Trivia: Short Shuttle Services

[DelW]

The Guildford to Farnham service is just over 20 minutes in length, with three self-contained units providing a half hourly frequency all day Mon-Sat, so although known as ‘Shuttles’ to staff I’m not sure if they entirely count for your purposes due to journey length? But in terms of downtime, each return trip spends 25mins turnaround at Guildford and has 18 minutes between arriving and departing Farnham (via a shunt). So in each unit’s 1.5 hour cycle, it only spends half of that in passenger service.

For a brief period in the early days of SWT, there was a shuttle between Guildford and Haslemere. From memory, it provided the only service at Milford and Witley, and the second train per hour at Godalming and Farncombe (the other being the Portsmouth stopper). I think it only lasted for one or two timetables before reverting to a through Waterloo service.

 

[Merle Haggard]

There was also the 1987-1990 shuttle from Kettering to Corbyn, which was operated by NSE using a Class 108.

It still is a timetabled Corby-Kettering shuttle on Sundays before about 13.00
When the MML has problems south of Kettering (not infrequently) the Corby - StPancras service is abandoned and a Corby - Kettering shuttle of some form is provided.

 

[elltrain3]

2 North West Shuttles I havn't spotted:
- The Llandudo Junction - Llandudno Town workings, refered to as "shuttles" by most staff, despite stopping at Deganwy in the middle, and a fairly short distance (though I think these continue to Manchester Airport after 2 shuttles so debatable if they are are dedicated shuttle services)
- Again along the same lines the Helsby - Ellesmere Port "Parlimentery" Service by Northern, which admitidly stops at Ince & Elton, but for most people it's a "shuttle" between the start and end of the line.

 

[duffield]

2 North West Shuttles I havn't spotted:
- The Llandudo Junction - Llandudno Town workings, refered to as "shuttles" by most staff, despite stopping at Deganwy in the middle, and a fairly short distance (though I think these continue to Manchester Airport after 2 shuttles so debatable if they are are dedicated shuttle services)
- Again along the same lines the Helsby - Ellesmere Port "Parlimentery" Service by Northern, which admitidly stops at Ince & Elton, but for most people it's a "shuttle" between the start and end of the line.

I think a lot of people would consider the local stopper between Nottingham and Leicester (cut back from Grimsby/Lincoln at the timetable change) to be a shuttle, even though it stops at seven intermediate stations! There's nothing inherent in the word shuttle which precludes this, I'd say the main thing is that the units "shuttle" back and forth on the same fixed route all day. However, as for the original question, I would guess the intent of the word "short" would probably not include the 27m39c between Nottingham and Leicester!

 

[Springs Branch]

Newcastle & MetroCentre (3½ miles) have two or three short-distance shuttles between the two in the evenings on Mon - Fri, and hourly through the day on Sundays.

Some of these do interlink with a longer distance service one way or the other, but I expect the short-distance shuttles exist mainly because of a worthwhile market (shopping & leisure at MetroCentre), rather than operational convenience for Northern.