My idea - re-opening lines in Central England ?

[A0]

Ah that old chestnut. Bring back Regional Railways vision of a through Ipswich/Norwich-Swindon service.

In the scheme of things - this one at least is relatively inexpensive - the only new track needed would be the south curve at Manton and reinstatement of Bletchley - Claydon (which is going to happen for EWR in any case). Whether it would have an even vaguely competitive journey time though

Unlike some of the more loopy proposals which are being peddled on this (and other) threads - notably Northampton - Bedford, Northampton - Wellingborough, Northampton - Market Harborough etc.

 

[GazUk]

I was wondering whether there would be any obstruction. On the OS Map it's looks as though a kilometre of new railway south of MH could provide a link to the MML.

The interesting thing about this link is that, I imagine, there would be no local demand for it, but, as a way if improving the overall network for major places further afield, it might be quite useful.

Well i think there a few houses that have been built upon the former trackbeds from Northampton and Rugby aswell which would add to it too, the rest of the lines though are all there, but i do not think either of those lines will ever be opened as the Villages that those lines served would not be Viable/justified to be re-opened.

 

[billio]

I don't think the lack of population centres between the two points is an issue (Mkt Harboro to Northampton), I think connecting these main lines is a worthwhile objective.

I agree, the only place I could imagine justification for an intermediate station (based on population) would be Blixworth, which musters about 7,000 including nearby villages. Maybe if there was significant housing development in that area it might become worthwhile.

However, in my mind the intermediate stations would not be the justification. The justification would be speeding up journeys from the East Midland towns to the Northampton and Milton Keynes and then from these places on to Oxford, Didcot and the West.

Market Harborough to Northampton is about 18+ miles, so with no intermediate stations I would expect the journey to take about 15 minutes or possibly even quicker. A semi-fast train from Nottingham to Milton Keynes would be much more direct and faster than travelling through Birmingham.

Market Harborough gaining access to the Northampton job market, but also creating journey opportunities such as Nottingham and Leicester to Northampton, which I'm sure would be valuable pursuits. You could achieve this by connecting Market Harborough or by connecting Northampton to Wellingborough.

I'd prefer to see the latter, as you could then also have a Northamptonshire "shuttle" running all the way down from Corby through Kettering and Wellingborough to Northampton. Undoubtedly massively beneficial. All through a few miles of relaid track and a few years of subsidy.

Get really ambitious and at the other end of the line add back the track between Corby and Peterborough, extend Thameslink all the way and and an area which up to now has really only faced down into London starts to look like a proper area in its own right, with the job markets in its three or four principal cities not just massively opened up, but also connected to each other.

It does seem sensible to try and link these quite major towns together, especially if the lines can be made a part of wider services. I did think of coming via Wellingborough, but it is rather a long way round and you enter Northampton pointing North. Also the former line from Wellingborough to Northampton seems to studiously avoid any major places of population. However, a line from Northampton linked through to Peterborough via Corby might be a good idea.

 

[charley_17/7]

Less than 2% of people commuting to/from Milton Keynes do so by rail, and there is a huge car commuter market from the wider South Midlands region. Car parking in CMK has reached saturation point, with ridiculous variances between free (max 3 hours) around the shops/theatre or up to £10 per day around the station.

We are going to be in the top ten cities within the next few decades, bigger than Edinburgh, but without the PT infrastructure to support it. Improving regional links after East West Rail must be thought about. No one thought the X7 bus to Leicester would wash its face, but it has proved to be a success.

 

[route:oxford]

I was wondering when yet another suggested Cross Country route would find it's way into this thread. The purpose of Cross Country is to go via Birmingham as a hub and not to avoid it.

Well, at the moment.

In the olden days Cross Country ran services from Scotland to Manchester.

In the future, there is a path allocated to XC on EW isn't there?

 

[Philip Elliott]

We are going to be in the top ten cities within the next few decades

You'll need to become a city first...

 

[muddythefish]

Northampton - Wellingborough isn't going to come back - the trackbed all around London Road in Wellingborough is long gone and developed.

The reality is the traffic flow between Northampton & Wellingborough is nothing like enough to justify a rail reinstatement (and I live within 5 mins of the A45 so know the area very well).

