Given that the meagre TWO trains that call at Clifton daily currently both do so either before dawn or after dusk, can someone explain precisely WHY intending passengers are forced to blindly grope their way onto the platforms in order to make use of even this minimal service?

Given that the station lights ceased to function as far back as last October, also WHY is it that no-one has bothered to do anything about it?

Indeed, has anyone from Railtrack or Northern Rail EVEN NOTICED YET? I doubt it!

Sir,
I continue to follow with interest your ongoing discourse with those agencies variously involved in the minimalistic provision of rail services currently ‘enjoyed’ by Clifton Station.

I can readily sympathise with frustrations felt at the ongoing apparent abject apathy (and, dare I say it, somewhat predictable, if not defensive, attitudes) displayed by the various parties you have taken to task along the way. The scenario sounds all so depressingly familiar. Indeed, the issues surrounding your personal crusade, mirror a similar situation – also extant for very many years now – facing innumerable potential rail passengers in my own hometown of Stockport.

Like many others, I make trips to nearby Stalybridge on a quite regular basis and am well aware that there are well-maintained train tracks directly connecting these two towns. However, (as far as Guide Bridge, at least), virtually the only regular traffic traversing the rails today are infrequent freight services avoiding the bottleneck routes through the City centre, the occasional empty diesel unit travelling between depots for servicing and main-line trains diverted at weekends due to engineering work. Nevertheless, the Stockport to Stalybridge line is still officially ‘open’ to passenger services and, ipso facto, technically, it is still possible to travel over it from Stockport Station – once a week, on a Saturday morning.

To attempt to return home at the conclusion of one’s business in Stalybridge is, however, quite another matter. There just isn’t a single train at all in the opposite direction at all! Upon discovering the sprouting weeds between the rusting tracks of the windswept and permanently deserted former Stockport bay platform at Stalybridge Station, any intending passenger finds himself forced to make a very time-consuming ‘dog-leg’ of a journey back home via Manchester Piccadilly. Such a poor alternative more than doubles the direct distance between the two places and involves also the additional inconvenience/expense of re-booking tickets when trains (and probably train-operating companies) are changed en-route.

For those poor souls unfortunate enough to reside in the localities of South Reddish and Denton, even that luxury isn’t an option today. To actively support their local stations (establishments, like Clifton, currently advertised as still nominally ‘open’ for business) and to travel entirely by rail to anywhere at all and then to attempt to return back home by the same means – would incur an absolute minimum of precisely 168 hours (or one week) ! It’s no small wonder that no-one uses the stations any more – they have all been systematically but deliberately starved of any useful purpose. Yet they do possess well-maintained platform surfaces, access ramps and modern waiting facilities, illuminated by powerful lights on high masts that burn on into the night long after any potential passenger has gone. Clifton even has a public telephone on one platform (although that hasn’t worked for months now and no-one has bothered to come to fix it).

We all know WHY these abysmal services remain nominally extant at Denton, Reddish South and Clifton – it’s all a big accounting fiddle to conceal the fact that no-one at all wishes to involve themselves in the embarrassment and phenomenal expense of pushing an Act through Parliament that would permit closure. Indeed, I would go so far as to submit that such gross professional negligence secretly belies the fact that those concerned (comfortably seated in their distant offices and with absolutely no concept of, or consideration for, the suffering and inconvenience being experienced by some of those who actually pay their salaries) have each personally failed in their individual duty to assist in retaining and promoting the public service for the custom that those localities concerned once provided.

I express no particular surprise at the indifference displayed by Roy Chapman of the GMPTE, my personal view being that this person has always appeared more interested in establishing a name for himself than to contribute anything really productive towards the common good – he resides close to both Reddish South and Denton stations, yet I have never been aware that he has lent his private support to assisting in finding ways to re-vitalise those specific services. (In actual matter of fact, it is common knowledge as being far from the first occasion upon which Mr. Chapman has demonstrated an inability to successfully run a business of his own in the area. Without wishing to cause any offence, let’s only hope that this is not a trend!!)

