Why were CrossCountry services diverted away from Pontefract Baghill ?

[class 9]

Here’s a screen shot.

 

[LMS 4F]

This route is still used a diversion from time to time. Leeds XC crews sign the route.
Pontefract Baghill station was a manned station when XC trains called there but it has been closed for many years now and the offices used by amongst others the local Driving Test office.

 

[Welshman]

This route is still used a diversion from time to time. Leeds XC crews sign the route.
Pontefract Baghill station was a manned station when XC trains called there but it has been closed for many years now and the offices used by amongst others the local Driving Test office.

I thought Pontefract Baghill was still open, albeit with a sparse service?

 

[70014IronDuke]

I thought Pontefract Baghill was still open, albeit with a sparse service?

Yes, but LMS 4F was referring to XC crews. Baghill is otherwise normally a Northern service - if service is the right word for two trains a day. (Three from December!!)

Welcome to the Forum, LMS 4F!

 

[LMS 4F]

To clarify my earlier post Pontefract Baghill is now yet another unmanned station with no facilities, one of three in the town. As has been said two trains a day although since May the times have been moved to make a trip to York slightly more worthwhile.

 

[Mark62]

I remember catching the Newcastle to Newquay summer Saturday train at Pontefract. Quite a few cross country services stopped there on Saturdays
There were funding issues with baghill with West Yorkshire PTE refusing to fund services. South yourkshire refused and sadly the whole situation descended into a political farce.
Theres issues with subsidence in the whole area.
Time wise. 50 minutes is easily achieved for a non stop Sheffield to York run and services are still diverted via ponte when required
In the 70s the station picked up and set down a lot of passengers. Sadly the respect PTE didn't care a dot for the people of Pontefract. They put their own interests before the publics.
I vividly remember the Sheffield to York line in the 70s and 80s. Its a great loss as ponte as a station was very well used

 

[Chris Butler]

OK my misunderstanding; I have edited the title again and moved it; hopefully it is clearer now! I will see if I can dig out some previous posts on this subject too...
:

Thanks for seeding the thread with a lot of very relevant posts. Those and other's responses here have answered my question fully.

I have a couple of follow-up comments. I will post them as separate posts below.

 

[Chris Butler]

A lot of people have made a lot of good points (many new to me) about the circumstances of the re-routing including:-

1. the reduced journey time via Doncaster with the Selby diversion's completion,
2. the increased journey times on the Pontefract route with subsidence,
3. the attractiveness of Doncaster and Leeds (in that order) as traffic generators,
4. the sector-perspective introduced at the time which discouraged 'marginal' use of routes by InterCity.

I would add one other. At that time the Operational Research group in BR was doing a lot of work on demand for Inter-City services. The work was, in essence, the first time ever that computerised tickets sales data could be combined with mathematical models that I and others were developing to explain how passenger demand was affected by speed, frequency and the need to change trains (in some cases). ORCATS was born in this period (the OR means Operational Research).

One, lesser known, piece of work was MOIRA (Model Of Inter Regional Activity) which focused on understanding the impact of changes to cross country services. The thing was that those changes often made differences to a large number of relatively small traffic flows and the computerised ticket data allowed the changes made to those many, many different journeys to be totalled. That work supported an increased focus in InterCity on the routing and stopping patterns of what would now be called cross-country services. I have no idea whether the re-routing of XC trains from Baghill was in any way connected to that specific program, but there was definitely an increased focus on the potential of cross country services around that time.

 

[Chris Butler]

As many have said, when given an opportunity to route via Doncaster with its traffic generation capacity with no difference in journey time it was an obvious choice to route via Doncaster instead of run direct via Baghill. (I won't get into the question of Leeds being even more preferable).

The thing is that that is a 'no-brainer' when there is spare capacity. The money spent on Lincoln to Doncaster improvements, Werrington Jnc., the fact that Northern cannot get approval to run 100 mph DMUs on the ECML for a Northern Connect service from Middlesborough to Newcastle etc. etc. all emphasise the shortage of ECML capacity. That subtly changes the question from "would I rather route via Doncaster?" to "is routeing via Doncaster the best use of ECML capacity versus all other possible uses of that capacity?".

