Yes. And what is conspicuous at Peterborough is the relative level of demand for GTR and LNER.
My thinking is that with no service, people will drive or not travel. With a service, they might travel and choose not to drive. But without a service or a survey (that we can specifically point to) we can't say there's no demand.
But we can look at existing demand for travel, which will indicate likely future demand.
I completely agree. Also local journeys between stations like Grantham, Newark and Retford will mostly be journeys where people are returning the same day. Newark is my closest station on the ECML but I very rarely use it. For local journeys to Retford and Grantham, or even as far as Doncaster and Peterborough, using my car is far more convenient. Driving to Newark Northgate and paying the high parking charge and then the high train fares for ECML local journeys doesn‘t make sense, when I can remain in my car and use the A1. Newark has a population of just over 30,000, but for a town of that size bus services into it from the surrounding area are very poor, so people won’t even use a bus to get to the station as part of a journey.
I recall the WAGN proposal was to extend to Doncaster, must have been around 99/2000 time
One simple way of estimating demand is the gravity model, which predicts the number of passengers between A and B being proportional to the product of A and B's populations divided by the square of the distance or travel time between them. This reflects that the reason someone at A wants to go to B will depend on how likely there is someone in B they want to visit, and vice versa, and it will be less likely if the journey takes longer or costs more. Obviously it's a lot more complicated in reality, not least because some places are naturally "origins" and others are "destinations" with disproportionate amounts of jobs, shopping, entertainment etc.
I will agree with that last point, I am suprised there isn't a shuttle bus between Newark Castle and Newark North Gate. I am ideally situated to take the train to Castle but if I want the ECML it's a faff and a long hike and with luggage that would certainly put me off.
Indeed and 26% of over 17s can’t drive, and that’s increasing as Gen Z are much less likely to drive, and of course teenagers under 17 who may use the train to access school or visit friends can’t drive. So even if we assume every single person who can drive will do so over catching the train (certainly not the case) there remains a sizeable chunk of the population who don’t even have the option to drive.
Yes but even if a car isn’t more convenient 40% of the population don’t have cars so won’t have the option. Because we live in a motornormative society many people assume it’s a choice between a car and train/bus, but for those of us who don’t have cars the train will be most convenient regardless.
I doubt that such an interchange would be popular enough to warrant it. Would probably be a job for a local bus route that's designed to call at both. Ideally with integrated ticketing, but that's obviously laughable.
There are buses linking Newark Castle and Newark North Gate, like this one -
Not dedicated, and doesn't quite reach Castle station, but it is only three stops and less than a mile. I can't imagine many people would actually use it.
I completely understand and agree with your point, but how do people without cars get to the station in areas where bus services are very sparse? Newark, Grantham and Retford are large towns which have no buses on most routes after 7pm in the evening and no buses on Sunday. It’s ok if you live within walking distance of the station but these stations serve a wide area and there are few buses from the surrounding villages or even suberbs of these towns. Huge new housing developments are being built on the edge of these towns, which may be a couple of miles from the station, but there are no usable bus services to the station.
Taxis mostly, in towns like that the first thing you notice how it seems like every other car has a minicab plate.
Not necessarily. I went to Woodhall Spa a couple of years ago. Being me, I checked if I could get a taxi to pick me up from Metheringham on the Friday and return me to Lincoln on the Sunday (no local service to Metheringham on Sunday). I could; but the two other firms in the area wouldn't do that run. I was lucky that mine fitted me in after the school run on Friday.
Stoke Bank and tunnels either side are exhibits A and B.
There is a bus between Grantham and Newark and it is roughly hourly. The only problem is that the last of these hourly buses Monday to Friday leaves Grantham for Newark at 1445! In the other direction there’s a bus at 1506 and then a 3 hour gap until the last bus at 1806. As pointed out in my earlier post Grantham, Newark and Retford for their size have very poor bus services.
Which, with the possible exception of Retford, is well provided for. The more local travel patterns are focused on the cities either side, not between the towns.
No there isn't.
The people of this part of the ECML likely won't appreciate the fast train timetable they currently have being taken away to be replaced with slow multiple units as is being proposed in this thread.
Even with an IET running on electric and fairly minimal dwell time, you're looking at a time penalty of at least 4 minutes for a station stop on a fast line.
