Public Transport

The Transpennine Real Ale Trail

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Huddersfield Station

On Saturday myself and a group of friends went to do the Transpennine Real Ale Trail. Many of the stations on the railway line between Leeds and Manchester via Huddersfield have pubs serving real ale either on the station or nearby, and eight of these form part of an official trail.

Though it’s been done for years, the trail grew in popularity following the broadcast of Oz and James Drink to Britain, a BBC TV show with Oz Clarke and Top Gear’s James May which was broadcast in 2009. The number of people attempting the real ale trail increased significantly, although sadly many weren’t in it for the real ale. Go back a to any Saturday afternoon earlier this year and you would expect to see large groups of people – mostly men – frequently in fancy dress, drinking lager and engaging in anti-social behaviour.

A particular problem point was the small and usually quiet village of Marsden. Though Marsden has a pub right by the railway station, conveniently called The Railway, many prefer to go into the village to the Riverhead Brewery Tap and others. This BBC News video gives you an idea of how bad it was last year.

Since then, many of the pubs on the route have stopped serving lager and spirits on Saturdays, and will refuse service to those in fancy dress. In other words, patrons have to drink real ale or soft drinks. And, based on our experiences, it seems to be working – whilst a Saturday in late October is bound to be less busy than in mid-summer, the route was much quieter and the people there were better behaved. At Slaithwaite (pronounced ‘slowwwit’) station, Northern Rail had provided a couple of marshals to manage the numbers of people on the small platforms. And at Huddersfield there were a number of British Transport Police officers around, but that may be more to do with the local football team playing local rivals Leeds United at home that day.

On our visit, we went to six of the eight ‘main’ pubs on the trail. Starting at Stalybridge, we then called at Greenfield, Marsden and Slaithwaite, before then skipping straight to Dewsbury and then back to Mirfield. By this point it was getting late, so we didn’t go to Huddersfield or Batley this time around.

I’ve done Huddersfield many times before though, and the station actually plays host to two pubs. They’re both on platform 1 – The Kings Head and The Head of Steam – although the introduction of ticket barriers means that you need to exist the station to access them now. The Head of Steam is my favourite and has the largest overall drinks selection (including a good cider menu) but real ale drinkers tend to prefer The Kings Head as its ale selection is stronger.

It’s a good way to spend an afternoon with friends and I’m pleased that the solution to the problems with rowdy drinkers seems to have worked. Other ale trails are available around the country and this month’s CAMRA magazine has a special feature on pubs at stations, which seem to be enjoying something of a renaissance of late. CAMRA also published a book last year; it’s out of stock on Amazon unfortunately but is available in CAMRA’s own shop, and members get £2 off.

Metrolink to the Trafford Centre

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Metrolink 3025 at Victoria

Greater Manchester’s Metrolink network is undergoing a period of expansion at present. Last summer I wrote about the new line to Oldham, which has now been extended a little further to Shaw and Compton, and the new line between Piccadilly and Droylsden is due to open imminently. Further extensions will see it reaching Rochdale, Ashton under Lyne, Wythenshawe and Manchester Airport over the next 3-4 years. But one key destination that’s missing from that list is the Trafford Centre.

A bit of history

The Trafford Centre is one of Britain’s largest shopping centres; indeed, it is third largest by floor area. Its lavish mock baroque design was intended to attract more upmarket brands, such as Selfridges and John Lewis, who have large anchor stores there. Its location in south-west Manchester means that it is easily reached from Cheshire, a largely affluent county which is home to, amongst others, a number of millionaire footballers who play for teams like Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool.

Consequently the centre provides ample car parking and is located just off the M60 motorway. This is essentially Manchester and Salford’s outer ring road and connects with all of the major roads going into the city, so getting there by car is quite easy.