I have no idea what the answer should be, but I do wonder whether that will swing the pendulum towards using more capacity on a line (via Baghill) that runs for several miles parallel to the ECML with very little use. Obviously freight would be the first priority to use the line, but, at some point do passenger services also come into question ?

 

[Mark62]

A lot of people have made a lot of good points (many new to me) about the circumstances of the re-routing including:-

1. the reduced journey time via Doncaster with the Selby diversion's completion,
2. the increased journey times on the Pontefract route with subsidence,
3. the attractiveness of Doncaster and Leeds (in that order) as traffic generators,
4. the sector-perspective introduced at the time which discouraged 'marginal' use of routes by InterCity.

I would add one other. At that time the Operational Research group in BR was doing a lot of work on demand for Inter-City services. The work was, in essence, the first time ever that computerised tickets sales data could be combined with mathematical models that I and others were developing to explain how passenger demand was affected by speed, frequency and the need to change trains (in some cases). ORCATS was born in this period (the OR means Operational Research).

One, lesser known, piece of work was MOIRA (Model Of Inter Regional Activity) which focused on understanding the impact of changes to cross country services. The thing was that those changes often made differences to a large number of relatively small traffic flows and the computerised ticket data allowed the changes made to those many, many different journeys to be totalled. That work supported an increased focus in InterCity on the routing and stopping patterns of what would now be called cross-country services. I have no idea whether the re-routing of XC trains from Baghill was in any way connected to that specific program, but there was definitely an increased focus on the potential of cross country services around that time.

The baghill services were rerouted when the Selby by pass opened. But local services were stopped due to local politics and cross border funding issues

 

[edwin_m]

As many have said, when given an opportunity to route via Doncaster with its traffic generation capacity with no difference in journey time it was an obvious choice to route via Doncaster instead of run direct via Baghill. (I won't get into the question of Leeds being even more preferable).

The thing is that that is a 'no-brainer' when there is spare capacity. The money spent on Lincoln to Doncaster improvements, Werrington Jnc., the fact that Northern cannot get approval to run 100 mph DMUs on the ECML for a Northern Connect service from Middlesborough to Newcastle etc. etc. all emphasise the shortage of ECML capacity. That subtly changes the question from "would I rather route via Doncaster?" to "is routeing via Doncaster the best use of ECML capacity versus all other possible uses of that capacity?".

I have no idea what the answer should be, but I do wonder whether that will swing the pendulum towards using more capacity on a line (via Baghill) that runs for several miles parallel to the ECML with very little use. Obviously freight would be the first priority to use the line, but, at some point do passenger services also come into question ?

I'd suggest the critical area of the ECML is between Northallerton and Newcastle. Of the trains on the Selby Diversion, only a few terminate at York or go towards Middlesbrough with the remainder continuing to Newcastle or beyond, augmented by 1-2TPH of XC and in future 2TPH of TPE. In the future HS2/NPR is planned to join at York too, although some existing services will probably be truncated to make room for it. South of York there are some alternative routes for freight, but north of Northallerton the only one is the much slower Durham Coast which has capacity issues of its own particularly beyond Sunderland.

Whether the XC goes via Doncaster makes no difference to this section, although it does create conflict at Doncaster itself.

 

[Chris Butler]

I'd suggest the critical area of the ECML is between Northallerton and Newcastle.

Quick check on RTT and Temple Hirst has 150 trains between 07:00 and 22:00 and Chester-le-Street has 165. In the peak hour they were both at 13/14 per hour. Obviously the speed mix could make a big difference.

 

[edwin_m]

Quick check on RTT and Temple Hirst has 150 trains between 07:00 and 22:00 and Chester-le-Street has 165. In the peak hour they were both at 13/14 per hour. Obviously the speed mix could make a big difference.

Not only the speed mix, also the longer distance between overtaking facilities further north and the lack of intermediate stops on the southern section.

