LATEST report by HADRAG, the Halifax & District Rail Action Group, calls for an action plan to develop the route with better services, decent frequencies at Sowerby Bridge and Brighouse and an equally good deal for the new station now planned to open at Elland in 2025.
The meeting is on Saturday afternoon 26 November, and is open to all local rail users and others who want to see a better rail deal for Halifax and the Calder Valley line.
Busy Brighouse! Station has about half the number of trains it needs.
Venue is the Oddfellows room, ground floor at 3 Coleridge St, Halifax HX1 2JF, starting at 2.30 pm (tea, coffee etc from 2pm). Directions to venue below.
Speaker will be Councillor Colin Hutchinson, who is a Calderdale council representative on West Yorkshire’s Combined Authority’s Transport Committee. Councillor Hutchinson will talk about WYCA’s rail strategy and join the Q&A discussion.
HADRAG’s has produced its own paper setting out ambitions for the Calder Valley line. No. 1 is a more reliable service. Then easy things like gaps in service at Sowerby Bridge and Mytholmroyd need to be sorted out – Mytholmroyd has no trains to Manchester on Sundays. HADRAG quotes figures showing Sowerby Bridge serves a population equal to that of Hebden Bridge and Todmorden combined – but has about half the number of trains. All trains that stop at the main upper valley stations should also stop at Sowerby Bridge, say the campaigners. The same is true of Brighouse and the planned station at Elland.
Elland is now due to open in 2025.
Brighouse and future Elland have just one train an hour on two routes. HADRAG calls for a business case based on population served and housing development, to double that frequency, to have better connections between upper Calderdale and Huddersfield, and maybe open up a new route from Calderdale through Wakefield and Castleford to York. Not everybody wants to go to Leeds! And a lower-valley service would also benefit Wakefield which has poor rail links towards and across the Pennines.
Bradford and Calderdale were let down by the broken promise of regular trains to Manchester Airport serving workplaces, hospitals, universities and leisure attractions on the south side of the city. HADRAG says better services via the Brighouse route could link up to Manchester Piccadilly station.
And come to our meeting on Saturday. Doors open 2pm for 2.30 start. The Oddfellows room is on corner of Coleridge St, just off Prescott Street below Skircoat Road (A629 towards Huddersfield) in Halifax – 5 minutes’ walk from Halifax town centre. All welcome: see you there!
SCOTLAND’s railway already has a lot electrified across the central belt between Clyde and Forth. Four routes are wired between Glasgow and Edinburgh – compare that with our cross-Pennine routes! North of the border only routes not for eventual electrification will lines in the far north, western Highlands and Stranraer, which are planned for hydrogen power.
Siemens (siemens.co.uk/sustainablemobility) the engineering company says “We need to go further and faster to decarbonise transport in Britain and fight climate change”, and advocates a transition solution of hydrogen/batteries for routes to Inverness and Aberdeen and in Fife, Ayr and to Tweedbank – “transition”, we take it, means temporary. This is a step in the right direction – and maybe an opportunity to sell hydrogen-powered trains. Siemens say current plans mean UK rail still running diesels in 2060. Scotland is targeting no diesels by 2035.
England’s Integrated Rail Plan will wire the Midland Line through Derby to Sheffield (what about the link to Leeds and Doncaster?) and the full Pennine route via Huddersfield – schemes originally planned before Northern Sparks task force reported! Now Bradford Interchange is in the plan. But where’s the ambition to extend to our full Calder Valley Line, advocated 7 years ago by the task force? And what’s happened to the NPR plan for a new through station at Bradford that would end the idiotic delay-multiplying need for trains to reverse? In central Scotland routes comparable with the Calder Valley are already wired!
Siemens quote figures for CO2 emissions. 27% are from transport. Of which 90% are from road transport. And passenger trains average emissions of one third those form an average car.
But road transport is already noticeably decarbonising. How many electric cars have you seen this week?
Rail must keep up.
Of course the electricity must be from zero-carbon sources. This is even more true of hydrogen power which will always be much less efficient because more energy conversions are involved. And not all hydrogen is genuinely zero-carbon. So called “blue” hydrogen is made from fossil fuels. “Green” hydrogen is made using water and renewably generated electricity
WORK on the TransPennine Route Upgrade (TRU), whenever it starts, is going to affect services on the Calder Valley Line. To ease matters, Network Rail plans a loop, westbound, between Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge. The expectation is this will be a static loop, meaning trains will stop in the loop so TransPennine Express trains can overtake. We understand the CV services affected will be the hourly Leeds-Brighouse-Wigan stopper, but the procedure should allow diversion of 3/hr York-Leeds-Manchester fasts via Brighouse and Rochdale. Brighouse It is not clear when this will start or how lengthy or regular the diversions will be.
