This year’s strategic statement from northern mayors and government prioritised a Manchester-Liverpool new line, Leeds-Sheffield electrification, and at top of list a new station to replace Bradford Interchange. The Bradford station proposal is welcome – provided, that is it means a genuine through station to replace Interchange, slashing journey times between Leeds and Calderdale. Halifax-Leeds could come down to just over 20 minutes. That on its own will require some major works on the south side of Bradford city centre.
Well, here’s a thing at Leeds! The Chester train is late coming from depot. So it’s going to miss out Bradford and Halifax and run non-stop to Sowerby Bridge – via Elland! They couldn’t put Brighouse or people might think it was stopping there. But “via Halifax” is unlikely as first stop is Sowerby Bg! And is the “Bradford Inter” train a diverted Brighouse line service being held to run all stations to Bradford via Halifax? We couldn’t find it in the timetable. Any thoughts?
Plans must involve the mass-transit scheme. But they must not depend on it or we could be waiting some time, while the trams proposal goes through its present government-demanded reassessment. Third phase of the plan could be a new high speed route Bradford-Huddersfield. When this was first made public more than two years ago, rumour had it a route through Bailiff Bridge was being considered. Improbable? But we are not clear where it would go. It certainly is not expected to serve Calderdale. And planning will take generation. Can we wait that long? Our line, across the Pennines through both Halifax and Brighouse needs improvements now. We have talked about Bradford-Sheffield trains hinted at in West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s rail strategy. We shall continue to advocate that proposal, which even if routed via Wakefield initially would provide an attractive link Halifax, Brighouse and Mirfield to Meadowhall and Sheffield. Longer term route could be via Barnsley, target journey time Brighouse to Sheffield 50 minutes. (Which would require reopening of the Crigglestone curve.) Also in WYCA’s rail strategy was an extra service every hour Elland-Brighouse-Leeds. The extra train could be fast, Brighouse-Leeds 20 minutes. All trains through Brighouse should serve Elland, of course. The “extra” could start from Halifax, and could be balanced by continuing to run one trans-Pennine each hour to York via Wakefield and Castleford. Demand has been proven – not rocket science. Hourly TPE trains already run this way, and it should be kept. When we raised it at this year’s TPE stakeholder conference in January, Northern and TPE speakers seemed to pour cold water on the idea. We have not given up on this. Who wants to go back to a Huddersfield-Castleford shuttle? Finally, we need a half-hourly fast service Bradford-Halifax-Rochdale-Manchester, extra to present trains (including extra stops for Sowerby Bg at least). Linespeed and capacity upgrades would be needed, but mean the new extra trains would take 45 minutes or less Bradford-Manchester. Achievable much sooner than a new line Bradford to Huddersfield.
Header Image: “Leeds Station” flickr photo by OliverN5 https://flickr.com/photos/mtl_shag/4515194671 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-ND) license
Halifax and District Rail Action Group 