New video.

[stokoe]

https://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/news/article/377/coast_project_aims_to_draw_tourists

[Inspector Knacker]

It refers to 600,000 visitors a year using the station. Surely most of those 600,000 will not be visitors but commuters, but are there even 600,000 using the station ?

[Hartlepudlion]

I agree.
Possibly 600,000 passengers and users calling in for info and buying tickets. Most of these will be Hartlepudlians going somewhere else rather than staying in H'pool.

I usually visit with the Mrs to buy tickets before travelling so that's six counts for each journey.

[mk1]

600,000 is 300,000 going, 300,000 coming back. 1000 a day on 30 trains is not  much.  The 2013 numbers (523,036) place Hartlepool very firmly at the bottom end  of 'passenger' tables  on par with South Acton a Tube station in a deprived area  London with half our population.


https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/may/19/train-stations-listed-rail

[testing times]

it's a nice video but then I saw that Cranney was involved which had the effect of making me doubt the motives behind the whole project

[Inspector Knacker]

600,000 is 300,000 going, 300,000 coming back. 1000 a day on 30 trains is not  much.  The 2013 numbers (523,036) place Hartlepool very firmly at the bottom end  of 'passenger' tables  on par with South Acton a Tube station in a deprived area  London with half our population.


https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/may/19/train-stations-listed-rail

Be nice it was on the present route every 15 mins as a sort of coastal metro service.

[mk1]

The problem for Hartlepool is there are no direct fast links to any other town. All the bus operators run their services calling at every village on route. They are out to maximise revenue so that means if you want to go to Durham by bus it takes over an hour. To Sunderland is also an hour and the 'direct' link with Newcastle is again over an hour but has a designated 'change-over at Peterlee where you transfer to another bus-some 'direct' service'!
Our Councillors are  allowing themselves to be sidelined by public transport and they never seem to do anything to try and improve things. Look how they recently stood aside and said nothing as Trans Penine re-timed its Boro  train service to run a few mins earlier and thus  make anyone from Hartlepool wait 55 mins at Thornaby for the next connection south.  Hartlepool travellers  had 55  mins added to every journey south so Boro passengers could get there 5  mins earlier.

[Inspector Knacker]

I drive up to Tyneside regularly and try to vary my route just for the sake of it and noticed that every one horse watering hole has a direct route to Newcastle. I find it amazing that the Northern route routes like the X9 visit Stockton , Billingham and .Peterlee. People say Ah yes but they're close to the A19. Well if you followed the the back road route it takes to get from Stockton to Billingham there must be a fair old waste of time that negates the A19 proximity.
Yes we have a car, but didn't till our local services were privatised and the constant changes in times, routes and fares made using it impractical and expensive with constant rises in fares.
It's a bus business not a bus service.