The loop will be east of and separate from the existing Hebden Bridge siding, which will be shortened. We understand the plan is for the new loop to be long enough to accommodate a train of length 163m, which is enough for 2×3-car “158” or “195” units. So let’s not raise our hopes that this will provide extra long-term capacity for lengthy freights to be overtaken by CV trains.
Our info is from the Branch Line Society’s newsletter (BLN1385) last September, so may need updating. “Calls [by the diverted TPEs] at Brighouse or Elland would probably adversely affect performance but this has yet to be determined.” We can only add for now that major remodelling of platforms and new tracks through Huddersfield station seems likely to mean, let’s just say, considerable periods of diversions. Brighouse or better still the new station at Elland could be a good alternative for Huddersfield passengers.
Get service back to normal – cuts must not be permanent
Get service right for present users – “easy wins”
Develop better service for new travel patterns – more trains for Sowerby Bridge, Brighouse and Elland – Taktfahrplan Calder Valley
And decarbonise by modern, but tried and tested, technology – electrification
First job must be to restore our service to normal.At present it’s looking like the service Bradford-Huddersfield and Halifax-Hull cut to 2-hourly, plus “missing trains” in the Manchester-Burnley “Todmorden curve” pattern, could last at least until the December 2022 timetable change, when the plan is to re-establish the Dec’21 pattern. And if we are facing a summer of discontent with strikes this situation could last longer[1]. Northern needs to catch up on crew training that could not be done during the periods of lockdown, and there are still issues of staff sickness. At a webinar in May We understand the reasons for the present cuts but do not know whether there is a hidden agenda – maybe imposed by Government.
The present service pattern makes little sense for passengers. If your service is 2-hourly, you have to remember which hour you are on. Bradford Huddersfield is important for college students and connections with TransPennine Express trains. And in hours when the Hull train is missing Halifax-Leeds has three trains in less than half an hour then nothing at all for the next half-hour. Uneven patterns catch people out and discourage use.
A train every hour must be re-established as absolute minimum at all stations, all routes, with higher frequencies where they have been established. And – as we go on to say – where they are clearly needed.
Then let’s get the easy wins.Correction of silly things like a late night 2-hour gap at Mytholmroyd and Sowerby Bridge in trains from Manchester. Restoration of Sunday stops by Manchester trains at Mytholmroyd. It should not be necessary to produce a business case (see below) to fix such obvious errors in the timetable. Nor should such an exercise be necessary to implement stops at stations such as Sowerby Bridge which is not served most of the day by Blackpool trains and Manchester “fasts”.
Then real service development – post-pandemic rail can contribute much more to people’s lives. Northern Trains have said they aim to restore services this December to the level established in December 2021. That should include hourly services Halifax-Hull, Bradford-Huddersfield and round the Tod curve, as well as York-Blackpool and Leeds-Brighouse-Manchester both hourly, and Leeds-Bradford-Manchester (2/hr) or Chester (1/hr). There are fewer services on Sundays, something that needs to be addressed as travel habits change post-pandemic.
First job must be to restore our service to normal. At present it’s looking like the service Bradford-Huddersfield and Halifax-Hull cut to 2-hourly, plus “missing trains” in the Manchester-Burnley “Todmorden curve” pattern, could last at least until the December 2022 timetable change, when the plan is to re-establish the Dec’21 pattern. And if we are facing a summer of discontent with strikes this situation could last longer[1]. Northern needs to catch up on crew training that could not be done during the periods of lockdown, and there are still issues of staff sickness. At a webinar in May We understand the reasons for the present cuts but do not know whether there is a hidden agenda – maybe imposed by Government. The present service pattern makes little sense for passengers. If your service is 2-hourly, you have to remember which hour you are on. Bradford Huddersfield is important for college students and connections with TransPennine Express trains. And in hours when the Hull train is missing Halifax-Leeds has three trains in less than half an hour then nothing at all for the next half-hour. Uneven patterns catch people out and discourage use.
