Linking largest towns in each county without a train station?

[geoffk]

Gloucestershire - Kingswood is really part of the Greater Bristol urban area (I may need my tin hat on) so I would suggest Cirencester.

 

[The Planner]

There is barely anything standing in the way of Banbury.

Just the M40.

 

[BazingaTribe]

Burghfield Common has good links to Reading by bus. The railway line bypasses it, and Mortimer station is also in the middle of nowhere, but unless you're going to extend the Reading to Basingstoke or Reading to Newbury line out in a lot of weird directions for one stop (like the hypotenuse of a triangle), it's a bit awkward. Good luck facing down the torches and pitchforks of the parish council planning bodies to build a branch line akin to the Aldwych spur on the Tube -- my parents live in that area and so I know what happens when the merest hint of construction work gets raised...

Personally (and for admittedly selfish reasons involving the bus link to and from the Swallowfield area) I'd have moved Reading Green Park to Grazeley and integrated it with the Mereoak Park and Ride, but the planners evidently sited it for the convenience of the new build housing around the IDR and the Madejski stadium and had to stick it out on the line where those developments intersected with the existing line, which makes it fairly difficult to connect up with other local through services. The line has been there since the 1850s at least and changing the route to tap into Burghfield Common would be a lot of hassle for not much improvement.

As I said in the Reading trams thread a month or two ago, improving public transport around that area involves buses rather than light or heavy rail. Laying more track just for the sake of a rail link is not going to be a practical solution.

 

[geoffk]

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.

Elland is bigger than Holmfirth but is presumably not on the list as a new station is planned (and was supposed to open in 2000 at the same time as Brighouse!)

 

[Narrowgauge725]

I would say for Northumberland you have to add Alnwick although the track bed is being used by the preserved railway it doesn’t yet reach the mainline.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Elland is bigger than Holmfirth but is presumably not on the list as a new station is planned (and was supposed to open in 2000 at the same time as Brighouse!)

The plans being in place is probably why the OP omitted Elland. As a location it has a number of advantages over Holmfirth, being much closer to the motorway network (albeit via the awkward Ainley Top junction) and not being blocked off by great big hills on two sides!
Having an extant railway nearby helps too, no doubt.

 

[deltic08]

I would like to nominate the city of Ripon in North Yorkshire and Wetherby in West Yorkshire. Both were connected to each other until 1964 when the (Leeds)Cross Gates-Wetherby- Harrogate line was closed. Wetherby was only 4,000 population in 1964 but the population has mushroomed since including the villages of Bardsey, Collingham, Thorner and Scholes that previously had stations on the route. Greater Wetherby population is now 28,000. East Leeds new town of 40,000 inhabitants is being built either side of the disused trackbed obliterating it without future proofing it for future use using buses instead of trains for commuters into/out of an already gridlocked Leeds city centre in the peaks. A direct rail service would more easily shift upwards of 10,000 commuters in the two hour peaks than buses and in less than half the time right into the middle of the city.
It takes over an hour to drive 9 miles from Wetherby to Harrogate in the peaks as the A661 is so congested with commuters.
Ripon was only 6,000 population in 1967 when the railway closed but with 2500 houses in the planning pipeline is estimated to be 25,000 by 2030. Harrogate and Leeds are the employment centres for 68% of out of Ripon commuters causing worse congestion on the very inadequate A61 into Harrogate than the A661.
Harrogate is the largest town in North Yorkshire at 91,000 and used to be connected directly by rail with the County Town of Northallerton via Ripon until closure in 1967. If the line was still open, Harrogate would only be 10 minutes from Ripon and 30 minutes from Northallerton but is now twice the distance from Northallerton via York and a change of trains there taking 75 minutes. It was longer when there was only 1 tph between Harrogate and York and passengers now pay for the privilege of double the distance.
There are 1.3 million visitors per annum to Ripon and they all have to visit by road. A study in 2005 showed at least 8% would use rail if the line was reopened.