However, if you’re not a car driver, and need to use public transport, then buses are your only option. There is a bus station with 16 stands at the Trafford Centre. But it’s almost an afterthought – it’s located at the far end of the site, accessible via one of the car parks. It’s rather open to the elements with just one canopy providing some shelter for the rain.

No railway station

Unlike other big shopping centres, like Meadowhall in Sheffield and the MetroCentre in Gateshead, a railway station was not built at the same time. In fairness, those two shopping centres already had railway lines nearby – the Trafford Centre does not, so any requirement to build a station would also require a new railway line at a considerable extra expense. A light rail link, however, would have been cheaper. When the Trafford Centre opened in 1998, Manchester Metrolink had been running for six years, with construction already underway on the second phase to Eccles.

So why wasn’t a Metrolink line included in the building project? The simple answer is that the plans to build the Trafford Centre pre-date Metrolink. The original planning application was submitted way back in 1988 – a full 12 years before the Trafford Centre opened, and indeed 8 years before construction began in 1996. The 8 year delay was due two public enquiries, a rejection of the planning permission by the Court of Appeal in 1993 and eventual intervention by the House of Lords.

By comparison, work to build Metrolink only started in 1988, and it would have been premature to require the construction of a tram line for a system that didn’t exist at the time. And considering the battle that the developers faced in getting it approved, I doubt that they would have been receptive to demands to change the planning permission to include such a line. So, in summary, the developers of the Trafford Centre, Peel Holdings, were under no obligation to provide a Metrolink station.

Section 106

The Trafford Centre expanded in 2006, after Peel Holdings were granted planning permission in 2005 to build Barton Square. This could have been an opportunity to force the developers to build a tram line, using a ‘Section 106′ agreement. Section 106 refers to a section of Town and Country Planning Act 1990 which allows local authorities to include extra conditions when granting planning permission, usually to insist on associated infrastructure improvements. For whatever reason, this never happened; the only transport-related improvements that Barton Square brought was yet another car park.

Essentially, plans to build a new Metrolink line to the Trafford Centre were at an impasse. The local authorities, represented by Transport for Greater Manchester, were keen for private sector funding for the new line. And the private sector owners of the Trafford Centre weren’t particularly willing to pay for it; after all, they’re a more upmarket shopping centre aimed at affluent people who can drive. So the plans were essentially shelved and have not formed part of Metrolink’s recent expansion plans.

The situation today

This leaves the present situation where the quickest way to get to the Trafford Centre from central Manchester is actually by bus, using the X50 service from Manchester Piccadilly station. This, however, takes around half an hour, and costs £3.90 return. Alternatively, it is possible to get a tram to Stretford Metrolink station, and then catch a connecting shuttle bus (the ML1) to the Trafford Centre. The trams also serve Victoria station, but it’s slower, requires a change of mode at Stretford and is more expensive at £4.40 for a return ticket.

Stretford isn’t even the closest Metrolink station to the Trafford Centre – it’s around 2.5 miles away. The nearest tram station is actually Eccles, which is a little under 2 miles away. But it’s at the very end of a line which takes a rather slow and circuitous route around Salford Quays and therefore not ideal. Trafford Park station, on one of the national railway lines between Manchester and Liverpool, is also a little under two miles away. But with trains every two hours and no Sunday service it doesn’t compare favourably with Stretford’s 10 trams per hour from Manchester. For now, at least, the X50 and the shuttle bus service from Stretford probably provide the best compromise.

A future Metrolink station?

There may, however, be some hope in the future. In 2011, Peel Holdings sold the Trafford Centre to Capital Shopping Centres (CSC), who own many other shopping centres in the UK, including the MetroCentre and the large Lakeside centre in Kent.

As an aside, CSC is rebranding as ‘intu’, which will see all of its properties gain the ‘intu’ prefix, so later this year the centre will become the ‘intu Trafford Centre’. Personally I doubt anyone will use its new name in casual conversation.

