New Railway Station

[boris1066]

Our local parish councillors and MP are quite confident that there is to be a new railway station at Chapeford Village on the Liverpool to Manchester line. It beggars belief that our lords and masters  think that another station is appropriate when the existing Sankey Station is but a kick in the pants away. 

 

Mind you it follows in the footsteps of the planning of that estate (sorry urban village) having built a new school in the heart of the development and then to realize that it isn't big enough !! 

 

Get after this Dizzy and reveal all

[Dizzy]

Blimey... I'm not sure my other half or family would be too pleased if I revealed my 'all' on here Boris

[Freeborn John]

As I understand it, Chapelford was to be joint financed by WBC, the property developers and a government grant for transport development, the latter fell through which stopped the project for the time being.

I think it was one of WBCs better ideas, parking is king and the lack of it at Sankey makes the station more or less useless for commuters, the huge car park planned for Chapelford would be a huge improvement.

In spite of WBCs assurances I don't expect Sankey would last long after that, frankly, it's a train every two hours station like Glazebrook, perhaps putting it down would be the kindest thing.     

[wolfie]

I'll second Boris.

[AdrianR]

The original plan was to close Sankey, but with FTPE services ultimatley disappearing when the Northern Hub is finished then the line thru Central will have more capacity for stopping services, making it more viable to have two stations. By the time Warrington West is built then it will be about that time anyway. RT Hon D Mowat wants two stations although long term I think Sankey will go.

[boris1066]

what's the location of the station (proposed)?  Any maps/drawings/consultations etc?

[Dizzy]

Boris, google search "Chalepford Station Warrington" or "Warrington West Rail Station Leaflet" and it will bring up a link to WBC's leaflet about it.  Because it's a .pdf document I can't open it and post a direct link.  There's quite a lot of other info online about it too if your search.

[Evil Sid]

https://www.warrington.gov.uk/downloads/file/4115/warrington_west_rail_station_leaflet_2

 

don't know if this will work or not but should provide a direct link to the pdf file download page.

[Dizzy]

That's the one Evils

[Coffee]

Talking about railway stations should Bank Quey not be rebuilt else where or at least updated?

 

It needs far more parking, better public access as well as some shops and services would be a welcome development.

 

There is a industrial estate next to the station where a new station could go or if that is too expensive, some car parking and services could go there and the station linked.

 

Also let us hoope that when the land opposite central station gets developed provisions for car parking will be made for the station users

[inky pete]

Surely saying that a station is useless without a huge car park is tantamount to saying that trains are useless!

 

If we need a big car park to serve Chapelford station, and another big car park to serve Central, and yet another big car park to serve Bank Quay - why not just have the big car parks and dispense with the stations and trains altogether?

 

All that land freed up by demolishing the stations and ripping up the rails would provide some excellent road routes directly into towns - and the car parks for drivers to boot.

 

Just think of all the high level bridges over rivers and ship canals which could be brought into road use as well. There are no fewer than five of them over the Manchester Ship Canal between Runcorn and Eccles alone! They'd fix Warrington's traffic problems overnight.

[Evil Sid]

Amazing that we can build a rail tunnel under twenty odd miles of sea to france but can't sort out getting across fifty odd feet of canal.

[Coffee]

Amazing that we can build a rail tunnel under twenty odd miles of sea to france but can't sort out getting across fifty odd feet of canal.

 

Or put a Probe on a comet 300 million miles away but can't run trains on time or set traffic lights to work properly.

 

last time I used Bank quey station was a couple years ago and it was dire. No where to park, no open shop or cafe and the train was late.

 

Had to transfer in Lancaster and the station there was just as bad

[Evil Sid]

On a sort of related tangent. have notice dthat there seems to be an increase in the theft of pedal cycles from stations recently. Mainly in part due to the way that the cycles are secured. open framed racks at the station or just outside them.

 

the thought occurs that warrington have lockers for the rent a bike scheme. so why can't rail stations provide something similar for commuters to put their own cycles in. takes up just as much space and surely must be more secure. add to that the bike would not be on public view so the would be thief would not know it it was a £1000 bike or a halfords £40 end of line special. (not getting at halfords just using them to show a price comparison) and not being on view there would be less temptation for the would be thief.

 

Just a last thing about trains and pricing. about a year or so back i had to take my car in for some remedial work to the place in edge hill where i purchased it from. i then got the train back from edge hill station to warrington. some weeks after that I was in liverpool visiting a relative and got the train back from lime street to warrington. the thing that surprised me was that the fare from lime street to warrington was 50p cheaper than from edge hill to warrington. considering that edge hill is teh next station up from lime stret it wasa bit of a puzzler.

[Dizzy]

Good idea about them having bike lockers Evils although I'd have thought they would take up more space than racks where bikes can be put side by side with handlebars overlapping etc.

As for train fares.... well they puzzle me too.  Our lad gets the train to work from central station daily.  A single ticket one way costs £9.60 or you can get a day return for £11.40.
There have been times when he's though he was getting a lift home so has only bought a one way ticket.  Unfortunately his lift let him down so he had to buy another single back so the daily fares cost him a whopping £19.40.  HALF HIS DAILY WAGE !! 

He buys a return ticket now regardless.... but how come it's only £1.80 extra more if you do it that way but why should someone going one way pay almost the same as someone going both ways ?


 

[Freeborn John]

Your lad should do what our enterprising Euro friends do, and not buy a ticket at all.

I recently had a chance to study this strategy in action at Central Station when they had a mass ticket check, five little fishes just kept on swimming, feigning deafness, and the twelve or fifteen left in the net all turned out to have been among the three people who had got on at Padgate and duly paid their £1.10.

No flies on those little rascals!