We received the following email today from Rawreth resident Karl Reilly:
I have been in touch with Greater Anglia since they have taken over the local rail franchise. The train services into London have been improving, but one of the peak rush hour trains still does not stop at Battlesbridge – the only station it does not stop at.
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I wrote to Greater Anglia to ask if the would stop the 07:37 Southminster to London service at Battlesbridge. They responded that they would not, and further, they were also considering making the 06:48 service non-stopping too.
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This means that if people from Rettendon and Battlesbridge want to travel to London from our station they have a choice of a train at 06:34 or 08:41! The only viable alternative is to drive to Wickford and park. This adds loads of extra car journeys in the area and for each of us using the station, and additional bill of over ?1,000 a year for parking.
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For Greater Anglia, there are no reasonable operational reasons why these trains cannot stop additionally at Battlesbridge. The transit time from South Woodham to Wickford is the same whether or not the trains stop!
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Could I ask you and the council to contact Greater Anglia on behalf of the residents and users of the station to request that the through trains stop at Battlesbridge?
We will certainly be pursuing this issue. Battlesbridge station seems to be an underused asset….
I think you will find that one of the reasons trains do not always stop at Battlesbridge goes back to the days of the Beeching cuts in the 1960’s
Graham,
Given that Beeching did his stuff in the 1960’s, times have moved on. The current situation is down to usage of the station. People don’t use it so trains don’t stop so people don’t use it… and so on.
However, the trains pass through, so there is NO COST to Greater Anglia to halt the trains that pass through. The benefits to our community outweigh the ‘hardship’ of the train drivers for doing one additional halt on the line. After all, all the other trains in the day stop at Battlesbridge.
Surely, in these circumstances, the answer would be to make it a request stop?
Sean,
Yes! A really simple solution to a really basic need.
This would work for those on the Platform, but anyone already on the train would then need the means to request a stop too. In practice, the train comes to a stop for a matter of seconds before pulling away again if there is nobody on the platform, or if no body on the train has activated the doors – just as they do at the other small stops up the line.