Perhaps the Trafford Centre’s new owners may be more amenable to part-funding a new Metrolink line. Although the plans are on hold, it is still a long-term aim of Transport for Greater Manchester to get trams running out there. We shall have to see what the future holds.

Update: In June 2013, it was announced that funding should be available for the extension to the Trafford Centre to be built. It’s currently in the planning stage and you can view the route on Transport for Greater Manchester’s web site. It is likely to be at least 2018 before the line is open, however.

Manchester Metrolink reaches Oldham

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Market Street Tram Stop

I’m going to engage my public transport geek mode once again and talk a bit about the latest extension to Manchester’s Metrolink tram network.

Firstly, a bit of history. Metrolink first opened in 1992 and took over operation of two formerly ‘heavy rail’ (regular train service) lines, combined with track through Manchester city centre. Manchester has two main railway stations in the city centre – Piccadilly and Victoria – and the tram service allowed these stations to be linked together.

Of the two heavy rail lines converted, one was the line from Manchester Victoria to Bury; this used electric trains built in the 1960s and non-standard electrification equipment that wasn’t used anywhere else in the UK. Furthermore, this equipment, and the trains, were life-expired, so this was a good opportunity to upgrade to newer equipment. The trams could use the same track, but instead run from overhead electric cables.

The other line went south of Manchester towards Altrincham. This line had a lot of stations over a relatively short line, so using heavy rail trains wasn’t particularly efficient, so putting trams on this route made sense, on the whole. That said, not all trains called at all stations and this lead to some of the faster services being diverted through to Stockport, which now has capacity problems. This is because, unlike on other light rail networks such as the Tyne & Wear Metro in the north east where trains and light rail vehicles share tracks in places, Metrolink is kept separate from the National Rail network.

So that was the first phase. Its success spawned a second phase – a new line to Eccles, opened in 2000. This didn’t follow any existing railway lines, and served Salford Quays which has seen a lot of regeneration recently.

Getting the third phase – known as ‘The Big Bang’ due to it almost doubling the size of the network – built has been more of a challenge, due to money. It was denied central government funding in 2004, and so was split into two small phases – 3a and 3b – with work eventually starting in 2009. The first bit to be completed was a short 360 metre spur from the Eccles line to the new MediaCityUK complex in Salford which also better serves The Lowry and the Imperial War Museum North, and last year the first phase of the South Manchester Line opened to Chorlton-cum-Hardy – eventually, this will reach Manchester Airport. Although the South Manchester Line does follow the route of an old railway line, it was one that closed many years ago, as opposed to an existing line that was converted as with the lines to Bury and Altrincham.

The next bit to open was the line to Oldham, which I alluded to in the title of this post, and it is this particular line that I’m going to focus on. Like with the Bury and Altrincham routes, this follows an existing railway line that was converted – in this case, the Oldham Loop Line, which ran from Manchester Victoria to Rochdale where it met the Caldervale Line and looped back to Manchester. (I wrote about the Caldervale Line a couple of years ago – this is now the line I use to go to work every day, although not this particular bit)

The railway line closed in October 2009, and so it has been almost three years since Oldham had any public transport other than buses serving it. Opening last week, trams leave from a temporary station at the site of Oldham Mumps railway station, and head towards Manchester Victoria – they’ll then head through Manchester city centre and onwards to Chorlton-cum-Hardy. When the project is complete, trams will also serve Rochdale, new stations in Oldham town centre and continue through to Manchester Airport.

Trams will run roughly every 12 minutes – or five each hour – initially, but will increase to ten per hour (a tram every six minutes) in a few years time, once a second line through Manchester city centre has been built. This compares favourably with the old heavy rail train service, which ran four times an hour (but two of those only called at key stations), and once complete it will serve more destinations – there will be direct links to Deansgate railway station and Manchester Airport for the first time, plus there are extra stops on the new line serving places like the new Central Park development. The existing stations have all been rebuilt to be wheelchair friendly, and the trams can be boarded by wheelchair users without assistance, unlike the trains. And the trams are electric, so they won’t emit diesel fumes like the trains they replaced.

