You'll have to excuse me tbtc, however, I won't be joining in the gushing praise of your post.
Secondly, Bakewell really isn’t that big. Maybe five thousand people? If you want to build lines to connect unserved conurbations then there are much better candidates (though these tend to be less picturesque places so don’t tend to involve reopening some scenic railway closed fifty years ago, which means that nostalgic train enthusiasts aren’t so interested).
It is true that there are less picturesque places that need a rail link. Skelmersdale springs to mind, as does Leigh in Lancashire. If only we'd had some progress in towns such as these, you might have part of a point. Instead we get nothing in one and a glorified bus lane in the other.
Buses further down the valley from Bakewell to Matlock/ Derby are regular enough for that part of the world (hourly “slow” 6.1 plus hourly “fast” TP). A simple single track line from Matlock to Bakewell (requiring an extra 153/156 to extend the service from Nottingham each hour) may have some merit (albeit at the expense of a popular preserved railway at the Matlock end).
There you have it. Even you agree
However, whilst Bakewell has roughly two commercial bus services per hour to Sheffield (the 218 becomes a straight half hourly service later this month, there was previously the 214 each hour via Fox House and the 218 each hour via Owler Bar) there’s only one per hour to Buxton (same as from Bakewell to Chesterfield) and Bakewell only has three or four buses per day to Stockport/Manchester which suggests that a link to Sheffield would be more use for everyday passenger demand than one to Stockport/Manchester. However, that doesn’t come up with the answer of “reopen some scenic line that was closed in the 1960s” and these kind of threads seem to be more about justifying such pre-determined “solutions” than dealing with actual 21st century demand.
I'd have thought that you, more than anyone would appreciate that we have to live in the real world. No one is going to dig a new railway through the Peak District from Bakewell to Sheffield. Is that a valid reason not to improve transport anywhere else where the way is (effectively) already built ?
Come to think of it, a railway line from London to Belfast would be quite handy, but since we can't do that, we might as well not bother with any smaller scale improvements anywhere else.
Fourthly, if you want to improve capacity from the East Midlands to the North West (i.e. this reopening has grander ambitions than just serving the five thousand people of Bakewell - esp if we accept that there's a pretty poor business case for this being A Local Project For Local People) then that could be done fairly easily/cheaply through the Hope Valley. A second platform at Dore and a passing loop elsewhere are already on the agenda. Some skip-stopping could help. Almost all services in the Hope Valley are only two/three/four coaches long, so there’s plenty scope to add extra coaches (given that fast services from Sheffield to Manchester only stop at Stockport, which is capable of taking 390s, sticking an extra coach or three onto the existing Northern/ TPE/ EMT services seems feasible). Things like four aspect signals seem a lot simpler/ cheaper/ quicker than reopening an old line (but, as experience on this Forum has taught me, where’s the fun in something simple/ cheap/ quick?).
Only it's not simple cheap or quick, as we well know from upgrades such as the WCML. You've been on here long enough to know that such things seem nice and simple but in reality are expensive and disruptive.
Plus, on top of Bakewell's 5,000, there are Buxton's 20,000, who could be served by a curve off the new main line. Why assume that they're only interested in going to Manchester !
The idea that we need a separate line through the Peak District to relieve pressure on the Hope Valley route ignores the fact that there are simpler ways of enhancing capacity in the Hope Valley (capacity is being improved at Dore etc). However, trying to weave various weak arguments together to try to conjure up some kind of “bigger picture” argument about National Strategic Importance is obviously popular. Doesn’t mean it’s right though.
Weak arguments - it wasn't me, nor I suspect anyone on this forum who instigated a study on reopening the route ( a study which suggests that even a basic service would be viable ten years from now, but it's obviously a weak argument because it doesn't fit in with your world view).
Fifthly, the idea that “if this were in Scotland, it’d be open today” doesn’t wash with me. As a Scot living in Yorkshire, I know that there are a number of lines north of the border that closed with little likelihood of reopening, and plenty of lines through fairly isolated parts of England that remain open (lightly used lines in England like Knottingley – Goole and Hellifield – Carnforth survived the axe yet there are no trains to towns like Leven, Peterhead, Grangemouth, Forfar, no train station at the two main Scottish airports...). This “grass is always greener” argument doesn’t reflect the evidence, sorry. Scotland has some places badly served by rail (e.g. the railway didn’t adapt to post-war New Towns like Glenrothes or Irvine and is no use for the centre of places like Livingston or Cumbernauld) just like the rest of the UK.
Whilst there’s been new lines (or re-opened lines) in Scotland since privatisation, these are roughly as many miles as the increase in Manchester Metrolink during that equivalent period (to put it into perspective). The one exception will be the Borders line when it eventually opens (interesting that there’s so much complaining about delays to the Todmorden scheme but the delays to Tweedbank don’t seem to get the same ire from enthusiasts...), but that’s an exceptional route being built for exceptional reasons (terrible business case south of Gorebridge but the price Labour had to pay for LibDem support in Hollyrood a decade ago).
The Borders line is an oddity and one that shouldn’t be used as a benchmark for the kind of reopening we can expect in the future, either side of the border (though I suspect that it will be used as justification for any fantasy schemes elsewhere – take a drink every time you read something like “...but if the Borders line reopened then my scheme deserves to reopen too”...).
Across the the whole of Britain, towns were cut off of the network during the Beeching era whilst less likely contenders survived for political reasons, therefore your insinuation that this was a purely English phenomena is not only irrelevant, but incorrect. My complaint is about the disparity in the recent past, (as you well know, yet choose to ignore). The fact remains that whilst Scotland has forged ahead with reopenings during the last fifteen years, such improvements have ground to a halt like a wheezing nag in dear old England.
Still, as you mention, the Borders line (along with all the others) are the product of a working political system in tune with the needs of its constituents. Perhaps if we manage to ditch our rotten to the core electoral system, we may one day have some progress.
Bakewell station would be popular on a Summer Sunday, but we’re not exactly running short of better alternatives that we could be spending any spare money on (rolling stock replacement, electrification of existing lines, bottlenecks that inconvenience thousands of people a day).
Still, there’s no point in arguing with the nostalgic element, they’ve made their minds up that We Must Go Back To How Things Were Fifty Years Ago, regardless of the fact that the world has moved on. For example, the A6 used to be the main road from London to Manchester (as it’s number suggests), but now nobody suggests diverting London – Manchester traffic down it.
You do so love your nostalgia.
The fact is the A6 is still an important strategic link in the National road network the last time I checked, or perhaps you believe that should have been closed as well.
(as for the other stuff like "we need to close the Monsall Trail because too many people are using, especially tourists and disabled people"... I'm not sure that there's any point arguing with this kind of debate - most people on this thread have made their minds up already and to hell with the evidence - even disputing proper surveys carried out into reopening)
Would that be the study that suggested that even going by our our flawed and limited cost benefit formula, the route would be viable in ten years time ? Whilst recognising the limitations in its remit, I certainly won't be rubbishing the report, because it provides evidence that the line would be of use. In fact, I have referred to it on several occasions !
By the way, you do realise, don't you, that users of the Monsal trail don't pay any tolls or fares to walk it ? This means that all of its construction and maintenance costs will have had to be justified by wider social and economic benefits such as leisure activity and the wellbeing of local residents, which can't be recouped by direct user payments. Yet I'm sure on some threads somebody keeps referring to such things as "woolly". Now who could that have been