The rail line didn't even come close to serving the one intermediate place of any size between those - Earls Barton - and for the record Earls Barton only has a population of about 6000.

It wouldn't be a "few years" of subsidy - a few decades as a conservative estimate and in reality it would probably always need a subsidy.

.

If you live near the A45 you know how busy it is - there is often total block in the mornings from Northampton back to the Wilby roundabout at Wellingborough. The problem is there is no alternative to the A45 so I presume your solution is the usual brain-dead response - build more roads.

 

[A0]

If you live near the A45 you know how busy it is - there is often total block in the mornings from Northampton back to the Wilby roundabout at Wellingborough. The problem is there is no alternative to the A45 so I presume your solution is the usual brain-dead response - build more roads.

Nonsense - 90+ % of the time the road is flowing freely between 7am and 9am - it only comes to a halt when there is an accident or incident - usually after Riverside or Barnes Meadow.

If they re-routed the A43 away from Riverside (and indeed Lumbertubs) and hooked it in to the M1 at Jnc 16 that would make a massive difference to the volume of traffic on the Northampton section and would alleviate matters further.

Equally the A4500 (the old A45) is often deserted at that time of day as well.

Address a few of the pinch points (which is fairly cheap and easy to do) and things would be much better. The A43 to Kettering is about to be upgraded in any case and much of this could be included there.

All of these would have more benefit and cost much, much less than reinstating the Northampton - Wellingborough railway line.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Market Harborough to Northampton is about 18+ miles, so with no intermediate stations I would expect the journey to take about 15 minutes or possibly even quicker.

Get real - you're assuming an AVERAGE speed of over 60mph - that's intercity standard. The route was never engineered for those kind of speeds originally.

It's the same issue in one of the former threads when someone was reckoning on a 20 minute journey time from Northampton to Bedford - yet the line routinely had journey times of over 40 minutes when it was open previously.

Even allowing for an increased line-speed you still need to allow for acceleration / deceleration times.

 

[DarloRich]

Less than 2% of people commuting to/from Milton Keynes do so by rail, and there is a huge car commuter market from the wider South Midlands region. Car parking in CMK has reached saturation point, with ridiculous variances between free (max 3 hours) around the shops/theatre or up to £10 per day around the station.

We are going to be in the top ten cities within the next few decades, bigger than Edinburgh, but without the PT infrastructure to support it. Improving regional links after East West Rail must be thought about. No one thought the X7 bus to Leicester would wash its face, but it has proved to be a success.

we aren't as MK isnt a city

More people are using the trains into MK than even 5 years ago as the parking issues become more difficult and the newer offices are built without adequate parking.

 

[A0]

we aren't as MK isnt a city

More people are using the trains into MK than even 5 years ago as the parking issues become more difficult and the newer offices are built without adequate parking.

It also ignores the fact that a large proportion of the office space in MK is outside of the centre in areas such as Caldecotte, Kingston - anyone travelling to MK with those as their final destination will inevitably drive because the station is miles away.

And MK's catchment area is the M1 corridor - which if you go south is not on the same rail line as MK - so people commuting from Luton / Dunstable or St Albans will drive because the northbound train doesn't go to MK - and no this is not a cry for another daft reopening with no benefits case (either Luton - Dunstable - Leighton Buzzard or Harpenden - Hemel).

 

[The Planner]

In the future, there is a path allocated to XC on EW isn't there?

Allocated to a XC type service is probably the best way to describe it, it won't necessarily be part of that franchise.

 

[DarloRich]

It also ignores the fact that a large proportion of the office space in MK is outside of the centre in areas such as Caldecotte, Kingston - anyone travelling to MK with those as their final destination will inevitably drive because the station is miles away.

And MK's catchment area is the M1 corridor - which if you go south is not on the same rail line as MK - so people commuting from Luton / Dunstable or St Albans will drive because the northbound train doesn't go to MK - and no this is not a cry for another daft reopening with no benefits case (either Luton - Dunstable - Leighton Buzzard or Harpenden - Hemel).

well i dont know where the nearly 1.5m+ extra people who have used the station since 2009 have gone then

The catchment area and travel habits of people are changing, with many more people commuting in from south of MK and from Northampton and Rugby with increasing numbers from Coventry, Nuneaton and Birmingham. There are even people doing Derby/Tamworth to MK but I am sure you know best.