But arguably it’s not a complete improvement. The extra stops and slightly longer route means that the service is slower than the old heavy rail service, even with the improved acceleration offered by the trams over trains. The trams are smaller and have fewer seats that the trains, although they will run more frequently, and do not have toilets on board. Bikes also cannot be carried on board the trams, unlike on trains.

Tickets on Metrolink are not integrated with National Rail, so it’s no longer possible to buy a through ticket from, say, London to Oldham. And although the trams will serve more places than before, this does not include Manchester Piccadilly station, although they do call at Market Street which is somewhat closer than Victoria where the trains previously terminated.

On the whole I do hope it’s an improvement in service for the people of Oldham, and it will hopefully relieve pressure on the Caldervale Line which has been taking the strain from passengers displaced by the closure of the railway line. Issues like integrated ticketing with National Rail could be solved with computer and ticket machine upgrades, and there should be cycle storage at tram stops for cyclists. But converting lines to light rail like this, although providing many benefits, can also make things worse, especially for some groups of passengers.

London’s public transport

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Bakerloo at Waterloo

As a non-Londoner who doesn’t drive, I am generally in awe of London’s public transport.

While any Londoner who’s had to make alternative arrangements during a tube strike will probably disagree, compared to the public transport available in most other British cities London is well ahead.

London Underground, or The Tube, is especially good. You get something like 20 trains every hour through central London, so you rarely have to wait more than 3 minutes for one. And it comes with at least 8 carriages, so you’re likely to be able to get on.

Its buses are cheap – £1.20 with an Oyster card for a single adult ticket (at the time of writing) – and pretty frequent too. And talking of Oyster, you have one card which lets you pay for basically any train, bus, tube or tram in greater London.

It’s not perfect; strikes, for one, happen more frequently than they probably should, and overcrowding is a problem. And the chaos which occurs when something breaks down during the peak periods.

Compare this to Bradford, where we have more expensive buses and no trams or tube to fall back on. The trains are thankfully cheaper but nowhere near as frequent, and not as pervasive – railway stations tend to be fewer and far between, so you’re left with the buses. Though we have some integrated ticketing, it’s only in the form of day rover tickets (which are only sold at travel interchanges) or weekly/monthly travel cards. There’s no pay-as-you-go scheme and it’s not a smartcard like Oyster.

London’s transport is on my mind as Christine and I are spending this weekend in London, and will hopefully be visiting London Zoo. It’s the first time I’ve been to London properly in almost three years, so naturally I’m a little excited.

Buying rail tickets

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Pendolino

Buying rail tickets for train travel in the UK is complicated. Despite some simplification introduced last year, it’s still possible to buy a range of rail tickets at different prices that will get you on the same seat on the same train.

The fantastic Money Saving Expert has a very thorough guide and it’s well worth a read, but here’s my summarised advice:

  • Buy your rail tickets in advance, and as early as possible – you can get them up to 3 months ahead.
  • Rail tickets bought on the day (so-called ‘walk on fares’) offer lots of flexibility but are also usually the most expensive – you can book as little as 48 hours in advance and save a lot of money.
  • Avoid thetrainline.com – it charges extra fees.
  • You can usually book any ticket from any train company, even if your journey doesn’t use their trains. So you could book with CrossCountry to travel on a First Transpennine Express (FTPE) train and get the same price as you would booking direct with FTPE.
  • Rail Easy displays fares in a different way which can make it easier to find cheaper tickets. I also found that they are more likely to send tickets by first class post for free, rather than charge £6 for next-day delivery. They do charge a booking fee though.
  • If you spend more than £76 per year (or £6 per month) on rail tickets, get a railcard. If you are between the ages of 16 and 25 you can get a 16-25 railcard. You can order a new one right up until the day before your 26th birthday too. Family railcards and senior railcards are also available. They give you 34% off the price of almost all train tickets, including those booked in advance.
  • Sometimes two single rail tickets are cheaper than a return – always check both. This is especially true if you book in advance.
  • Megatrain is worth a look as its fares start from £1 (plus 50p booking fee). Trains run from Sheffield, Derby and Portsmouth into London, but there are connecting coaches from cities like York and Bradford (I travelled from York to London for a total of £3.50 last year). There’s also additional discounts for NUS Extra card holders.