A train every hour must be re-established as absolute minimum at all stations, all routes, with higher frequencies where they have been established. And – as we go on to say – where they are clearly needed.
Then let’s get the easy wins.Correction of silly things like a late night 2-hour gap at Mytholmroyd and Sowerby Bridge in trains from Manchester. Restoration of Sunday stops by Manchester trains at Mytholmroyd. It should not be necessary to produce a business case (see below) to fix such obvious errors in the timetable. Nor should such an exercise be necessary to implement stops at stations such as Sowerby Bridge which is not served most of the day by Blackpool trains and Manchester “fasts”.
Then real service development – post-pandemic rail can contribute much more to people’s lives. Northern Trains have said they aim to restore services this December to the level established in December 2021. That should include hourly services Halifax-Hull, Bradford-Huddersfield and round the Tod curve, as well as York-Blackpool and Leeds-Brighouse-Manchester both hourly, and Leeds-Bradford-Manchester (2/hr) or Chester (1/hr). There are fewer services on Sundays, something that needs to be addressed as travel habits change post-pandemic.
Station
Weekday trains/hr, daytime off peak, existing
Number of wards served (approx)
Estimated catchment popn, potential!
Todmorden
4
1
12400
Hebden Bg
4
1+
13100
Sowerby Bridge
2
2+
24000
Elland (future)
2
2
21000
Brighouse
2
2
21500
Sowerby Bridge, Brighouse and soon to open (we hope) Elland station each serve roughly two council ward areas. The population estimates in the table are our rough estimates based on ward boundaries. Even allowing for inaccuracy you can see that our three station’s potential exceeds those for either of the two upper valley stations, but they have about half the number of services. It is also noteworthy that the 2 trains/hour at Brighouse (and future Elland) are on different routes serving different destinations: Manchester-Leeds and Bradford-Huddersfield. So really, they only have one train per hour to each destination. There is much discussion of commuting not recovering to pre-pandemic levels. We should welcome that. The threat must become an opportunity to develop new markets based on the idea that rail can do much more to enhance people’s lives. Work is something people have to do but what we are working for is the freedom to make the most of leisure time, time with friends, time exploring, time just doing ordinary stuff but not worsening road congestion.
We propose:
Sowerby Bridge should have a level of service equal to Hebden Bridge’s and Todmorden’s, with all Blackpool services calling, and all Manchester services, every day of the week. Mytholmroyd should also have more trains calling – if only to justify the station’s massive new car park!
Brighouse and Elland should have their service doubled. 2 trains/hr on both Bradford-Huddersfield and upper Calderdale-Brighouse-Leeds corridors. Variants of this are possible, including trains from Calderdale to Wakefield and from Hebden Bridge to Huddersfield. And more trains on Sundays.
Where the two routes cross as at Brighouse/Elland, services should be coordinated to enhance connectivity. What we are advocating is a predictable timetable – Swiss-style taktfahrplan.
Sunday services should reflect weekday provision, recognising the social importance of leisure.
We call on Northern trains with West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Transport for the North to draw up the required business case for the above improvements.
Decarbonisation must mean electrification.There seems to be reluctance by government to give the go-ahead to electrification. Yet we are convinced that wiring will pay back in the long term. It’s not just about decarbonisation but about conserving energy and cutting the costs of running a modern railway. Electric trains are cheaper to build, cheaper to operate, cheaper to maintain because they are simpler than diesels or hydrogen trains. 80%, 65% and 34% are roundly the respective efficiencies of pure electric, battery and hydrogen trains. Remember efficiency is the percentage of energy not wasted in conversion processes – such as making hydrogen from electricity, transporting it, and the using fuel cells to get the energy back. Hydrogen will have its uses – not least as an interim solution – but surely not on busy lines like the Calder Valley that also carry heavy freight. While we are developing the bright ideas of people with new machines to sell we are wasting time when we could be putting up wires, using new technology to reduce costs.
Electric trains, light and efficient, are attractive to passengers for speed and acceleration allowing more stops so more people can benefit.
After a decade of prevarication the government seems to have said yes to a little more electrification: Midland Main Line, and – at last! – TransPennine via Huddersfield. Bradford Interchange is also there – but not yet the full Calder Valley electrification which the Northern task force gave top ranking in 2015.
It must happen. – JSW
A version of this article will go to West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Mayor Tracy Brabin, Transport for the North, Calderdale councillors, Members of Parliament, plus – need we add? – Northern Trains and Network Rail.
