Station operators?

[flippyff]

What decides which company operates a station? I'd imagined that the operator with the most services calling at a station would operate it but if that were / is the case, why would London Overground be taking over Norwood Junction? Surely Southern will still have more services there?

TIA

Simon

[Deleted]

I suppose the answer to your question lies at the powers that be ie: namely Network Rail with help and assistance from Transport for London and then the companies that are running the services in this case Southern & London Overground.

I dont think unless someone is in the know whether we will find the real answer, but i hope this is off help and i will stand corrected if i am wrong.

[norbitonflyer]

There are some odd anomalies about. The Cross Country franchise operates no stations at all, even though at some stations it provides the only service - Narborough and Burton-on-Trent (both owned by East Midlands) for example

[cetacean]

Only a handful of stations are operated by Network Rail (most of the large termini plus Gatwick Airport) - the rest are rented out to a single operator. I believe the decision is at the whim of the Department for Transport's franchising policies and there aren't any set criteria.

[Deleted]

There are anomalies on Overground. LU are the station staff from Queens Park to Harrow, bar Willesden Junction where it is LO

[ducatisti]

It varies, and what's more fun is that the precise interfaces aren't properly sorted out either...

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2009 8:08:22 GMT @somersetchris said:

There are anomalies on Overground. LU are the station staff from Queens Park to Harrow, bar Willesden Junction where it is LO

That is because the stations themselves are LUL rather than LO.

[thirstquensher]

Jun 15, 2009 22:00:20 GMT norbitonflyer said:

There are some odd anomalies about. The Cross Country franchise operates no stations at all, even though at some stations it provides the only service - Narborough and Burton-on-Trent (both owned by East Midlands) for example

That's not true; I was born and brought up in B-o-T and have cause to go there regularly. B-o-T station is served by trains from both operators. It has ever been thus; formerly most recently it received trains from both Central Trains and Virgin XC. Central Trains operated the station then, hence East Midlands operating it now.

To answer the original question, I would say that stations are operated by the company that inherited the patch from the previous operator or division of BR that preceded it. Except where franchise boundaries have changed and a specific agreement has been drawn up.

I lived in Kent for a while and I think I'm right in saying that the stations between (but not including) Tonbridge and Redhill used to be 'operated' (i.e. left deserted and to rot) by Thames Trains until the mid 90s when control passed to SouthEastern (or rather, the 'Kent Link' section of Network SouthEast). This would have been around the same time that Thameslink stopped going down to Sevenoaks. (I am still convinced to this day that shortly after moving to the area I spent a few weeks getting Thameslink trains from Tunbridge Wells up to Blackfriars, but no-one believes me - certainly, I didn't see them there again a few weeks afterward).

[Deleted]

The allocation of stations was done by BR under direct instruction from the DfT before privatisation - though , to be fair , stations were allocated a "prime user" (landlord in LU speak) before that in the 1990's Organising for Quality initiative - thats how Milton Keynes ended up in North London Railways though Inter City WC would have loved to have it ! Cheltenham became Wales & West though most trains were really Cross Country !

[norbitonflyer]

Jun 18, 2009 18:42:44 GMT @thirstquensher said:

Jun 15, 2009 22:00:20 GMT norbitonflyer said:

There are some odd anomalies about. The Cross Country franchise operates no stations at all, even though at some stations it provides the only service - Narborough and Burton-on-Trent (both owned by East Midlands) for example

That's not true; I was born and brought up in B-o-T and have cause to go there regularly. B-o-T station is served by trains from both operators. It has ever been thus; formerly most recently it received trains from both Central Trains and Virgin XC. Central Trains operated the station then, hence East Midlands operating it now.

Central did indeed run the local services between Derby and Birmingham (via BoT) until the recent shake-up of franchises (which created EM and London Midland out of the old Central and Silverlink franchises).
XC, not EM, now runs all services on that route. I can find no EM services at BoT in the current National Rail Timetable, nor does EM's own website mention the line. But the NRT clearly shows Burton as an EM station!