There are many more tips out there, which shows how confusing the system is. Ultimately, the best way to get the cheapest fare is to book as far in advance as possible, use a railcard and shop around a bit.

When 2 become 1 – Bradford stations prologue

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In my ‘Bradford – a tale of two stations‘ post a few weeks ago I mentioned that many plans had been made to connect the city’s two stations together over the years but nothing had come of it.

The latest set of plans have been published by a couple of local businessmen. It would create a new station called ‘Bradford Central’ which would be on the bridge carrying the tracks through the city. This would be linked to the existing bus station at Bradford Interchange but it’s probable that the two railway stations would close under the plans.

The proposed station certainly looks good in the artist drawings, and very little demolition would be necessary – just the Royal Mail depot at Forster Court (which has been earmarked for eventual demolition anyway as far as I am aware). It would take some land from the Westfield development but would have the advantage that the site would be very close to the station – therefore increasing footfall in the proposed shops. There’s even a chance that Westfield would help fund it, as they did in London when their White City shopping centre opened recently; this saw a new railway station, new Tube station and another Tube station extensively refurbished with Westfield putting up a lot of the money.

The projected cost of the scheme would be £100m, which is a lot of money. We’ve just come out of a recession and the massive public fund deficit means that money from central government is probably not going to be very forthcoming.

The design of the station would make any potential expansion difficult – it provides 4 platforms but this is less than the 7 that the two existing stations provide between them. Of course, should the platforms at Bradford Interchange remain open for terminating services then potential capacity problems would be alleviated somewhat. However, adding extra platforms to the new station would be very difficult due to its elevated state, and the probably lack of land to expand into.

Despite all this, I really, really hope that this comes to fruition. The current station at Interchange looks very dark and tired, and needs replacing. Enabling through services, rather than having trains reverse, would make routing trains through Bradford more attractive. And it may be the catalyst that gets the Westfield development back on track and would give people more reason to visit the city. But it’s early days and we’ve been in this situation many times before – I’m not getting my hopes up.

Bradford – a tale of two stations

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A sign outside Bradford Interchange saying 'trains this way'

One of the things often said about Bradford is this:

Bradford has two train stations – but you have to change at Leeds to go anywhere!

While that’s not strictly true, as Bradford does have regular direct services to York, Manchester, Preston, and, from later this month, London, to go to many places outside the north of England it’s necessary to change at Leeds or Manchester. Bradford may have two stations, but both are quite small and only serve regional trains and commuter services – apart from the aforementioned London service starting in 3 weeks time, there are no inter-city services.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

First stations

Bradford’s first station was opened in 1846 by the Leeds and Bradford Railway Company, and was a line from Leeds Wellington Street (now Leeds City station) via the Aire Valley and Shipley. Until then, Bradford’s closest station was Brighouse, which was then known as ‘Brighouse for Bradford’, opened in 1840. The station was located off Kirkgate, to the north of the city centre.

In 1850, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway built another station, known as Bradford Exchange, to the south of the city centre off Hall Ings.

In 1853, the rapidly-expanding Midland Railway took over the Leeds and Bradford Railway, and the first Bradford station was re-built.

Yet another station, Bradford Adolphus Street, was added in 1854, by the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction Railway. This station was short-lived; it was the furthest from the city centre and closed to passengers in 1867; services were diverted to Bradford Exchange. It remained as a goods station until the 1960s, when it was closed, and was demolished in the 1980s when the A650 Wakefield Road was widened.

