please empty your brain below

Very interesting. If we didn't have a mortgage to try and pay I'd end up watching those excellent All The Stations videos all day!
Isn’t the Chathill evening train from Hexham not to Hexham?

dg writes: There's one of each.
This all seems very familiar. 😉
Please don't hate me for the pedantry but I would argue that by your definition Okehampton and Sampford Courtenay should not be on the list; although the services are run by GWR my understanding is that the line itself and the two stations are not owned by Network Rail.
For reasons of economies of scale and operator convenience, I suggest that all of these parliamentary services are taken away from their current operators and given their own franchise.

This would lease its own trains, and deploy them round the country as necessary on different days of the week, Suffolk in the morning, Norfolk in the evening, Lincolnshire the next day, then on to Nottinghamshire, etc. etc.

Because services are distributed around the country, the franchise might be jointly owned by several operators, past and present, with experience of parliamentary services, and perhaps also a train leasing company. I even suggest a name: the First Overground Abelio Govia Stagecoach Eversholt Railway
@Geofftech -

I suppose you're going to claim that a couple of folk were bonkers enough to visit all these places in one huge trip!
The least-served stations in Northern Ireland - Scarva and Poyntzpass - are both served by 27 trains a week.

I believe every station in Wales is served by at least 40 trains a week.
Fascinating stuff.

Is there any logical or political reason, I wonder, why these least-used stations are all in England and Scotland - why are Wales and NI exempt? Or is it just a co-incidence?
Fishguard Harbour is in wales and has 39 a week - six a day except on Sundays when there are only three.
I believe every station in Wales is served by at least 39 trains a week.
Something illustrated by the contrast between Okehampton and Sampford Courtenay in your list, is that a terminus station has typically only half as many services as a through station on the same line (unless the through station is a one-way-only one). And yet it's exactly the same physical trains which visit all the stations on the line. A sort of paradox.
Surely Newhaven Marine still has trains? It is just that no-one is on can be on them as it runs empty to Newhaven Marine and the station is inaccessible.

On strike days Southern Railway gives details of cancelled trains and explicitly includes the cancellation of a Newhaven Marine - Lewes train in the evening. This give some of us much amusement wondering if a single passenger is inconvenienced.

dg writes: Sorry, I made the mistake of believing Wikipedia. Here's last night's departure.
Are those "many trains on the weekend, no trains on weekdays" timetables due to parliamentary requirements of amount of trains, or is it rather that as the trains anyway are available it's cheaper to let the trains stop instead of running buses in the weekend, while in the weekdays all trains are needed elsewhere?
@MiaM, I suspect the reasoning varies from place to place.

Buckenham gets trains at weekends as a leisure destination (nature reserve/bird sanctuary nearby), but is otherwise too remote to get much in the way of commuter/regular weekday traffic. I'm not sure but I suspect Lakenheath may have a similar story.

As someone said above, Sampford Courtenay/Okehampton is purely a tourist-orientated thing
.
I think most of the other weekend-only services are essentially parliamentary to save the need to go through the procedures to close the station. The Brigg line might have other reasons though, given that it gets three trains.
One reason these trains run at quiet times is because rolling stock is available then. For those stations where there are extra stops (rather than extra trains) it may be for timing reasons - at quiet times they are more likely to be able to make up the delay involved in making the stop.
Interesting and erudite as ever. How did you crunch the timetable to work out which stations to list?
Dominic H - sort of. The first train FROM Okehampton is almost always the busiest service of the day, and occasionally leaves people behind. Suggests people going from Oke to go shopping etc in Exeter, not just tourists/enthusiasts.

@ POP - that Newhaven Marine service isn't public though, is it, as it is a class 5 train? It also isn't listed as a possibility on e.g. National Rail journey planner which wont accept Newhaven Marine as an input
Rich (...)

I know but for some reason DG specifically wrote no trains whereas the for the next entry he wrote no passenger trains.

The point is that the trains have to run.

I wouldn't put too much store by it being a class 5 train. The train codes are nowadays butchered a bit to assist the signalman in a practical way. If that is not the case, we have 16 unfitted freight trains per hour in each direction the East London line.

It is technically an in-service passenger train running between two stations with the first station inaccessible to the public.
Although the other 'no trains' station - Norton Bridge - apparently closed on 14th December, it still appears in the National Rail planner and Trainline are offering to sell me a ticket to Barlaston tomorrow for £3.10 which includes a train ride between Stafford and Stoke. (For which the fare on its own would be £5.60!)

Rather appropriately Wikipedia tells me that the rail replacement bus is operated by D&G bus.
Still amazes me that Newhaven Marine hasn't officially been closed down.

To be fair, there were a LOT of cancelled trains at one point to Newhaven Marine. I remember looking. Although it's flimsy evidence for Wikipedia.

There's still a very vague hope that Reddish South and Denton will get connected up in a new Stockport->Guide Bridge->Manchester Victoria service. But don't get too optimistic about it.

Incidentally anyone ever at Stockport station - try and find a train timetables in poster form on a platform or concourse. Bet you'll find the one for the parliamentary train train to Reddish and Denton. For a limited service, it has a lot of timetables displayed!
Norton Bridge does have scheduled passenger (rail replacement bus) services even though it's closed. The decision to close said the alternative bus services should run into 2019.

The National Rail planner has other weird options such as Alton Towers. At a guess either something for the resort (no routes are found) or they haven't yet removed the station closed in 1965.
The issue with Reddish South and Denton is the flat crossing joining the West Coast main line just north of Stockport. Most paths are currently used for freight or empty stock moves. Reddish South is very well positioned for potential travellers however Denton is not so much.
As for Teesside Airport, it will be much more tricky for poeoole to tick off if they alight at the station.
On a side note I feature in the background of the Reddish South video.
I once bought a season ticket between Finstock (2 trains a day) and Charlbury. For a week when there were no trains due to engineering work. In first class! The compensation offered was a whole bunch of complementary journeys anywhere on (then) FGW, worth a lot more than the cost of the un-used season ticket :)

More usefully for Combe / Finstock etc, GWR recently tested the new class 800s stopping there. The new trains have Selective Door Opening, so can stop at all the tiny stations, avoiding the issue at the moment where only the 2 car turbos can stop there. Hopefully it'll mean a few more peak trains a day for them!
@Nick Burch
"Combe / Finstock etc, .......... only the 2 car turbos can stop there. "

In "All the Stations", the train Geoff caught at Combe was a 5-car Adelante (Class 180)
(Episode 27 at 8:50)
I can confirm i did indeed catch a class 180 with selective door opening at Combe.










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