No surprise midlockdown, our local inter-city operator Grand Central suspended all services on 3 April initially for a two-month “hibernation”. Since 2010 GC has run trains from Bradford, Halifax, and Brighouse to London, originally three trains, more recently four a day. An open-access operator, GC does not receive the government support that is keeping franchised train operators running in the present crisis, but has been able to make use of the government furlough scheme.
In a statement online (3 April) GC’s managing director Richard McClean said this was “necessary but temporary”. The company would “keep in contact with the three main rail unions,” and “A skeleton team will continue working to ensure Grand Central is ready to resume services as a thriving train operator, serving communities…, once restrictions ease.”
The promise is a come-back “stronger and more resilient”. Trains to London have become an expectation at our stations. They must come back.
Congratulations to “our” intercity operator Grand Central on its tenth anniversary at the end of last year. As if to mark the occasion, GC has withdrawn its three InterCity 125 “high speed train” (HST) units, receiving four more of the “Class 180” trains familiar both to Halifax/Brighouse-London passengers and to those who depend on the 0728 Halifax-Leeds. The extra 180s are from Great Western, another company taking HSTs out of service as new “Intercity Express Project” trains arrive. The GC HSTs, which received new engines in 2010, have gone to East Midlands Trains. What a pity they could not have moved sideways from Arriva-owned GC to sister company Northern to help relieve overcrowding whilst we desperately await new trains.
Huddersfield-York Sunday train calls at Low Moor station on the recent new station’s first day. In not too many years time this train should also serve Elland. Time for an update on this summer’s good news:
HADRAG welcomes this summer’s major step forward in planning Elland station as an ambitious transport hub, and calls for the Northern train operator to rise to the challenge of upgrading train services on the line. We say with a decent timetable Elland-Leeds by train could take just over 20 minutes.MORE BELOW…
In June the combined authority’s West Yorkshire and York investment committee recommended allocation of up to £22million from the West Yorkshire Plus Transport Fund (WY+TF) to an ambitious project that should make the new station at Elland a local transport hub, with pedestrian, bus, park & ride and cycle links, by 2022.
This is a major step forward for Elland, the town that has been waiting for its own railway station since Brighouse opened 17 years ago. The scheme will now move forward towards the next hurdle, outline business case, which should be completed by the end of next year. By then the project will have achieved what Network Rail calls “GRIP 4” – single option development, with detailed design (GRIP 5) following over the next two years.
The £22M (which includes allowance for 20% overrun in delivery costs) buys considerably more than just a simple train station. The key elements of the ambitious project are:
The new station itself, located at Lowfields Way. This would be next to the big “figure of eight” roundabout off the A629 bypass road;
Pedestrian, cycle and public realm improvements to link the new station to Elland town centre as well as to surrounding areas of planned employment and housing growth;
New footbridge over the River Calder. This will link to the Calder Valley Greenway on the canal bank (Route 66). It will also give good links to the station from the north and west where the Local Plan suggests significant housing growth. Current employers in the area could also benefit with opportunities for “intensification” of activity;
New bus infrastructure to enable bus-train interchange at the station, providing sustainable access from a wider catchment area; and
Dedicated station car park and highway access to bring in park & ride to bring in passengers from existing and new housing area around the periphery of the town.
This sounds very much like the sort of local transport hub that HADRAG called for just four years ago after we held our 2013 annual meeting in Elland .
We understand the car park could be built on two levels, and hope bus operators will be persuaded to provide services linking the station and all the surrounding communities. Sustainable commuting and leisure also look to be encouraged by the scheme. We look forward to being able to access the station on foot or with a bike from the canalside “green” route.
The station also has an obvious potential role in hospital transport for staff, patients and visitors. Could shuttle buses linking the two NHS sites at Calderdale (Salterhebble) and Huddersfield (Lindley) be developed to call at Elland station?
In terms of the local community, HADRAG says Elland station, with good park & ride and sustainable transport links should be seen as serving not just Elland itself but also Greetland and Stainland, a total “Greater Elland” population of more than 20,000. As such the station will have a catchment as populous as the areas served by stations like Brighouse or Sowerby Bridge. In fact we reckon any one of Sowerby Bridge, Elland or Brighouse stations potentially serves as big a population as the two main upper Calderdale stations – Todmorden and Hebden Bridge – combined.
