Newhaven

[Cheryl Meow]

I've always been curious; Newhaven.

What is or was the point in having two (or three) stations so close together? And even though Marine is no more, why do they persist with the two stations which are about 350 metres apart?

 

[Gloster]

The Town station served the town, which when the railway was built was almost entirely on the west bank of the Ouse. The Harbour station was to serve the docks and the ferry port, which until quite recently was right down by where the station lay. The terminal platform(s) were to provide capacity for Boat Trains, which would block the Seaford line if they had to use the platforms on it. Boat Trains and ferry services were seen as a prestigious service by the old railway companies and every effort was made to pamper the passengers: no quarter-mile walk for them, even if they came in on a local train rather than a Boat Train.

Closing the Harbour station would be a long, complicated and costly procedure. Although its passenger figures are less than 10% of those of Town, the savings from closure would probably be wiped out many times over by the cost of closure. Closing stations is expensive.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Closing the Harbour station would be a long, complicated and costly procedure. Although its passenger figures are less than 10% of those of Town, the savings from closure would probably be wiped out many times over by the cost of closure. Closing stations is expensive.

Indeed. It certainly took long enough for Newhaven Marine station to be closed, with the farce of it being supposedly "served" for many a year by essentially unusable parliamentary trains.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

And to confuse matters, Town is now the station for the ferry - the vehicle terminal is adjacent and from there foot passengers are bussed onto the ship.
It causes no end of confusion amongst new users - perhaps at the very least Harbour should be renamed - Beach perhaps?

 

[stadler]

Newhaven Harbour should be a priority for closure. It is the most useless pointless station. I have visited it dozens of times and never seen a single other passenger get on or off there. It baffles me that we have all these closed stations that would actually serve people (eg Barlaston and Wedgwood etc) and yet pointless ones like Newhaven Harbour are still open.

Newhaven Harbour serves nothing other than an industrial estate and bus depot. It is located down a non through road and the only way to get anywhere else is to walk up the road to Newhaven Town station where the road starts. So basically the entirety of Newhaven is closer to Newhaven Town station. If you want the ferry port or town centre or any of the housing areas or shops then Newhaven Town is the closest station.

As mentioned above it does not even serve the ferry port. In fact the ferry port is right next to Newhaven Town station. It is about a sixty second walk from the ferry terminal building to Newhaven Town station. If anyone gets off accidentally at Newhaven Harbour station (which i am sure happens a lot) then they would have to walk back up the road to Newhaven Town station and over the level crossing to get to the ferry port.

Newhaven Harbour is only a five minute walk to Newhaven Town station. So even the couple of houses down that road and anyone who works at the industrial estate or bus depot would not really be inconvenienced. It is such a short walk from Newhaven Harbour to Newhaven Town station. They really ought to just go ahead and initiate the closing procedure for Newhaven Harbour as it would save a lot money in the long term.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Newhaven Harbour should be a priority for closure. It is the most useless pointless station...

Must be a lot more "useless pointless" stations on the network than that. Shippea Hill in the middle of nowhere in the Fens, for one, perhaps?

 

[Zomboid]

It certainly doesn't seem to serve much purpose, and perhaps should be in line for a parliamentary train, if not closure.

But, what would be the point? It's not like a special train has to run to serve it, and the turn around time at Seaford is already 8 minutes. Closing it or even slashing the service would be a bunch of negative publicity but wouldn't make anything better.

 

[William3000]

Must be a lot more "useless pointless" stations on the network than that. Shippea Hill in the middle of nowhere in the Fens, for one, perhaps?

Yes Shippea Hill is bonkers. Newhaven Harbour does have 25,000 a year, which equates to about 70 people a day. But I guess the argument there is virtually all of those could use Newhaven Town if they needed to. However given passenger numbers are at that level and it’s on a branch line to Seaford, I can’t see it closing.

 

[Howardh]

Where is it in the league table of heavy rail stations close together, must be in the top 5?