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As this mainly affects trains after 1900 perhaps it should go into that forum but as the station was built in 1877 I've put it here in pre 1900. The politics of why the station is where it is are quite involved but basically the powers that be in York did not want the new station within the city walls (as the old one had been, the hole punched through the walls is still there you can see it from the opposite side of the road to the current station).

Given that why on earth did they design it to have such a curve that means that non stop trains have to slow down really drastically. Then, this is the bit that is post 1900, didn't the LNER and BR use the freight avoiding line which is still curved but not as drastically for the non stop trains (it certainly wasn't for changing crews, that was what the corridor tender was for). It wouldn't have been too hard to keep a couple of lines free for these trains or to build extra ones.

Which leads to the next question, why isn't York on a loop of the ECML as Northampton is on the WCML? Was it sheer inertia after George Hudson got the lines into York in the first place? I know that originally it was due to landowners in the Vale of York not being willing to sell their land (this affected a lot of early railway lines) but once the Race to the North started surely it should have crossed someone's mind in the NER. They could have changed engines at Doncaster.
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