Convenient for the railway station, inconvenient for actual trains

[major_clanger]

Norton Bridge is in even worse shape. Although it has a nameboard and appears in the National Rail Timetable, it has not been served since 2004, when the footbridge was taken down. Passengers seeking to access what must be one of the most godforsaken stations in the land have to get there on a bus that trundles round the back roads of north Staffordshire. (Though it offers special spooky charms of its own, since the platform lamps are said to light up from time to time spontaneously and inexplicably.)

The Independent on ghost trains and ghost stations - services and stations kept notionally running or open so as to meet statutory requirements to provide a service. The specific example above explains why, whilst doing some online window-shopping for possible places to live around the Midlands, we found a nice property supposedly down the road from a railway station (Norton Bridge) that turned out to be served only by very infrequent bus.

Comments

The Coal of the Wild

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Crikey. I think I've actually alighted there, way back in the nineteen-eighties.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link. Michael Williams's article mentions a parliamentary service which is a sad echo of this: Let's Go to Birmingham (1962).

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

When I was working in Cardiff, there was a ghost station about 1/3 mile from my flat. It had never been built, let alone had any trains, but there is was, confusing everything.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

I've deliberately taken a trip to Berney Arms, on what is not a parliamentary service, but has trains stopping there due to an agreement in perpetuity with the landowner.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the Tamar line from Plymouth to Gunnislake stops twice along the single track to check that there aren't any cars approaching the crossing. Yep, cars get right of way.