1. Nineteenth-century Usage

 

Great Western Railway open passenger car. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1240736

In the earliest days of passenger railways in the United Kingdom the poor were encouraged to travel in order to find employment in the growing industrial centres, but trains were generally unaffordable to them except in the most basic of open wagons, in many cases attached to goods trains.^[1] Political pressure caused the Board of Trade to investigate, and Sir Robert Peel's Conservative government enacted the Railway Regulation Act 1844, which took effect on 1 November 1844. It compelled "the provision of at least one train a day each way at a speed of not less than 12 miles an hour including stops, which were to be made at all stations, and of carriages protected from the weather and provided with seats; for all which luxuries not more than a penny a mile might be charged".^[2]

1.1. In Popular Culture

Parliamentary Train: Interior of a third class carriage (1859). https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1578992

The basic comfort and slow progress of Victorian parliamentary trains led to a humorous reference in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado. The Mikado is explaining how he will match punishments to the crimes committed:

The idiot who, in railway carriages
Scribbles on window-panes
We only suffer
To ride on a buffer
On Parliamentary trains.

2. Legacy of the Beeching Cuts

 

The infamous Stockport to Stalybridge shuttle approaches Reddish South. This is one of the most well-known parliamentary services throughout the country. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1960537

In 1963 under its chairman Richard Beeching, British Railways produced The Reshaping of British Railways report, designed to stem the huge losses being incurred as patronage declined.^[3] It proposed very substantial cuts to the network and to train services, with many lines closed under a programme that came to be known as the Beeching cuts. The Transport Act 1962 included a formal closure process allowing for objections to closures on the basis of hardship to passengers if their service was closed. As the objections gained momentum, this process became increasingly difficult to implement, and from about 1970 closures slowed to a trickle.

In certain cases where there was exceptionally low usage the train service was reduced to a bare minimum, but the service was not formally closed, avoiding the costs associated with closure. In some cases the service was reduced to one train a week, and in one direction only.

London Overground Class 378 at Battersea Park operating a Parliamentary service. It is also used when the line to Clapham Junction is blocked. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1510928

These minimal services had resonances of the 19th-century parliamentary services, and among rail enthusiasts they came to be referred to as "parliamentary trains", or more colloquially "parly" trains (following the abbreviation used in Victorian timetables) or "ghost trains". However, this terminology has no official standing. So-called parliamentary services are also typically run at inconvenient times, often very early in the morning, very late at night, or in the middle of the day at the weekend. In extreme instances, rail services have actually been "temporarily" withdrawn and replaced by substitute bus services, to maintain the pretence that the service has not been withdrawn.

2.1. Speller Act

When the closures brought about by the Beeching Report had reached equilibrium it was recognised that some incremental services or station reopenings were desirable. However, if a service was started and proved unsuccessful, it could not be closed again without going through the formal process, with the possibility that it might not be terminated. It was recognised that this discouraged possible desirable developments, and the Transport Act 1962 (Amendment) Act 1981 permitted the immediate closure of such experimental reopenings. The Bill that led to the Act of 1981 was sponsored by a pro-railways Member of Parliament, Tony Speller, and it is usually referred to as the Speller Act. The process is still in effect, although the legislation has been subsumed into other enactments.

3. Services

3.1. Current

Examples of lines in the December 2019 - May 2020 timetable served only by a parliamentary train are:

3.2. Former

Examples of lines formerly served only by a Parliamentary train are:

4. Stations with Minimal Services

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:

 

One service stops at Teesside Airport every week on a Sunday, at 14:54, even though it's only a 15 minute walk to the airport. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1185588

• Barlaston and Wedgwood, which are currently only served by replacement buses.
• Teesside Airport, which serves Durham Tees Valley 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). The current service is operated only on Sundays and comprises the 14:54 to Darlington from Hartlepool. Operated by Northern.^[14]

Two Great Western Railway services stop at Pilning every week, both on a Saturday and in one direction only. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1701826

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.^[15][16] Operated by Great Western Railway.

• Barry Links 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 Abellio ScotRail.

Shippea Hill station, one of the least used stations in the entire country. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1370979

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.

• Polesworth 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.
• Lelant Saltings, in Cornwall has been served by one train in each direction daily since the nearby Park & Ride facility was closed. Operated by Great Western Railway.

Bordesley is served by a single train on Saturdays only however, the station remains open for use when Birmingham City Football Club are playing at home when additional services call there. Operated by West Midlands Trains

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.^[17]

A full list of stations like the above are on Least Used Stations' website.^[18]

5. Bustitution

 

Norton Bridge was served by a replacement bus until March 2019. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1709765

A variant of the parliamentary train service was the temporary replacement bus service, as employed between Watford and Croxley Green in Hertfordshire. The railway line was closed to trains in 1996, but to avoid the legal complications and costs of actual closure train services were replaced by buses, thus maintaining the legal fiction of an open railway.^[19] The branch was officially closed in 2003. Work in track clearance commenced, beginning the work to absorb most of the route into a diversion of the Watford branch of the Metropolitan line into Watford Junction, but work was stopped in 2016 after a reassessment of likely costs and lack of agreement on funding.

The temporary replacement bus tactic was used from December 2008 between Ealing Broadway and Wandsworth Road^[20] when Arriva CrossCountry withdrew its services from Brighton to Manchester, which was the only passenger service between Factory Junction, north of Wandsworth Road, and Latchmere Junction, on the West London Line. This service was later replaced by a single daily return train between Kensington Olympia and Wandsworth Road (as above) operated by Southern until formal consultation commenced and closure was completed in 2013.^[21]

The replacement bus tactic was used to service Norton Bridge, Barlaston and Wedgwood stations on the Stafford–Manchester line, which had its passenger services withdrawn in 2004 to allow more Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin Trains West Coast services to be operated. Norton Bridge station was closed in December 2017 coinciding with the transfer of the West Midlands franchise from London Midland to West Midlands Trains, with funding for the bus service to Norton Bridge continuing until March 2019.^[22][23]