 

[alistairlees]

I remember catching the Newcastle to Newquay summer Saturday train at Pontefract. Quite a few cross country services stopped there on Saturdays
There were funding issues with baghill with West Yorkshire PTE refusing to fund services. South yourkshire refused and sadly the whole situation descended into a political farce.
Theres issues with subsidence in the whole area.
Time wise. 50 minutes is easily achieved for a non stop Sheffield to York run and services are still diverted via ponte when required
In the 70s the station picked up and set down a lot of passengers. Sadly the respect PTE didn't care a dot for the people of Pontefract. They put their own interests before the publics.
I vividly remember the Sheffield to York line in the 70s and 80s. Its a great loss as ponte as a station was very well used

It’s easy to make sweeping statements like that, but this is really not true. West Yorkshire PTE especially was behind many station reopenings in the 1980s and 1990s. This is hardly putting their own interests above the public’s!

Pontefract is in the unfortunate situation of having some lines (the one via Baghill especially) not fit wholly within one pte area, and also serve non-PTE areas (North Yorkshire, which was not willing to fund things). There were other places where limited funding could be better spent consequently.

 

[Glenn1969]

WYPTE do tend to think everyone wants to go to Leeds when taking certain decisions

 

[WesternLancer]

WYPTE do tend to think everyone wants to go to Leeds when taking certain decisions

Yeah - is this typical for places where they have their HQs? "surely everyone wants to go where we need to go..."

Maybe if the PTE was relocated to cheaper office space in Pontefract the service would go up dramatically...

 

[tbtc]

Yeah - is this typical for places where they have their HQs? "surely everyone wants to go where we need to go..."

Maybe if the PTE was relocated to cheaper office space in Pontefract the service would go up dramatically...

If Pontefract to York/Sheffield services are in such demand then it's interesting that no bus company has leapt into this big gap in the market.

Or, it could be that both Sheffield/York are minor destinations and that Pontefract has had a relatively poor train service to other parts of West Yorkshire too (hourly to Castleford, hourly to Wakefield, the service to Leeds only very recently increased to a second train per hour), so it's not as if the greedy PTE gave Pontefract too many services to other bits of West Yorkshire and starved it of the appropriate level of service to places over the border.

There's also the point that Pontefract at least gets a better service to York than Castleford (where the line to the north has no local passenger services)

 

[Glenn1969]

There was a Pontefract to York bus but its operator Utopia Coaches ceased trading and no one came forward to maintain the link.

 

[edwin_m]

Rail services naturally lend themselves to a hub and spoke model because the large hubs are the places people are most likely to wish to visit and therefore most likely to be able to justify a train service at a reasonable frequency. They are also the places most likely to suffer from traffic congestion so that people choose the train rather than driving. It's usually also true that places further apart generate fewer journeys between them than places of the same size closer together. All these factors combine to make it likely that the rail service will radiate from the nearest major city.

Unlike Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire does have several local services running at least hourly that don't go to their largest city.

 

[Glenn1969]

Just Huddersfield- Wakefield now the Featherstone line service has been extended to Leeds. To be joined by Huddersfield- Bradford in December. All other services go to Leeds and only Penistone line stations have no Leeds service at all

 

[xotGD]

Just Huddersfield- Wakefield now the Featherstone line service has been extended to Leeds. To be joined by Huddersfield- Bradford in December. All other services go to Leeds and only Penistone line stations have no Leeds service at all

Also Bradford - Ilkley and Bradford - Skipton

Soon to be joined by Huddersfield - Bradford in the 'don't go to Leeds' list.

 

[LMS 4F]

Just Huddersfield- Wakefield now the Featherstone line service has been extended to Leeds. To be joined by Huddersfield- Bradford in December. All other services go to Leeds and only Penistone line stations have no Leeds service at all

As of May it is now Huddersfield-Castleford not Wakefield although it still stops at Kirkgate. Having used the service several times it is very lightly loaded all the way, especially from Castleford. However it will be my route of choice to Manchester Airport avoiding the joy that is Leeds platform 16.

 

[IanXC]

Yes, but LMS 4F was referring to XC crews. Baghill is otherwise normally a Northern service - if service is the right word for two trains a day. (Three from December!!)

*three from last May.