I am, however, somewhat dismayed at the reaction from Dr. Salveson, whom I should have expected to have been a little more supportive to this particular cause, particularly as he was raised in the area. Paul was, for example, very active in the protests at the time of the demise of the original Horwich station in 1965 and is more recently known for lending his support to the re-vitalising of the Huddersfield-Penistone line close to his current home!

Today’s problems cannot all be blamed upon the bus and the motorcar – the continued survival of the Huddersfield-Penistone service well-illustrates that point and, indeed, stations (and even whole branch lines) have actually been re-opened elsewhere – and this after years of lying dormant or even demolished.

Nothing has changed whatsoever at Denton, Reddish South and Clifton – at all of these places there are today exactly the same number of businesses employing the same number of personnel. Equally, again, there are, if anything, far more people residing today close by. Significantly, it must never be forgotten that these 3 stations survived the cull of the ‘Beeching Axe’ during the 1960s – a particularly depressing period during which many other un-remunerative local services actually did ‘go to the wall’ – so, very clearly, it naturally follows that Denton, Reddish South and Clifton MUST have been making a profit at some stage.

For Louise Manning of GMPTE to proffer the ridiculously unfounded claim that there has to be a ‘critical mass of demand’ and, in her words, in the case of Clifton that critical mass does not exist, is far too simplistic. Likewise, with Claire Beat of Northern Rail, I strongly suspect that an examination of the job descriptions of these two might reveal that a major segment of their specific roles within their respective organisations is to deflect (and browbeat?) adverse criticism with carefully pre-prepared individually customisable statements that have crossed the desks of very experienced legal teams before submission.

Rail travel into Manchester is, and always has been, much faster and far more convenient than any other mode of transport. However, only one train a day, and at 7-09am, is of absolutely no use to anyone at all. (But, perhaps that is the intention?) It is a matter of ‘horses for courses’, make train travel attractive enough compared with the alternatives and people will gradually return in their droves. This has been proven time and time again elsewhere in the UK. Repeatedly increase rail fares above the rate of inflation, whilst concurrently creating services less and less attractive to users, and it then comes as no particular surprise that people immediately reach for their car keys, or walk to the nearest bus stop. That, perhaps, is the major factor behind Mr. Chapman’s claim that research at the time discovered that, until some ten years ago although most local trains between Manchester and Bolton called at Clifton, only some 12 to 20 passengers per day used the station. Any proffered excuses, for example, that the station lost its (interchange) “Junction� status in 1966 or that there are ‘pathing’ issues in stopping trains here today on what is, admittedly now a far higher-speed route, are, nevertheless, mere ‘smokescreens’ and, upon in-depth examination, provide no real substance to any reasoned argument.

Although I personally reside in the Stockport area, I actually do commute on a regular daily basis to within 50 yards of Clifton Station. I would love the opportunity to use the train, but, for me, that just is not possible. I do not wish to leave home at some ungodly hour of the morning, nor do I wish to travel after work first to Bolton in order to get back to Manchester Victoria,. Similarly, a bus journey would involve no fewer than 4 changes in each direction, so, equally, timewise, that too, is not a practical proposition.

Therefore, I am faced with no alternative at all but to join the throngs on the M60. However, what is of far greater significance here is the fact that unaccompanied and taking my road tax and insurance into consideration (even in my own 2-litre car), I find it far, far cheaper to make that journey!

Before the wide-scale privatisation drives by recent Governments, a definition of public transport was supposed to be that transport supplied by the state agencies. Such a service was often run at a loss because of the government’s social obligations. It often involved servicing areas that private transport operations would not touch because they were unprofitable, but every single person was entitled to that service and at an acceptable level. All we are asking for today is an acceptable level of service, perhaps only at peak periods – in other words, merely the OPPORTUNITY to travel, should we so choose.

Perhaps it is time to seriously consider re-nationalising transport and to get rid of all the armchair profiteers, wofflers and political puppets – before it is all too late and Britain literally does grind to a halt.

“24C