Parliamentary Mysteries
The Guardian's David McKie investigates the mysterious world of parliamentary trains.
Even they, though, are better served than users of Reddish South and Denton, which for years have been serviced by one train a week, sometimes running from Stockport to Stalybridge, and sometimes the other way round. In recent months these trains have run out of Stockport at 11.23 every Saturday morning, reaching Reddish South five minutes later. No figure for either station is provided in the ORR report. Could it be that in the year 2004-5 no one used them at all?
I've actually ridden that line, when it ran on a Friday afternoon. This is one of the so-called 'parliamentary trains' that runs once a day or once a week on little used lines so that the operators don't need to go through formal closure procedures. Many of these are short sections of line with no stations, such as the short stretch of line between Heald Green and Styal avoiding Manchester Airport. The famous Stockport to Stalybridge line is still used by freight trains, and for occasional weekend diversions, so little money would be saved by not running the one weekly passenger service.
I have no explaination for the great mystery of Watford West. Who can tell us how 25 people a year can use a station which has not only had no trains since 2001, but no longer even has any tracks?
Posted by TimHall at August 24, 2006 10:01 PMOne of my school friends used to commute to school on that line (lived in Stalybridge, went to Stockport Grammar). One time we blagged our way into Stalybridge signal box to chat to the signalman, and were highly amused to discover a Glasgow & South-Western Railway lever frame (IIRC) therein. Which is even funnier - and much harder to explain - than the massive frame (something like 50 levers) in tiny Chapel-en-le-Frith South. (In Chapel's case the box had been hastily rebuilt after its unfortunate encounter with the runaway train which John Axon GC was attempting to stop. They diverted the next available frame for the rebuild, which I think was destined for Carlisle or somewhere.)
Posted by: Rob on August 29, 2006 10:02 PMStockport-Stalybridge used to be a regular service when the north Trans-Pennine trains ran from Victoria; it was a useful connection for passengers travelling between Cheshire and West Yorkshire. Now you can do the same journeys with one change at Piccadilly.
Did you know that Stockport No1 and 2 boxes still have the original 1895 LNWR lever frames? Refurbished a couple of years ago with the help of some signalling engineers flown in from India.
Posted by: Tim Hall on August 29, 2006 10:18 PM