Rebuilding

With Bradford Exchange taking on Bradford Adolphus Street’s passengers as well, it became necessary to expand the station in the 1880s and a new 10-platform station was built on the same site. Operationally the station acted as two separate stations; part for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway and the other for the Great Northern Railway, with separate booking offices.

Mirroring the trend, the Midland Railway’s Bradford station was rebuilt in the 1890s with 6 platforms, and this included the building of a goods station and a hotel, which survives today as the Midland Hotel. From around this time, the station was known as ‘Bradford Market Street’ to differentiate it from the Exchange station. Bradford now had 2 large stations, with 16 platforms between the two.

In the 1900s Midland Railway had completed its Midland Main Line between London and Leeds, and the Settle-Carlisle Line between Leeds and Carlisle, however, it didn’t own the tracks to Leeds and trains were required to reverse. It therefore had an ambitious plan for a new line via its Bradford Market Street station, involving a long tunnel through the city. Trains would therefore be able to operate directly from London to Scotland, via Bradford.

Unfortunately, this never happened; the first world war broke out and this caused the end of the age of prosperity for the railways. In 1923, the multitude of small railway companies were forcibly grouped into four large companies; after the second world war became nationalisation and the creation of the British Railways Board. Around 1924 ‘Bradford Market Street’ became ‘Bradford Forster Square’.

Beeching

The Beeching Cuts of the 1960s hit Bradford quite hard. Many local services were cut, and the Wharfedale Line to Ilkley was proposed for closure. Thankfully, it was saved through local council subsidies. The cuts meant that by 1973 Bradford Exchange was too big; there were not enough services to justify having 10 platforms. A new station was built further away from the city centre, near Bridge Street, with just 4 platforms; this is the station which survives today. In 1983, a bus station was opened next to the railway station and it was renamed ‘Bradford Interchange’ to reflect its status as a multi-modal transport interchange.

In the early 1990s, Metro, West Yorkshire’s public transport executive, decided to fund the electrification of the Airedale and Wharfedale lines to promote passenger growth. In doing so, it was decided to close the existing station at Forster Square, which was also now too big for the small number of services still running and had become very run-down, and construct a new station taking over the ends of the platforms on the city centre side of the station.

Present day

Which brings us to the present day. Unlike 100 years ago, when Bradford had two large stations and direct trains all over the country, we now have two small stations with 3 and 4 platforms respectively. Had the Midland Railway’s grand plans gone ahead, Bradford would have been a key destination on the Midland Main Line, instead of Leeds. I have no doubt that the history of the twin Yorkshire cities would have been very different had that line been built.

But why does Bradford still have 2 stations? In other cities like Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham, rationalisation in the 1960s saw smaller stations closed and routes combined to create large central stations. If you look at a map of Bradford, you’ll even see that the two stations roughly align with each other. Furthermore, there’s presently not a lot of buildings in between them, due to most of the land having been cleared for the mothballed Westfield shopping centre. Couldn’t they be connected up?

The plan has been mooted many times over the years, however, it’s not that simple. First of all, although the stations are on the same alignment, there is a considerable altitude difference; Bradford Interchange is several metres higher up than Bradford Forster Square which is at the very bottom of Bradforddale (the valley that links Bradford with the Aire Valley). Any railway line would have to be carried by bridge across the town, and with quite steep gradients. As well as Westfield, there are other building such as the new Magistrate’s Court which are planned for the land where the tracks would go. And despite being talked about for years, nobody has come up with any detailed designs, nor the money for such a line. And in any case, Bradford is not a strategic place on the railway network – all of the lines that serve it are purely regional or for local commuters. If it was to be built, it would cost a lot of money which probably wouldn’t provide much benefit, considering that Bradford is well away from the main lines. Its proximity to Leeds doesn’t help, either.