 

[A0]

well i dont know where the nearly 1.5m+ extra people who have used the station since 2009 have gone then

The catchment area and travel habits of people are changing, with many more people commuting in from south of MK and from Northampton and Rugby with increasing numbers from Coventry, Nuneaton and Birmingham. There are even people doing Derby/Tamworth to MK but I am sure you know best.

Not disputing that - but making the point that Charley17/7 seems to be ignoring which is not all the employment in MK is within the catchment of the station. And there is only a finite amount of space left in the centre for further development. Which is why the current developments are taking place between J13 & 14 of the M1 - places like Magna Park where John Lewis have their huge shed. (And before any pedant claims that Magna Park near Lutterworth so what am I on about, there are TWO Magna Parks - one is near Lutterworth, the other is the site between J13 & 14 of the M1).

Doubtless some of the users are people travelling out of MK to London, Birmingham or even Stoke & Manchester for work.

 

[tbtc]

It would be a great thing but sadly we have a history of governments who, beginning with Beeching , haven't given a toss about railways so it is unlikely to happen.

The Government have never subsidised the railway more than they are today -I can't think of a time when the £££ being spent by taxpayers was higher than it is in 2015.

The idea that "the Governments don't care about the railways" is a myth - they just don't care about re-opening the kind of lines closed in the 1960s.

The do "give a toss", they just don't really give one about the kind of priorities that some enthusiasts have.

Those present back in the 1960s were lobbying to keep many other lines open which have survived and here are a few from that area...
Bedford to Bletchley
Watford-St.Albans
Derby-Matlock

• Bedford to Bletchley gets an hourly 150/153
• Watford-St.Albans gets an EMU every forty five minutes
• Derby-Matlock generally gets an hourly 153/156

...these lines survived, but none of them seem to be doing brilliantly.

If these were the ones worth “saving” then the cases for the lines on a modern wishlist of “re-opens” must be pretty weak.

Whilst others closed in the 1960s were subsequently reopened..
Coventry- Leamington Spa
Coventry to Nuneaton.
Nottingham-Mansfield-Worksop
Kettering-Corby, etc.

...all of which just seen one train an hour (with the exception of Nottingham to Mansfield, which sees a second service per hour).

To me, there doesn’t seem much point in opening/ re-opening a line if it won’t be able to sustain at least a couple of full sized trains an hour after say five/ten years.

Reopening a line just so a single 153 can trundle along it every hour seems a waste (when you consider there are plenty of busy lines elsewhere that could do with that kind of investment).

Given the size of Northampton the "service pattern" I think would have been quite useful to get passengers in from all directions would have been to extend the LM services from Northampton to Market Harborough, and Thameslink services from Bedford to Northampton (thence to Rugby?)

There’s a Crayonista element to this that makes me think “wouldn’t it be more interesting if the lines did run like this, so that Watford/ Milton Keynes had a direct link to the MML (rather than the Silverlink/ LM services just being a slower alternative from Watford/ Milton Keynes to Coventry/ Birmingham) and Luton/ Bedford had a direct link to Northampton/ Coventry/ Birmingham”...

...I can see why that looks appealing, I just can't see that it's a priority though.

Build them and passengers will come?

Add extra coaches or services and they will soon get filled up?

That's the problem with these threads - there's no way of arguing with the permanent optimism of those who believe that every new service will be a success.

Northampton - Peterborough in its entirely would be very useful now. The population in the Nene valley has soared in the past 20 years.

Looking at the list of stations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northampton_and_Peterborough_Railway), I'm not seeing anywhere significant that's currently unserved.

Peterborough's link to the East Midlands (the XC service from Stansted to Birmingham) is often just a two car 170 every hour, so there's surely plenty of scope for increased capacity there without needing any new lines?

I seriously struggle with the "we must re-open the GCR" thing

Me too.