The Integrated Rail Plan proposes electrification Leeds to Bradford Interchange probably without a new Bradford station. A new station would be good of course, if suitably located for the city centre, and to end the need for Calder Valley line trains to reverse. The IRP suggests Bradford-Leeds should come down to about 12 minutes (which could be less with more new line).
But of course what we need is full Calder Valley electrification extending to Halifax, Manchester, East Lancs and Preston. Transport for the North’s rail committee looked at a blueprint in March which included an as yet uncosted proposal to electrify Manchester-Rochdale, along with Manchester-Warrington-Liverpool, under the heading of MNTP schemes (Manchester & NW Transformation Programme). The timeline arrow touches the early 2030s. In Yorkshire, early extensions of Huddersfield line wiring (beyond the IRP promise), through Brighouse towards Halifax, Hebden Bridge and beyond also seem possible (and easier than the many-tunnels section Bradford-Halifax).
So extensions stepwise of existing proposals could eventuate in full CV line electrification. This would amount to a rolling programme for our line. Bi-modes could be an interim solution, batteries (no more diesels, thanks) covering Rochdale or Littleborough to Hebden Bridge and Halifax to Bradford. But in the long term this is a less energy-efficient way of running trains than overhead wires, and with freight traffic as well as passenger, full electrification is what we need, not just for our line but right across the North.
HADRAG annual meeting will be in Brighouse at the end of June open to all rail users – actual and would-be – at our first in-person meeting since lockdown. Focus will be on community rail, with a new partnership now spanning the Pennines across Rochdale and Calderdale districts.
We look forward to welcoming as speaker Karen Hornby, former rail professional and newly appointed community rail partnership (CRP) officer for the Calder Valley Line. The CRP wants to work alongside station “friends” groups such as those at Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge and Mytholmroyd. They have transformed their stations and continue to work magnificently.
Saturday 25 June Doors Open 12.30 for 12.40 Start St John’s Community Hall, St. John Street, Gooder Lane, Rastrick, Brighouse, HD6 1HN
(We’ll finish for 2.30pm)
Community rail will be main theme at HADRAG’s annual general meeting, on Sat 25 June. The Calder Valley Line now has a community rail partnership (CRP) with the backing of Calderdale and Rochdale councils. Our speaker Karen Hornby is the partnership’s officer. Karen has a history of working in rail, having recently stood down as Network Rail head of performance and customer relationship based in Manchester. Karen was responsible for budgets at four of Network Rail’s managed stations.
As rail recovers after the pandemic, the CRP will have a vital role in raising the profile of our line, from Brighouse and Halifax to Rochdale and beyond. This builds on – but does not replace or compete with – the success of station “friends” and partnership groups. Those groups have done such a fantastic job at Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge, Mytholmroyd and elsewhere. The CV Line CRP must build on that success as it raises the profile of the whole line involving businesses, and wider community groups and building a whole-line profile. CRPs already co-exist to mutual benefit with station groups on other lines – Bentham, Mid-Cheshire, Lancashire and elsewhere. For example http://thebenthamline.co.uk/about_us/ .
Venue
This year’s venue is the community hall behind St John’s church just off Gooder Lane. It is less than 5 min walk from Brighouse train station. Bus 563 from Halifax and Elland goes past, and routes 548/549 Halifax-Rastrick & 363 Bradford-Huddersfield are close by. And of course there is the train, accessing up and down the valley, plus Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield
25 per cent carbon cut – but surely zero-carbon means 100 per cent less!
Northern is looking to order about 20 new trains with reduced CO2 emissions – possibly to use on Bradford-Huddersfield and Leeds-Brighouse-Manchester-Wigan trains on our line. As we understand it these would be diesel-battery hybrids, similar in design to the Class 195s now used on our York, Leeds, Manchester, Chester and Blackpool trains. We understand they would have diesel engines (that’s right) and electric transmission so energy recovered in electric braking could be used to recharge the batteries. This regenerative braking, coupled perhaps with other efficiency-increasing measures would, it is thought, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 25%.
So this is not zero carbon! A quarter of the way there sounds about as advanced as hybrid cars introduced 20 years ago. Zero-carbon must mean a 100 per cent cut!
