I think the last statement that the route did not have enough demand is wrong. The route carried 130k passengers per year despite possibly the worst timings on a regional service to London.
Everyone admits the schedule was wrong and that was the downfall. The service suffered terribly due to the early morning departure from STN. With all the respect in the world, no one wants to catch a flight at 0650 from STN to BLK - and this was reflected not only in the load on that sector but also the yield. If you remove this sector from the scenario then the route performed reasonably well.
You must remember there is no direct train from the Fylde Coast to London, despite a market of around 350k people on the Fylde alone. Add to this, the cost of a train for a business trip to London and the market is strong for BLK, stronger than LPL or MAN as the FYlde is an hour further away from London.
It was accepted by everyone I spoke to that different times on the route would have made a big difference, an arrival into BLK at 0750 is not attractive, the resort does not open until 1000ish, whereas an arrival a little after nine works for the tourists and the north bound business traveller.
It is a huge shame this route was lost for BLK, and I think there is a real opportunity to replace it.
To say there is no market is wrong, if you can get 130k people a year onto a service that doesn't really work for any market sector, just imaging how many you can get onto one that does.