While train services to Bradford have improved somewhat over the past 20 years, I don’t expect to see any big plans for Bradford like we saw 100 years ago. I guess we’ll still be changing at Leeds for years to come.

The Calder Valley Line

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A Grand Central and a Northern train side-by-side at Bradford Interchange, on the Calder Valley line

This is an entry about the Calder Valley Line (also known as the Caldervale Line), which takes trains from my home town of York, through to Bradford where I currently reside, and onto Manchester and Blackpool, where Christine lives. As you can imagine, I use this railway line a lot.

Technically speaking it’s a ‘route’ rather than a ‘line’, as the sections of track were built at different times by different companies and it shares tracks with other services for a number of sections, but it’s known as the Calder Valley Line. This is because it passes through the upper Calder Valley.

Bradford and Blackpool are on roughly the same latitude, so in an ideal world there would be almost a straight line between them. Alas, the Pennine Hills are in the way, and so the railways tend to follow the valleys and serve the communities in them. Indeed, on leaving Bradford the trains head almost due south, before then curving around to face south-west to reach Halifax.

The line certainly isn’t the most modern in the country. It saw quite a bit of attention in the 1980s, when a number of stations closed in the 1960s were re-opened, and new trains were introduced for some services in the early 1990s. But apart from a new junction outside Bradford there hasn’t been much significant investment in the line of late. Some sections, such as the 9 miles between Burnley and Todmorden, have very slow line speeds of around 45 mph, compared with the usual minimum of 60 mph elsewhere. Consequently, the train from Bradford to Blackpool takes 1 hour and 50 minutes, which is slower than it would be to drive (around 1 hour 35 minutes) despite the driving route taking you via Manchester and being much further in distance.

But some changes are afoot. South of Bradford, a new railway station at Low Moor should be open by the end of 2012, again to replace one closed in the 1960s. Blackpool trains, which skip many intermediate stops elsewhere, won’t stop there but it will be served by a number of local services, and its location close to the M606 on the site previously occupied by Transperience means it will be suited for park-and-ride facilities. Manchester Victoria station is due for a major refurbishment and by 2017 there should be more frequent services to Bradford, as well as new direct services to Manchester Airport and Liverpool from Bradford. A new section of track will allow trains from Burnley to reach Manchester via Todmorden, although this plan is presently unfunded, And the line connecting Blackpool to Preston is due to be electrified later this decade, although that will largely benefit local services and not trains from Yorkshire.

A faster service to Blackpool from Bradford would be most welcome – obviously it would be nice for me but if it becomes faster than travelling by car then it will be more likely to pull in extra passengers. New or refurbished trains would be nice; while the Express Sprinter trains that usually run on the line aren’t too bad, they’re in need of a refit as many carry most of their original fixtures and fittings which have become well-worn over the past 20 years.

The Calder Valley Line is a useful route, covering a long distance and linking many northern towns together, but it could really do with some more TLC. Hopefully in 10 years time I won’t have to use it so much, but I can hope that if I do it’ll be a quicker and more comfortable experience.

Transperience, Bradford’s forgotten transport museum

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A photo of the former auditorium at Transperience

At the weekend I wrote a new Wikipedia article about Transperience.

The Transperience Museum

Transperience was a museum that I was aware of when I was younger, and I remember seeing leaflets about it. But neither I, nor my parents, had never had the chance to visit it during the short time that it was open.

It was essentially an open-air museum of passenger transport. There were some transport simulators, as well as a working one kilometre tram line and a couple of trolleybuses. In addition, there was an auditorium and some workshops were its preserved vehicles were maintained.

The museum was built on the site of Low Moor station, south of Bradford. The station used to be at the junction of the Caldervale Line, between Bradford and Manchester, with the Spen Valley Line which ran through Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike and Liversedge. The station, and the whole Spen Valley Line, were closed in the 1960s, but the Caldervale Line thankfully remains. Otherwise, my regular trips to Blackpool would be far more difficult.