The idea seems to be that the trains would run on routes close to the TransPennine Route Upgrade Huddersfield line, which (we are informed by the rail minister) is to be fully electrified. So you would think the trains would be able to run on energy supplied by the overhead, say from Leeds to Mirfield and from Bradley into Huddersfield. From what we have seen so far that seems not to be the case.
Or could the trains be “plug-in hybrids” that can be charged at stations? Or maybe converted later with pantographs to run on overhead electric and charge when under the wires? Hybrids are (as we tried to explain to the rail minister) less energy efficient than pure electrics but could be a step on the way.
What is proposed seems more a case of “back to the future”. But good on Northern for taking what could transformed into a strategic step.
If Northern are going to order more new trains, shouldn’t the opportunity be taken to improve the passenger experience? If you are sitting at the wrong end of one of the Northern’s new 3-car trains, it’s a walk through two coaches to reach the loo. That may be adequate for short commuter journeys but with the nature of rail travel changing with a greater proportion of leisure travel by families and elderly people, plenty of toilets should be a must. It’s even more difficult when – as we are now seeing again – trains are getting crowded. Toilet waste that used fall disgustingly onto the track is now retained for disposal later. This means train toilets are complex machines; having only one risks having none in case of failure. We thought Northern might go for an upgrade with the new battery-diesel trains they are looking at. We also thought consideration might be given to providing through gangway connections so that when 2-car or 3-car trains are coupled together both staff (for ticket checking and customer service) and passengers can get from one end to the other. We even thought (maybe this was a long shot) changing the seating layout might be considered giving more passengers the choice of watching the scenery, a time-honoured pleasure of rail travel.
Our understanding is that no such upgrades are intended.
A cost-saving but also, we might argue, a missed opportunity. Class 196 (West Midlands) have end-gangways, and 197s (Wales) also have 2 toilets in units of more than 2 carriages. The Northern, WMR and TfW trains are all built by CAF.
Here is the latest Electric Railway Charter letter to government. Wendy Morton MP and Andrew Stephenson MP are ministers of state at the DfT. Morton is the rail minister; Stephenson has responsibilities including HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, and TransPennine Route Upgrade. He is also a northern MP. So we thought we’d write to both! We copied in local MPs and the opposition shadow Louise Haigh MP. A reply, from Morton, came very quickly by government department standards. (See next page and www.electriccharter.wordpress.com.)
We wanted to remind politicians who might have forgotten (or not been told) about the Northern Sparks report that gave top ranking to our full line, to note the inadequacy of IRP proposals to electrify Leeds to Bradford with no plan to extend beyond, and whilst accepting alternative fuels such as hydrogen will have a role, not for busy routes like ours that carry a mix of fast and stopping passenger trains and freight. And we shared our arrow diagrams comparing efficiencies.
Dear Wendy Morton MP and Andrew Stephenson MP,
As you may be aware, the Electric Railway Charter is a campaign founded four years ago by rail user groups on the Calder Valley Line (CVL) with Yorkshire & NW branches of Railfuture. We seek implementation of the all-party “Northern Sparks” Northern Electrification Task Force (NETF) report (March 2015) and Network Rail’s Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS, 2020). (References at end.)
Northern Sparks gave the full CVL top-ranking in an initial 5-year plan of 12 schemes.[1] Panel (right) shows these schemes in order of economic, business and environmental scores. The more recent promise (Integrated Rail Plan) to electrify Leeds-Bradford is welcome. But it only makes sense as part of a plan to wire the whole route. Almost no trains terminate at Bradford.
Rail Industry Association (RIA) has shown that a wider rolling programme could cut electrification costs by 30%-50%. Disappointingly, the recent Integrated Rail Plan does not include a rolling programme of electrification.
Full electrification of the strategic Calder Valley line would join the Bradford and Brighouse routes via Rochdale to Manchester and via East Lancs to Preston. The scheme would link other electrified railways including the now approved Huddersfield TransPennine route[2].
The Northern Sparks taskforce reported to Patrick McLoughlin MP (now in the House of Lords) when he was Secretary of State for Transport. Lord McLoughlin is now Chair of Transport for the North (TfN). We hope that the Government will work bodies such as TfN to build on the plans already announced. We need a rolling programme of electrification, essential to efficiently decarbonise rail over the next 20 years.
We urge great caution over hydrogen-fuelled trains or widespread batteries instead of full wiring: TDNS suggested around 85% of non-electrified routes need to be electrified.
Electrification is essential to decarbonise heavy freight.
