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The North West's Weakest Link Rail Stations

By Lillian Burns, February 2010

Following the acceptance by the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, of a report called 'Better Stations' by two 'Station Champions' he appointed, TravelWatch North West has produced its own report - with the help of 'mystery shoppers' - entitled 'The North West's Weakest Link Rail Stations'. This focuses, as does the Station Champions' report, on Regional Hub/ Category 'B' stations. It will be used as a lobbying document to press for improvements to the 12 major railway stations featured in the report and for better access to them by both TravelWatch NorthWest (TW NW) and the North West Transport Roundtable (NW TAR).

The TWNW report, which was launched at a TW NW conference on February 4th, was edited by the Convenor of the NW TAR, Lillian Burns, in her capacity as a Director of TW NW. It is downloadable here or via the TW NW website: www.travelwatch-northwest.org.uk. However, please note that some of the images in this version are not a very good quality. If you can handle large electronic files and would like to receive a copy of the better quality pdf (which is 9.3 mb in size), please request it using the 'contact us' page on this website and we will send it to you.

Postscript

On February 15th 2010 the House of Commons Transport Committee published its report 'Priorities for Investment in the Railways' (ref: HC 38 as two volumes: volume 1 as pdf, volume 2 as pdf). It says that a clear priority must be given, post 2014, to addressing the capacity constraints of the 'Manchester Hub' and it warns that investment in new infrastructure such as a high speed rail system must not detract from necessary medium-term investments on the 'classic' rail network.

On February 16th Network Rail published its Manchester Hub Rail Study, recommending a £530m investment package and emphasised its commitment to what it has now called 'The Northern Hub' because of the benefits that infrastructure improvements in Manchester would have to the whole of the North of England. The proposals include a re-moddled Manchester Victoria Station and a much-enhanced role for it. Manchester Victoria was designated as the worst 'Regional Hub' rail station in England and Wales by the government's own 'Station Champions', an opinion with which TravelWatch NorthWest concurred.