Upper valley-Elland-Brighouse rail corridor: we hope for timetable improvements!
But of course Todmorden and Hebden Bridge, along with Halifax, currently have almost double the train service level of either Sowerby Bridge or Brighouse. Sowerby Bridge (and Mytholmroyd) should see some improvement next year with the Blackpool-York trains stopping. We really hope Northern will build on that at the end of 2019 when the next big timetable recast comes. And of course HADRAG continues to argue the case with train operator Northern for a better deal for the Brighouse corridor. In our response to Northern’s timetable plans we have specifically asked for future timetables to include make allowance for all trains that currently stop at Brighouse also to serve Elland. We have also want the Manchester-Rochdale-Brighouse-Leeds “valley bottom service” to run later at night and on Sundays, something that does not, so far, seem to feature in Northern’s plans.
As an ambitious transport hub, Elland station will be another reason to upgrade the timetable. Opening 22 years after neighbouring Brighouse, the new station may still seem frustratingly in the future. But at least by 2022 we hope there may be further timetable improvements. Under the existing service patterns, Elland would be served by hourly trains on the Manchester-Brighouse-Leeds and Huddersfield-Bradford-Leeds routes, effectively an hourly stopping service to key destinations. We have joined our colleagues in the Upper Calder Valley Renaissance Sustainable Transport Group in calling for a service from the upper Calder Valley to Huddersfield, meeting commuting, educational and other sources of demand. That would give an additional service along the Sowerby Bridge-Elland-Brighouse corridor. But we also need better services Elland/Brighouse-Leeds.
Potential for fast journey to Leeds
We want Northern, Network Rail and their train planners to rise to the challenge of providing an upgraded timetable for Elland/Brighouse rail corridor. It probably needs some capacity improvements in the Huddersfield and Mirfield area as well as a more ambitious approach by the train operator.
Finally, HADRAG has repeatedly, over may years, pointed out the potential to speed up trains on the direct Brighouse-Dewsbury-Leeds route. At present Brighouse-Leeds takes about 34 minutes, calling at nearly all stations. So that would be 37-38 minutes from Elland. A fast service, with maybe just intermediate stop, would easily cut the Brighouse-Leeds journey to 20 minutes. So stations all the way up the valley would get a Leeds service that could be 10-15 minutes faster than at present. Elland-Leeds could be about 23 minutes.
What could go wrong? One complication is the TransPennine Route Upgrade. This is the project that was meant to include Huddersfield Line electrification, though it sounds increasingly as though it may not. With or without electrification there is likely to be upgrade work to improve capacity that will mean diversions of TransPennine Express via the Calder Valley line while the work is going on. The plan seems to be that this will be completed before Elland opens. Fingers crossed, then. -JSW
UPDATE DECEMBER 2016: Good news of relief for at least some Calderdale-Leeds commuters, thanks to efforts by train operator Northern working with sister company Grand Central.Halifax is to get an extra weekday morning train to Bradford and Leeds when new timetables start on Monday December 12th. The new Northern service will be formed of a 5-carriage Grand Central train that already comes empty through Halifax to form the 0744 Bradford-Leeds service that has run since July (see our original newsletter story below).
The extra train will start from Halifax at 0728 arriving in Leeds soon after 0805. It should give people a welcome and attractive alternative to the overcrowded 0720 and 0734.These two services (respectively the 0659 from Huddersfield via Brighouse and the 0636 from Manchester via upper Calderdale) were both cut from four carriages to two last summer when Northern had to replan its rolling stock deployment in the wake of a rolling stock “grab” involving three train operating companies. As we understand it decent trains that had been operated by TransPennine Express were reallocated southwards so Chiltern Railway could expand services. This meant some equally decent trains on loan from TPE to Northern in the north-west had to go back to TPE. Which left Northern short. As soon as we heard they were going to run the Grand Central train on a Bradford-Leeds service, HADRAG started pressing Northern to start the service further back along Calder Valley Line. So it’s good news that the proposal, after a period of industry consultation (it seems these things are never a formality), looks to have borne fruit.
