I take the point about the media's stance on the railways -- I haven't seen any press reports congratulating FGW▸ on the progress made recently in our area. But I'm sorry, I fail to see what isn't scandalous about a brand new station being built and no trains being available to operate from it for several months. Stations don't appear unexpectedly overnight like mushrooms.
This is a symptom of the wider rolling stock shortage, which was forseeable, and avoidable. Lack of money is no excuse, train leasing is a highly profitable business and clearly many TOC▸ 's are desperate to find new stock to lease. The blame rests with the government who micromanage all aspects of the railways, like every other matter they are ignorant about. If it is not simply a result of typical ministerial incompetence, it must be something more sinister, such as serving the interests of the banks to use a shortage to maximise their profits by keeping leasing costs sky high. Or the government being anti-rail because they serve other vested interests.
However, I'm not an expert, so maybe someone better informed than me can explain why the lack of trains at this new station is perfectly understandable and acceptable.
Your summary seems to answer your final question? Basically the "rail experts" at
DaFT» think it is an acceptable situation and, therefore, you don't have to understand the reasons.
Basically Corby is a victim of the Beeching et al inspired rationalisations of the railways from 1960s and onwards through the 70s. In the 60s Corby was on the direct line from Kettering to Nottingham via Melton Mowbrey. We used to catch a late afternnon train from Derby to St Pancras which was routed via Nottingham and Corby. Nottingham to Melton Mowbrey was closed (a duplicate route?) and the bridge over the Trent used as road. As traffic to the steel works came from the North the line North of Corby was left double and the line South of Corby to Kettering singled.
Also as part of the rationalisation of teh
MML» the orginal 4 tracks from Bedford to Kettering (St Pancras - Kettering 72 miles was the longest stretch of 4 trck in
GB▸ ) through Wellingborough were rationalised to a mixture of 4/3/2 track sections thus reducing the capacity of the line. With MML full of trains going via Leicester it is difficult to fit trains to Corby onto the line South of Kettering.
Added to DaFTs rolling stock policy, too little too late, even if you could find the paths there isn't the stock to run the service.
Thinking about it's similar to Melksham, useful section of line closed in the North side of the traingle at Bradford on Avon plus single tracking and lack of stock to run the service. The only difference is no TOC has succeeded in running 10 trains a day that used Melksham to get, to Corby. Although now it looks as if Corby will get a fairly decent service.
Place your bets that in the next franchise round for the MML the Corby service will be drastically reduced and the stock redeployed for an enhanced Melksham service!
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