Closure

Despite being right next to junction 2 of the M606 and easy reach of the M62, and costing £11.5 million to build, the park closed in 1997. It had only been open for a little over 2 years. Unfortunately, it couldn’t attract enough visitors to be viable, and was £1 million in the red by the time it was taken over by administrators. The land was mostly sold off to a private developer and is now an industrial estate. The route of the tram line now forms the first part of the Spen Valley Greenway, a footpath and cycle route which follows the route of the Spen Valley Line. Some buildings, like the auditorium remain, but overgrown and derelict.

Interestingly, the site is likely to go full circle. Metro, the public body which manages passenger transport in West Yorkshire, has plans to re-open Low Moor station. Its location close to the M606 means it would make a good parkway station. Plus, it will allow residents of Low Moor and towns in the Spen Valley to catch the train without having to travel into central Bradford or Leeds. It’s likely that the few remaining relics of Transperience will be tarmacked over by the new station’s car park. The station is proposed for 2012, subject to planning permission and funding.

It’s a shame that I never had chance to visit Transperience, as it seemed like an interesting museum that suffered from poor marketing and a lack of focus. Thankfully, museums such as the Crich Tramway Village have succeeded where Transperience failed.

Update (Dec 2016): Work on the new Low Moor railway station is underway, with a likely opening date in 2017. Most of the Transperience infrastructure that remained by 2010 is still there, albeit still abandoned.

The header image for this post is Copyright Humphrey Bolton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Rovers returning to Denton?

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A screenshot of the advice on the National Rail Enquiries web site advising people to catch a replacement bus service from outside the Rovers Return Inn on Coronation Street

This is a screenshot of the National Rail Enquiries website, specifically the ‘transport links’ section of the information page for Denton station in South Manchester. If you can’t read the screenshot, or if the page gets changed, it says the following:

Location for Rail Replacement Services: Outside the Rovers Return on Coronation Street

For those who are not familiar with British TV shows, the Rovers Return Inn is a fictional pub in the soap Coronation Street. Though the soap is set and filmed in Manchester, there is no such street anywhere near Denton station.

It’s therefore likely that someone at National Rail Enquiries, or whoever supplies the data, had a little joke, because it’s highly unlikely Denton will ever have replacement bus services (or at least, not in the near future). Denton station is currently only served by one train per week, currently running during the daytime on Fridays, on a service between Stalybridge and Stockport. The station itself has just one platform, and there aren’t even any signs there – just a bench and some lights.

Denton Railway Station © Copyright Eifion Bedford and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Stockport to Stalybridge Line

It was never always like this. Back in the early 1990s, the Stockport to Stalybridge line saw a regular service. This was because trans-pennine trains from Leeds would call at Manchester Victoria, which only serves other local and regional services. Mainline services to London and Scotland instead departed from the bigger Manchester Piccadilly, and so this service allowed those wanting to travel from Leeds to destinations south of Manchester to bypass the city and connect with mainline services at Stockport.

But the trans-pennine trains were diverted to Manchester Piccadilly in the 1990s and Metrolink started operating in 1992, and so this service was seen as largely unnecessary. But because the trains on this route were the only ones that called at Denton, and Reddish South further along the line, the decision was taken to keep a minimum service running to avoid the legal processes of formally closing the stations. Thus, the service that now runs is a ‘Parliamentary train‘, to maintain the ‘legal fiction‘ that the station is open when in fact it is all-but closed.

There are at least 10 stations in the UK which are served by one service per week to keep them open. Some others have been closed ‘temporarily’, which means that no trains need call there but a designated rail replacement bus operates. A recent example was the Watford and Rickmansworth railway in North London – closed in 1996 but it was still possible to buy train tickets to it nearly 10 years later. Thankfully, that line may have a future as the proposed Croxley Rail Link.