I think the renaissance of support for it has a lot to do with the "I don't like HS2 as it doesn't run along old alignments, so must support a historic route that was closed many years ago, even if that alternative wouldn't have added as much benefit" argument.

Question but I am not sure if it is relevant to this thread, what about the reinstatement of the Buxton to Matlock line and possibly in-fill electrification once the MML electrification is completed?

What would that solve?

A second route from Manchester to London (via a significantly slower alignment)? Manchester to London will have thousands of additional seats in a few years time when HS2 opens (and you're not going to open a service through Bakewell significantly before HS2 comes in to operation).

The biggest "unserved" place on the route (Bakewell) has a pretty tiny population.

A couple of passing loops in the Hope Valley (and the gradual decline of freight services, freeing up a few paths) should allow direct services from the East Midlands to Greater Manchester to avoid Sheffield, if that's your priority?

And if "East Midlands to Greater Manchester" is the problem that you are trying to solve, then why not electrification from Stoke to Derby?

A semi-fast train from Nottingham to Milton Keynes would be much more direct and faster than travelling through Birmingham

A faster route than travelling through Birmingham is to change at Tamworth, surely?

In fact, checking NRE, the only "change" that it gives me for Nottingham to Milton Keynes other than one change at Tamworth is the option to change at Leicester and Nuneaton instead.

It isn't suggesting a change at Birmingham to me.

Less than 2% of people commuting to/from Milton Keynes do so by rail, and there is a huge car commuter market from the wider South Midlands region. Car parking in CMK has reached saturation point, with ridiculous variances between free (max 3 hours) around the shops/theatre or up to £10 per day around the station.

We are going to be in the top ten cities within the next few decades, bigger than Edinburgh, but without the PT infrastructure to support it. Improving regional links after East West Rail must be thought about. No one thought the X7 bus to Leicester would wash its face, but it has proved to be a success.

I'm all for improving services in busy parts of the country - I'm much more interested in trying to solve 21st century problems in growing places like Milton Keynes than the nostalgia for re-opening rural lines in relatively empty bits of the country (Colne, Okehampton etc) - I'm hoping that EW (with direct services from Reading/ Oxford/ Bicester etc to Milton Keynes) will be a big help in that respect.

In the olden days Cross Country ran services from Scotland to Manchester

...many of which were through services to Birmingham and beyond (Poole, Paignton etc)?

 

[yorksrob]

The do "give a toss", they just don't really give one about the kind of priorities that some enthusiasts have.

• Bedford to Bletchley gets an hourly 150/153
• Watford-St.Albans gets an EMU every forty five minutes
• Derby-Matlock generally gets an hourly 153/156

...these lines survived, but none of them seem to be doing brilliantly.

If these were the ones worth “saving” then the cases for the lines on a modern wishlist of “re-opens” must be pretty weak.

As you well know (but choose to ignore) lines that were saved on the basis of "hardship" were not necessarily those with the greatest potential. An example being Tavistock to Plymouth, which probably would have generated more traffic than the Gunnislake branch which remained open.

Plenty of lines which were listed are doing very well. Ilkley - Leeds, three commuter trains an hour, Ashford - Hastings, part of a busy coastal route between Kent and Sussex, Settle Carlisle, a well used inter-regional link and local lifeline.

Scottish and Welsh Governments seem to care about reopening lines closed in the 60's. It's just Westminster that has lagged behind.

A second route from Manchester to London (via a significantly slower alignment)? Manchester to London will have thousands of additional seats in a few years time when HS2 opens (and you're not going to open a service through Bakewell significantly before HS2 comes in to operation).

The biggest "unserved" place on the route (Bakewell) has a pretty tiny population.

A couple of passing loops in the Hope Valley (and the gradual decline of freight services, freeing up a few paths) should allow direct services from the East Midlands to Greater Manchester to avoid Sheffield, if that's your priority?

And if "East Midlands to Greater Manchester" is the problem that you are trying to solve, then why not electrification from Stoke to Derby?

With the exception of HS2 (which the establishment seem to have set their hearts on for some reason) you've proposed a rag bag collection of half solutions which might go some way to alleviating the issues, but which don't create a step-change)

Electrification from Stoke to Derby ? What would this achieve for the passenger, unless you had an electric through service to use it. It would probably end up the same as today but with a pantograph.

