| Re: Blyth's Northumberland Line train station bus stop snub 'madness' Posted by FarWestJohn at 19:04, 14th October 2025 |     |
St.Erth is like that now. It takes ages for buses to pull off the A30 and back on via the traffic lights and road junction even worse in the summer.
Before the large station car park bus stops were on the A30 with a short walk for the few people that transferred to the train. Buses very rarely needed to stop.
| Re: Blyth's Northumberland Line train station bus stop snub 'madness' Posted by grahame at 17:40, 14th October 2025 | |
I can understand both "sides" of this ... it sounds depressingly familiar. It feels like madness but yet when you talk to the bus companies, you can understand why - at least we can / could locally where we have a similar situation. That's a bus stop at the station, but it's only used for rail replacement services. Service buses pass by 150 metres away at the top of Station Approach, though it is 450 metres to the nearest stop (271/2/3) and 550 metres to the stop on the x34. And it's about 650 metres to the Town Bridge.
Diverting the 271/2/3 via the station bus stop would cost somewhere from 3 to 5 minutes. The x34 would be 3 minutes northbound and twice that southbound. And that would mean not only would through passenger journeys be slowed down, but also that an extra vehicle would be needed for the 27x, and an extra vehicle for the x34 - or frequencies reduced and no longer would the services run clockface.
There is - err - some confusion locally about how far from the station it's realistic to have a bus stop / walk. A Wiltshire Councillor who represents a ward on the 271/2/3 route that's on the opposite side of Melksham to the station tells me that the 450 metre walk from the station to the bus stop is reasonable and should not put anyone off, but the 650 metres to the town bridge and town centre is not a reasonable walk. My own view is that for a transfer from the bus, this is really too far - especialy as it involves crossing a busy A road at a point that there's no crossing and traffic appears quick and blind, but then the distance to the Town Bridge, which does not involve crossing any roads on the level isn't a problem if you're headed to the Town Centre.
Of course, the look is for solutions.
* The local authorities (ours, and up north) could cross palms with silver - or perhaps it would need to be gold - to make it commercially worthwhile.
* A bus service could run that actually terminates at the station, and indeed this is a solution for Melksham. We lost our 2nd town bus vehicle during covid - "driver shortage" and it never came back - it could so usefully now fill the gap with an hourly route leaving the station just after the train calls, and gettig back there just before the next train.
* Bus stops could be added at the top of Station Approach. Very easy in the x34 both ways, and inbound on the 271/2/3 - in all three cases two traffic lanes, and no need for pedestrians to cross on the level. The fourth is a bit of a problem, and perhaps the outbound bus towards Bath COULD divert down Station Approach at the request of passengers onboard.
I hope and expect that Newsham has various options such as these; I also hope that they can get them sorted in a tiny fraction of the time that we have been pushing, nagging, campaigning for an attractive bus <-> train solution
| Blyth's Northumberland Line train station bus stop snub 'madness' Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 13:45, 14th October 2025 | |
From the BBC:
A mayor has said it is "madness" buses have not been stopping outside a newly opened train station to collect passengers.
Newsham Station on the Northumberland Line in Blyth opened earlier this year but Arriva bus services are not calling at its new bus stop by the eastern car park.
North East Mayor Kim McGuinness said buses "absolutely should be stopping" at Newsham so people can "get from A to B without any unnecessary hassle."
An Arriva North East spokesperson said its buses already stop "within a short walk of the station", and that moving their pick up points would add more time to journeys "without much benefit".
The Arriva X8 service stops at the nearby Blagdon Driver bus stop, while the X30 to Newcastle stops at Park Farm Villas, but neither take the short detour to the station itself, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. While both stops are relatively close to the railway line, the distance can pose a problem for passengers with mobility issues.
Alistair Ford, chairman of the North East Public Transport Users Group (NEPTUG), called the situation "frustrating". He said the situation was "a barrier for people who don't have cars."
"Nobody has control but the bus companies, and they do what is in their interests, not what is in peoples' interest, or the planet," he added. "This doesn't provide an integrated transport system for people who want it. A lot of the decisions that are made assume that everyone is coming by car, this is a railway, clearly the best thing to do is make sure people can reach it by public transport."
Labour's McGuinness has made the creation of an integrated public transport system one of the main aims of her administration, as well as taking buses into public ownership. She said she is committed to working with the bus companies to ensure the railway is accessible to all. "We need to ensure local bus services connect with the line as much as possible," she added.
An Arriva North East spokesperson said: "Our buses already stop within a short walk of Newsham Station on both sides of the line, so passengers can easily connect with train services. The new stop in the eastern car park was mainly designed for rail replacement use, so it's not part of our regular routes. Diverting buses across the bridge and into the car park would add time to existing journeys without offering much extra benefit. The current stop locations strike the right balance between convenience for rail users and keeping services running efficiently."