Batteries will be used over short sections that are difficult to electrify. But Northern Sparks and TDNS proposed full electrification schemes.
Our arrow diagrams (based on RIA figures) compare the approximate energy efficiencies of pure electric (overhand wires), battery and hydrogen traction. Compare pure electric (80%) and hydrogen (35%). Hydrogen traction wastes at least 65% of the original electrical energy in making the gas, compressing it for storage, using fuel cells to regenerate electricity, and in transmission via motors to the wheels.
Rail electrification is tried and tested technology that can only improve in a well-planned programme. The Treasury needs to be persuaded that capital cost will be paid back, through:
Reduced running and maintenance costs of pure electric trains, compared with trains requiring more complex systems. Pure electrics’ lighter weight reduces track costs. So network – not piecemeal – electrification makes sense.
Reduced capital cost of simple electric trains compared with complex hydrogen or bimode units.
Regenerative braking returning electricity to the grid (or batteries).
“Sparks effect” – more passengers attracted by higher speed and acceleration serving more stations.
Final thought: Northern’s latest proposed new trains – diesel-battery hybrids, technology that has been around for decades with hybrid road vehicles – will give at best 25% reduction in carbon output, when 100% is needed, i.e. zero-carbon. We need to get our trains up to date!
We look forward to your comments. Rail electrification is established technology that will become more economical through a programme that builds and maintains skills, reducing costs. We look forward to engaging further with you in future, and look forward to news of such a programme.
Yours sincerely, J Stephen Waring and Richard Lysons, joint coordinators, Electric Railway Charter
[1] For historical perspective it is worth mentioning that this 5-year plan should have been for Network Rail’s CP6 2019-24, following schemes such as Midland Main Line, TransPennine Route Upgrade which were postponed and only recently revived.
[2] Incidentally, the IRP seems unclear on whether it proposes full electrification of the present route between Stalybridge and Marsden or is dependent on the proposed Warrington-Marsden NPR line. Please could this be clarified?
Grounds for Optimism?
Wendy Morton MP assured us that the government would “continue to build” on rail’s “strong green credentials”, by “progressing electrification and decarbonisation, … building back greener and meeting the net-zero commitment”. Short term focus would be on “largest sources of emissions” but continuing rail decarbonisation building on 800 track miles delivered in last four years. The “cleaner, greener vision” of the Williams-Shapps plan for rail was mentioned. Great British Railways, once established, will be responsible for “bringing forward costed options to decarbonise the rail network.” Sounds like more waiting.
There will likely be “a role for hybrid and bi-mode battery and hydrogen trains” including interim solutions deployed “while further electrification is being developed”. Government has provided, through First of a Kind schemes £4M to develop alternative technologies.
Morton states that the “IRP has confirmed” the TransPennine route via Huddersfield will be “fully electrified, this includes Stalybridge to Marsden.”
There is no response to our view that electrifying Leeds-Bradford implies the need to continue up the CV line as in Northern Sparks top recommendation.
There is no comment on our arrow diagrams illustrating overhead electrification at least twice as energy efficient as hydrogen power.
There is no acknowledgement of the fact that pure electric trains are simpler and cheaper to run than complex bi-modes, tri-modes and alternative fuel trains.
There is a comment that individual schemes – no mention of a rolling programme – must be value for money for the taxpayer. Quite right. But a mainly electric railway will be cheaper to run than more complex multi-mode alternatives. It will attract more taxpayers to use the trains. It will be investment paying back HM Treasury in the long term.
No-one is surprised that train companies are not printing timetable booklets at present. Nothing is permanent, nothing worth printing. But even pdf timetables can be difficult to find on train company websites. A worrying movement says people can look up times on phones, so there is no need to bring back printed booklets. Wrong. Paper timetables can be browsed in a way that can’t be done on your pocket digital friend. And instead of leaving in ticket offices used by people who already know what time the train is they could be distributed in local shops, cafés, and other community outlets. Station adoption groups could help with distribution.
We also fear ticket offices are about to be run down as more people buy on line or use ticket vending machines (TVMs). But Halifax’s always seems to have customers, and staff can make sure passengers get the right ticket at the right fare. A recent trip up the valley, with queue in booking office, involved more than 20 touches of the TVM screen; this was a railcard return to Todmorden, not Tonypandy!
You can’t beat the human “touch” – even through a glass screen!
Halifax and District Rail Action Group 