A few loops on the Hope valley ? Might be able to shunt a few freight trains out the way, but you'd most passenger services would still end up going the long way round. Plus you're banking on a long term decline in freight.

Reopening this route provides a step-change in provision. An alternative between London and Manchester for when the WCML is down (admittedly less relevant if HS2 gets built) Faster regional links between the North West and the East Midlands. Local links in the peak district for locals and tourists, greater capacity on the Hope Valley as it can be dedicated to passengers who need to go to Sheffield or further East rather than those going to the midlands, and a more resilient freight network.

One reasonably large project could achieve the above step change, whereas what you have proposed is merely patch and mend.

 

[DarloRich]

Not disputing that - but making the point that Charley17/7 seems to be ignoring which is not all the employment in MK is within the catchment of the station. And there is only a finite amount of space left in the centre for further development. Which is why the current developments are taking place between J13 & 14 of the M1 - places like Magna Park where John Lewis have their huge shed. (And before any pedant claims that Magna Park near Lutterworth so what am I on about, there are TWO Magna Parks - one is near Lutterworth, the other is the site between J13 & 14 of the M1).

Doubtless some of the users are people travelling out of MK to London, Birmingham or even Stoke & Manchester for work.

Agreed - although the distribution centres don't often employ as many as the office near the station. There are 4 or 5 big employers located within walking distance of the station. There are also decent bus links to other parts of the town

There are outbound commuters of course, but mainly to London. If MK continues to grow the inbound flow will increase while The London commuter flow will also keep going up although interestingly Rugby ( soon Coventry) is now on the fringe of the commuter market as prices in MK and Northampton have risen fast.

The unknown is how E-W will change flows as everyone from that side of the town must drive ( see roads to Buckingham/Oxford at rush hour) Aylesbury then becomes an attractive location to live if you work in MK with good public transport links. Even the Oxford area becomes possible for commuters. God knows how busy it will be if the suggested boundary extension on that side of town goes ahead!

 

[mr_jrt]

There’s a Crayonista element to this that makes me think “wouldn’t it be more interesting if the lines did run like this, so that Watford/ Milton Keynes had a direct link to the MML (rather than the Silverlink/ LM services just being a slower alternative from Watford/ Milton Keynes to Coventry/ Birmingham) and Luton/ Bedford had a direct link to Northampton/ Coventry/ Birmingham”...

...I can see why that looks appealing, I just can't see that it's a priority though.

Perhaps not a priority, no.

I started musing on it as a year or so ago my parents moved to a village/town just outside Kettering, and our first post-move family Xmas meant working out how my brothers still in Watford (who don't drive) and I (who does) were going to get there from our various locations. I could get the train from Brighton, but drove so I could pick them up en-route and it worked out dramatically cheaper, even if I hadn't. Had I not picked them up the options basically boiled down to my dad having to drive to Northampton to pick them up, which is quite an indictment of the rail network, really.

Basically I just think that Northampton should have fast public transport options from all directions to enable it to grow as much as it needs to. If people can't get into it then they can't live out of it, and its growth will be constrained. Build satellite towns on these lines and they will provide the growth required to make them sustainable in the long run.

 

[muddythefish]

Nonsense - 90+ % of the time the road is flowing freely between 7am and 9am - it only comes to a halt when there is an accident or incident - usually after Riverside or Barnes Meadow.

If they re-routed the A43 away from Riverside (and indeed Lumbertubs) and hooked it in to the M1 at Jnc 16 that would make a massive difference to the volume of traffic on the Northampton section and would alleviate matters further.

Equally the A4500 (the old A45) is often deserted at that time of day as well.

Address a few of the pinch points (which is fairly cheap and easy to do) and things would be much better. The A43 to Kettering is about to be upgraded in any case and much of this could be included there.

All of these would have more benefit and cost much, much less than reinstating the Northampton - Wellingborough railway line.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Rubbish.

The A45 is choked in the morning rush hour. A journey to Northampton that took 30 minutes 10 years ago routinely takes up to an hour, with queues at Stanwick, Chowns Mill and Wilby.