Given that Northern’s loss seems to be Chiltern’s gain, we are not sure what the fall-out would be if people on the latter operator’s new service from Oxford to Marylebone had to endure the conditions of our lines Leeds and Manchester commuters.
The new Halifax-Leeds train which will have free wifi, extra legroom and – top-tip! – a first class coach at no extra cost! Although the train starts at Halifax, passengers from Brighouse and upper Calderdale will also benefit indirectly with less crammed conditions on their trains. Hopefully a few people may also transfer from the 0749 from Halifax, a Blackpool-York service that has seen some sardine-can conditions that are surely unacceptable.
We’re under no illusion that this is a complete solution, and nor, we trust, are train operators Northern who are in a seemingly impossible position for peak capacity until new rolling stock arrives. Running as it already does from Bradford, the GC train has built up quite a following is and is fairly full by Bramley; but getting on at Halifax at 0728 you’ll have first choice for a seat. Advertised arrival time in Leeds is 0807 (Tuesday-Friday) but 5 minutes later on Mondays when our train has to cede a path to a freight train going through Leeds. The service is expected to run at least until December 2017.
We could really do with some even more imaginative thinking to help commuters on other crammed services including the aforementioned 0749 from Halifax. Local train operating franchisee Northern (Arriva Rail North Ltd) and the open-access operator Grand Central, who are operate the new train on Northern’s behalf, are of course sister companies under the German-owned (but North East England based) Arriva group. The GC “Class 180” unit that works the extra service to Leeds then operates the mid-morning Grand Central service from Bradford, Halifax and Brighouse to London.
Original story from Autumn 2016 Halifax & District RAIL VIEWS (October):
Bradford Interchange, weekday morning, about 0740. At platform 1 (left), the 0752 Grand Central (GC) train to London (calling Halifax and Brighouse on the way). Meanwhile on P2 lucky commuters board another GC “Class 180” with its intercity seats, plenteous toilets, free wi-fi, and “operated by Northern” window stickers. This is the 0744 extra train to Leeds, and Northern hires the roomy 5-car “180” (which goes to London later in the morning) from its “sister” Arriva company. It’s a tactic that responds to a rolling stock shortage and peak-hour overcrowding that’s marred the first six months of the new Northern (Arriva Rail North) train operating franchise.
In July the TransPennine Express franchise lost some good modern trains down south to Chiltern under the Department for Transport’s “let the market decide” rolling stock policy. Northern had to return some other nice carriages that it was using on services in the North West back to TPE, requiring to major train replanning to cope.
On our line the two Leeds commuter trains at 0720 and 0734 from Halifax have been cut from four carriages to two. The 0734 now sees intolerable crush-loading between Bradford and Leeds, as does the following 0749 from Halifax, a Blackpool-York train which should be 3-car (but sometimes is only two). Here’s one of many comments from a HADRAG regular on the 0749:
“Three carriages but horrendous today. Stood up all way to Leeds… 22 standing in my carriage from Halifax… everybody managed to get on at Bradford but we were then full… counted 80 on platform at New Pudsey and very few managed to squeeze on… one bloke running along [platform] desperate. Late at Leeds due to time it takes to get people on and persuade others to give up trying and stand clear of the doors.”
The 0744 Bradford-Leeds “GC train” has developed a following. We’ve seen it quite full by Bramley, but with some seats free and a few “optional standees”. It is limited help for Calderdale passengers. Yet GC’s “empty stock” from depot comes non-stop through Brighouse and Halifax. So, HADRAG suggested, why couldn’t the GC train could pick up on its way or even start further up the Calder Valley? These things are never easy with “pathing” issues and the need to taxi a GC conductor to the right place. But if this nice train could be judiciously timed to start at Brighouse, or maybe even Hebden Bridge, it could spread demand between Halifax and Leeds and ease intolerable crowding on the 0734 and 0749. However they do it, Northern need more carriages for Calderdale commuters now. We can’t wait till 2019! – JSW
Halifax and District Rail Action Group 