The month long closure has come to an end, and Huddersfield station now has two through platforms plus the bay platform for the Penistone Line. The platforms have been renumbered, so the Penistone line platform is platform 1, the former platform 1 is platform 2, the former platform 4 is platform 3.
This will be the station layout for the next 14 months, until a further month long closure at the end of 2026 (exact dates to be confirmed). Meanwhile, the rest of the station (the former platforms 5-8 and beyond) will be rebuilt in a layout incorporating two through platforms and an east facing bay platform.
For the next 14 months, the additional peak stopping services from/to Manchester calling at Marsden and Slaithwaite will continue to/from Leeds. SMART would like through trains to Leeds to become a permanent feature of the timetable.
One service which will not operate for the next 14 months is the Huddersfield-Halifax-Bradford service. Any passengers from Huddersfield for Halifax and Bradford will need to use a replacement bus to Brighouse.
The service pattern for the next 14 months looks something like this.
We are now at the end of four weeks of bus replacement during the Huddersfield station closure.
It has been mostly reliable, but with just enough occasions when buses have gone off route, departed early or not turned up at all to undermine passenger confidence.
We have seen instances of Buses going up to Marsden and Slaithwaite stations, buses going on magical mystery tours of Hill Top.
Whilst things improved through the period of bus replacement, there has been plenty of time to get it right. There were about 20 weekends of bus replacement earlier in 2025, which should have given ample opportunity to identify and solve problems.
Everything we hear from passengers about buses not being at stops at or close to the appointed time reinforces the need for real time tracking of buses, something we have requested repeatedly over at least 18 months. We understand there are difficulties in providing this in a fragmented railway industry, but again there has been ample time to overcome those difficulties.
Compared to the number of passengers who use the trains, relatively few people used the buses. It is not surprising. If you can work from home instead of having a commute doubled in time, then you will.
The big advantage of the trains is the journey time. With rail replacement buses, that advantage is lost. The people who still used replacement buses are those who, for whatever reason, don’t have a better option available to them.
So far as the need for real time tracking is concerned, TPE are now acknowledging how useful it would have been to passengers. We hesitate to say we told you so, but ………… we told you so.
We would prefer this month of bus replacement, which inevitably is hugely disruptive to passengers, to be uneventful.
However, things sometimes go wrong, and when this happens this needs to be fed back to Transpennine Express.
For any reports to do with the Rail Replacement Buses, please can we have full details such as
Comments such as
“last night”
“one just passed me by”
are not detailed enough to see any patterns or for TPE to investigate.
