New campaign to reopen rail station at Haxby

10:28am Wednesday 30th January 2013 in News

The Scarborough Express passes through Haxby Station on its way to York The Scarborough Express passes through Haxby Station on its way to York

A FRESH campaign to reopen a railway station at Haxby will be launched at a public meeting next month.

Railfuture Yorkshire, a voluntary group campaigning for better rail services, is organising the meeting at Wigginton Recreation Hall at 7.30pm on Wednesday, February 20.

York Outer MP Julian Sturdy is scheduled to speak, and there are plans for speakers from City of York Council and Trans-Pennine Express to attend.

A spokesman said a station had been proposed at Haxby for some years, and the last initiative to reopen it had foundered as recently as 2010, when funding was withdrawn.

“The business case for the station is, we believe, positive and a cost was put on the station of £7.4 million in 2009,” he said.

“With increased rail usage nationwide and a heavily congested road network, we believe now is the time for Haxby station to reopen.”

He said Railfuture was hoping members of the local community would come forward to take over the running of the action group and support local politicians in achieving funding. Plans to reopen the station date back at least 15 years.

Comments(22)

ReginaldBiscuit says...
10:35am Wed 30 Jan 13

Massively needed. Would take much traffic off the roads. Imagine a rail network that actually did that?

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yorkborn66 says...
10:59am Wed 30 Jan 13

Excellent idea, I think many York residents have said it for years!
Lets hope for something positive to come from this.

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MadHaxMan says...
11:52am Wed 30 Jan 13

Where in pity's name do the construction costs come from for relatively minor projects like this?
£7.4m in 2009 presumably means circa £10m now.
Surely building a relatively basic halt on an existing line, and providing limited associated commuter parking cannot cost this much?
I remember reading a while back that the Goverment had asked the construction industry in the UK to explain and justify how standard construction costs in this country were all at least 25% higher than in other major EU countries. I have never heard the response (if any).
Perhaps some of this cost is to compensate me for the loss of my allotment, which would be under the proposed car-park!

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Ignatius Lumpopo says...
12:29pm Wed 30 Jan 13

Northern Rail built Workington North within a week. Funding for Haxby station, along with three others, was pre-allocated a few days ago. What are we waiting for?

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Jam tomorrow says...
12:55pm Wed 30 Jan 13

A good idea but: Haxby and Wigginton are so spread out that unless a large car park is in the plans very few people will have reasonable access to it. For the majority of local residents it would be quicker to cycle into York than walking a mile or more to the station.

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Geoffers says...
1:13pm Wed 30 Jan 13

This old chestnut rises again!

There is a perfectly good bus service into with multiple drop off points on the way.
What can a railway offer - a drop off at the hospital and then York Station. What use is that?
To walk back into the city from the railway station is only slightly less than walking into town from Haxby!

I just wish these tree huggers would just let this one die.

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Pete the Thickie says...
1:25pm Wed 30 Jan 13

Geoffers wrote:
This old chestnut rises again! There is a perfectly good bus service into with multiple drop off points on the way. What can a railway offer - a drop off at the hospital and then York Station. What use is that? To walk back into the city from the railway station is only slightly less than walking into town from Haxby! I just wish these tree huggers would just let this one die.
Geography is not your strong point then.

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Geoffers says...
1:44pm Wed 30 Jan 13

Pete the Thickie wrote:
Geoffers wrote:
This old chestnut rises again! There is a perfectly good bus service into with multiple drop off points on the way. What can a railway offer - a drop off at the hospital and then York Station. What use is that? To walk back into the city from the railway station is only slightly less than walking into town from Haxby! I just wish these tree huggers would just let this one die.
Geography is not your strong point then.
Please explain?

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old_geezer says...
2:11pm Wed 30 Jan 13

MadHaxMan is right, the costings should be challenged. But I fear the worst of both worlds: over-the-top construction rather than a basic halt with ditto car park, but a cheap service by just adding a stop (and journey time and overcrowding) for the poor souls from Malton and Scarborough. There should be a dedicated shuttle from Haxby to York platform 2.

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Jam tomorrow says...
2:43pm Wed 30 Jan 13

From memory of the past plans; there is no public car-parking envisaged at all. That's why it was nonsense last time and is nonsense yet again.
Or am I wrong on this?

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Pedro says...
3:02pm Wed 30 Jan 13

It makes too much sense to happen.

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ncov0310 says...
4:30pm Wed 30 Jan 13

I wonder if the negative posts on here are from people who don't live in Haxby and surrounding areas? There are so many benefits to having a station in Haxby - for example.. getting out of Haxby in rush hour is horrendous, whether by bus or car. A bus journey into town at anytime of day can take around half an hour... it will take a matter of minutes by train. If people don't want to get the main bus service from Wigginton to Haxby to get to the station, perhaps a shuttle bus service could be provided along the estates(not forgetting Strensall and other outer villages).The station is an easier link for people who work in Leeds. Could a car park be put on land along Landing Lane, which is a moments walk from the proposed Haxby station? This would then save the allotments.I would definitely prefer a 15 min walk to Haxby station and would be happy to pay the train fare which could work out more cost effective than the hugely over priced First Buses. And the walk back into town from York station takes a matter of minutes. Let's just hope that this isn't turned down again.

