Barlaston delay

I realised how inefficient our railway is today after reading

Regional News ( RAIL 865). One item states that Barlaston station in Staffordshire is due to reopen with London Northwestern Railway services due to start calling in December 2020 or May 2021. Why that long?

To any readers who do not know the history of Barlaston, it was closed in 2004 during the West Coast upgrade, with then operator Central Trains not reinstating the Stoke-Stafford service when it was completed. The stations at Wedgwood, Barlaston, Stone and Norton Bridge lost their services from that date. Stone eventually reopened in 2008, but the others remain shut.

Norton Bridge will never reopen, as the bridge across the tracks to the platforms has been removed. The other two just wait.

But Barlaston could open this December. All the infrastructure is complete - waiting rooms, platforms even the old Regional Railways station signs. Why does it have to take two years?

Pathing issues are not a problem, as trains wait ten minutes at Stafford in each direction, and the following train is ten minutes behind.

If British Rail could design, build and open Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway in six months in 1972, why does it take us two years today to open a station that is physically there, ready for the trains to start stopping? Cliff Beeton. Stoke-on-Trent