A parliamentary train was a passenger service operated in the United Kingdom to comply with the Railway Regulation Act 1844 that required train companies to provide inexpensive and basic rail transport for less affluent passengers. The act required that at least one such service per day be run on every railway route in the UK.
Such trains are no longer a legal requirement (although most franchise agreements require some less expensive trains). The term's meaning has completely changed, to describe train services that continue to be run with reduced frequency, often to the minimum required one train per week, and without specially low prices, to avoid the cost of formal closure of a route or station, retain access rights, or maintain crew training/familiarity requirements on short sections of track. Such services are sometimes called "ghost trains".[1] Sometimes even the train is omitted, with a bus operating as a cheaper-to-operate "rail replacement service" instead.[2]
Transport Act 1962 (Amendment) Act 1981
An Act to make provision with respect to experimental railway passenger services.
Examples of lines in the current timetable served only by a parliamentary train are:[note 1]
and Wedgwood, which are currently only served by replacement buses.
Barlaston
which serves Teesside International Airport, lost most of its services due to its relatively long distance to the terminal as well as competition from buses which offered more reliable services (which in turn were withdrawn due to the airport's sharp decrease in air passengers). Operated by Northern Trains. Service has been suspended since May 2022.[40]
Teesside Airport
Two Great Western Railway services stop at Pilning every week, both on a Saturday and in one direction only.Pilning, near Bristol – only two trains per week, both from Cardiff Central on Saturdays only at 08:33 (to Penzance) and 14:33 (to Taunton). Formerly one train each way per week, but the bridge to the down platform was removed in November 2016.[41][42] Operated by Great Western Railway.
and Golf Street. From 19 May 2019, these stations are only served Monday-Saturday by the southbound 06:06 Arbroath to Dundee and 07:44 Arbroath to Edinburgh Waverley; northbound services are the 16:09 Glasgow Queen Street to Arbroath service (16:10 Saturday) and the 17:02 Edinburgh Waverley to Arbroath service (17:01 Saturday). Operated by ScotRail.
Barry Links
Shippea Hill station, one of the least used stations in the entire country.Shippea Hill and Lakenheath on the Breckland line to Norwich. Shippea Hill is served at 07:26 Mondays–Fridays (07:47 Saturday) eastbound (to Norwich) and 16:13 Saturdays only westbound (to Stansted Airport). Lakenheath, however, is served by seven trains on a Sunday (4 eastbound, 3 westbound). There are no services Monday–Friday and just a single journey in each direction on Saturdays (11:13 westbound, 15:49 eastbound). Both operated by Abellio Greater Anglia.
has one train per day Mondays–Saturdays, northbound only at 06:50. After major works on the West Coast Main Line, contractors neglected to replace the footbridge which they had removed, leaving passengers unable to access southbound trains. Operated by West Midlands Trains.
A station may have a parliamentary service because the operating company wishes it closed, but the line is in regular use (most trains pass straight through). Examples include:
In the mid-1990s British Rail was forced to serve Smethwick West in the West Midlands for an extra 12 months after a legal blunder meant that the station had not been closed properly. One train per week each way still called at Smethwick West, even though it was only a few hundred yards from the replacement Smethwick Galton Bridge.[45]
List of least used railway stations of Great Britain
Rail replacement bus service
Stations still open but with no services
Billson, P. (1996). Derby and the Midland Railway. Derby: Breedon Books.
Jordana, Jacint; Levi-Faur, David (2004). The politics of regulation: institutions and regulatory reforms for the age of governance. Edward Elgar Publishing. 978-1-84376-464-9.
ISBN
Ransom, P. J. G. (1990). The Victorian Railway and How It Evolved. London: Heinemann.
Calder, Simon (2 April 2011). . BBC.
"Missed the bus? The route that runs only four times year"
Railways Archive: An Act to attach certain Conditions to the Construction of future Railways 1844