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bolero says...
4:32pm Wed 30 Jan 13

Jam tomorrow wrote:
From memory of the past plans; there is no public car-parking envisaged at all. That's why it was nonsense last time and is nonsense yet again. Or am I wrong on this?
Yes you are wrong. There was always the provision for parking included in the project. Not that that the whole concept is a good idea anyway. The station originally was there to serve a much smaller more tightly knit community than it is now. The present location is at the wrong side of Haxby. Adjacent to the ring road would be more appropriate. Otherwise commuters are going to be expected to travel about a mile north to get a train to travel three miles south only to get off a train no where near where they really want to be. Forget it.

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RoseD says...
5:17pm Wed 30 Jan 13

GOOD!! I love the little village of Haxby. I agree with the Leeds-Haxby link being more sensible. Yes to quick journeys into town. I hope this actually happens.

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Geoffers says...
7:35pm Wed 30 Jan 13

@ncov0310

I live in Wigginton and have done for over 30 years!

This is a dead duck simply because the folk of H & W don't want/need it.

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Paul Meoff says...
8:58pm Wed 30 Jan 13

Geoffers wrote:
Pete the Thickie wrote:
Geoffers wrote:
This old chestnut rises again! There is a perfectly good bus service into with multiple drop off points on the way. What can a railway offer - a drop off at the hospital and then York Station. What use is that? To walk back into the city from the railway station is only slightly less than walking into town from Haxby! I just wish these tree huggers would just let this one die.
Geography is not your strong point then.
Please explain?
You have to be dense to think Haxby to town is little more walk than York station
to town.

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Guido_Fawkes says...
9:00pm Wed 30 Jan 13

The business case for this doesn't stack up - those of you who think this might happen are living in cloud cuckoo land.

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arg says...
9:27pm Wed 30 Jan 13

I think we are forgetting the bigger picture here: it isn't entirely that folk would be commuting to York, but it makes Haxby part of the greater rail network, you know, the one that might come to York in 30 years time. Hopefully then Haxby will be an exemplar for the need to bring as many villages as possible back into the network.
We forget that the Beeching cuts decimated the feeder network and almost brought BR to its knees. No one wanted to use busses as an alternative so they all migrated to cars, killing the bus network too. If we want to have a healthy rail network we must restore the rail feeder network.
While the Haxby bus does go to York station, many York busses do not and that is a very serious and debilitating factor which contributes to the lack of bus usage in the evening. (though arguably the lack of busses is also part of the problem - a self inflicted wound).

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Omega Point says...
12:18am Thu 31 Jan 13

Geoffers wrote:
Pete the Thickie wrote:
Geoffers wrote:
This old chestnut rises again! There is a perfectly good bus service into with multiple drop off points on the way. What can a railway offer - a drop off at the hospital and then York Station. What use is that? To walk back into the city from the railway station is only slightly less than walking into town from Haxby! I just wish these tree huggers would just let this one die.
Geography is not your strong point then.
Please explain?
If you need an explanation perhaps a child's drawing would be best,

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Magicman! says...
2:25am Thu 31 Jan 13

Some of these comments amuse me... "Haxby and Wigginton is served by a good bus service".... Really? I thought the bus service was run by Firstgroup!!

The rail station should have an underground car park so it can accommodate a good number of vehicles so people can drive from wigginton and get the train, otherwise it'll be no good unless a new bus service runs some odd route such as from wigginton to strensall via towthorpe so as to go past the station. It would also be a good idea to have a bay platform so a shuttle service could run every 20 minutes or so (in combination with removing the single track section by St Marys car park in the city centre and replacing with a 2-track crossover). This would also mean services could carry on and still keep good time through to the coast rather than having to slow for a call at Haxby.

Another idea would be to route the proposed Beverley line this way, whereupon after leaving Haxby the track would curve round to the east so as to pass over the Strensall-York road at Towthorpe Crossroads, and then over the A64 at Hazlebush, beofre it then rejoins the original trackbed. This would then boost the number of through services using Haxby and also provide a good ratio for potential electrification of the route (and therefore quieter and faster trains) in addition to connecting through to Hull and the Bridlington.


Please note that when the Transpennine Express franchise ends in the not too distant future (2015 I recall) the Scarborough route will be detached from the TPE network and will pass to the Northern franchise operator, being integrated with the Blackpool service to form a coast-to-coast route.

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pedalling paul says...
8:31am Thu 31 Jan 13

Basic station costs incorporate the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act.
TPE services have only a 30 min turnaround at Scarborough, to maximise the utilisation of their trains.
Additional Haxby stops will repercuss across the rail network.Do-able but not easy.

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greaves11 says...
9:23am Wed 20 Feb 13

good news, haxby station, iff a train left haxby it could stop at the hopital run into york station and continue to tesco at dringhouses, probably they would put some money forward,on its return journey it could terminate at poppleton = and reverse its journey via tesco to haxby. would have cost about 25 thousanmd pounds in 1970s. lets do it now.

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