there already but I doubt an extension to Dunstable / Houghton Regis would be particularly cheap
• Buckingham, Hailsham, Consett, Cranleigh, Cockermouth, Newport and Tiverton are too far from existing lines to easily serve as well
• Haydock looks like it's around a mile from the Liverpool – Wigan line, but around fifty minutes by foot, so new roads would probably be needed
• A tunnel for Gosport might be prohibitively expensive, I don't think a bridge is viable (ship height?), and I don't know if there'd be enough demand for Fareham and Southampton to make it worth building a station when the quickest way to Portsmouth and London would probably still be with the ferry

Haydock is a rather linear settlement with no obvious centre. The nearest station is probably Earlestown, which has bus services to/from Haydock

 

[WibbleWobble]

Leigh has probably been talked to death on here about linking into the railway. There's been several ideas including a branch up to somewhere close to the stadium, a "hump" branch off the Chat Moss line to somewhere just south of the A580, and a Parkway-type station at Kenyon Junction (which would still need some sort of link from town).

 

[Mollman]

There are some 'low hanging fruit' such as Middlewich, Washington and Devizes where plans are already in place to reopen stations or build a new parkway station in the latter case. Skelmersdale should have had a new railway but unfortunately the government seemed to forget about the Levelling Up agenda and refused to fund it (yet seemed happy to throw money at Portishead).
Most are much harder given the lack of railways close by.

I would argue that Fulwood and Anlaby don't count. Anlaby is part of the Hull urban area with good bus links to the city centre. For East Yorkshire you are really looking at Market Weighton or Pocklington - both were on the Beverley to York line which unfortunately isn't simple to reinstate given developments in those two towns blocking the original track bed.

 

[Mgameing123]

Would disagree that Buckingham is, it had its link to E-W in its day.

Buckingham could get a branch line from Verne’s Junction or the line could be fully reopened to Banbury.

 

[Ianigsy]

Skelmersdale, Leigh and Horbury & Ossett regularly appear on the relevant Combined Authorities’ wish lists in various forms. I seem to recall Metrolink to Leigh being suggested at one point before the guided busway, probably when Metrolink was seen as the answer to updating the Atherton line.

A Horbury & Ossett station wouldn’t be that difficult to do as the site is there as are the running lines, but would need the use of the line to settle down after the TPE electrification works.

 

[Halifaxlad]

Well a station for Horbury & Osset would be relatively easimy considering it would just require a station on the existing line

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Well a station for Horbury & Osset would be relatively easimy considering it would just require a station on the existing line

How easy it would be depends on where you put it. If it's near the Storrs Hill Lane bridge, your two platforms will be a long way apart and doing that would make any future realignment of the running lines more difficult. You'd maybe get away with an island platform accessed from the Huddersfield Road overbridge in Horbury Bridge, but that site would be more difficult to access from Ossett which is the larger of the two settlements.

IIRC one of the previous proposals was looking at a site near the Horbury Junction Industrial Estate, which would be easier from an operations point of view but not great for access from Horbury town centre. That site would be so far from Ossett that including the town's name in the station would be a bit pointless.

 

[The Planner]

Buckingham could get a branch line from Verne’s Junction or the line could be fully reopened to Banbury.

Too much built on to get to Banbury, you couldnt even get it into Buckingham properly anymore.

 

[Mgameing123]

Too much built on to get to Banbury, you couldnt even get it into Buckingham properly anymore.

There is barely anything standing in the way of Banbury.