As the DfT and planners are slowly realising, building more roads solves nothing and either creates more traffic or merely shifts the problem elsewhere - usually both. Northants, Beds and Cambs needs better public transport and alternatives to roads, not more tarmac.

 

[GazUk]

Basically I just think that Northampton should have fast public transport options from all directions to enable it to grow as much as it needs to. If people can't get into it then they can't live out of it, and its growth will be constrained. Build satellite towns on these lines and they will provide the growth required to make them sustainable in the long run.

The Good thing about Northamptonshire are the road links, I think most of the towns on the edges of the county take 30 minutes to travel from to get to Northampton via Car/Road, but if you wanted to travel via train say from Kettering,Corby or Wellingborough to Northampton you would have to change twice en route (Bedford and Bletchley) which takes nearly 2 hours to do.

The only place in Northamptonshire that has a direct rail link to it is the village of Long Buckby and only takes 11 minutes from there to Northampton.

 

[A0]

Rubbish.

The A45 is choked in the morning rush hour. A journey to Northampton that took 30 minutes 10 years ago routinely takes up to an hour, with queues at Stanwick, Chowns Mill and Wilby.

You were the one who said it tailed back from Northampton to Wilby.

Now you're introducing Stanwick and Chowns Mill into the equation.

Chowns Mill has a specific problem - namely it's an 'at level' crossing point for the A45 (east-west) and the A6 (north-south). It needs to be a grade-separated junction to deal with the problem there, but the Highways Agency seem intent on doing everything but that - exactly the same issue as at Towcester where the A43 (east-west) and A5 (north south) meet.

Stanwick's problem is that the congestion is caused by it being single-carriageway.

As the DfT and planners are slowly realising, building more roads solves nothing and either creates more traffic or merely shifts the problem elsewhere - usually both. Northants, Beds and Cambs needs better public transport and alternatives to roads, not more tarmac.

You're wrong though - building railway lines with marginal or no business case isn't going to work. In the same way the failed efforts to price people out of their cars with lunatic parking prices has failed.

People travelling along the A45 corridor are travelling to too many disparate places for a 'one size fits all' public transport solution.

You may want to go back to the days where people all traveled in a uniform fashion from home to work and back again, but the world has changed and peddling solutions which didn't work 40 years ago, won't work now.

 

[muddythefish]

You were the one who said it tailed back from Northampton to Wilby.

Now you're introducing Stanwick and Chowns Mill into the equation.

Chowns Mill has a specific problem - namely it's an 'at level' crossing point for the A45 (east-west) and the A6 (north-south). It needs to be a grade-separated junction to deal with the problem there, but the Highways Agency seem intent on doing everything but that - exactly the same issue as at Towcester where the A43 (east-west) and A5 (north south) meet.

Stanwick's problem is that the congestion is caused by it being single-carriageway.

It does tail back from Northampton to Wilby - on a regular basis.

There's no justification for grade separating Chowns Mill on 3 grounds - 1) the exhorbitant cost 2) the resulting environmental nightmare (witness the montrosity being erected at the A14/M1 junction). Stanwick to Raunds is scheduled being doubled at a ridiculous cost and will solve nothing except create more traffic and shift the problem somewhere else.

You're wrong though - building railway lines with marginal or no business case isn't going to work. In the same way the failed efforts to price people out of their cars with lunatic parking prices has failed.

People travelling along the A45 corridor are travelling to too many disparate places for a 'one size fits all' public transport solution.

You may want to go back to the days where people all traveled in a uniform fashion from home to work and back again, but the world has changed and peddling solutions which didn't work 40 years ago, won't work now.

Wrong again. Your policy is the failed road building policy of the past 40 years. The "solutions" 40 years ago was to close railway lines -which has resulted in the chaos we have today. Railways have been reopened all over the country (except in England of course) in recent times and all have been overwhelming successes - in areas much less densely populated than Northants too.

You're right the world has changed - and it doesn't involve road building.

 

[The Planner]

So you are saying no new roads should be built whatsoever?

 

[muddythefish]

So you are saying no new roads should be built whatsoever?

No, of course not. But they are not the only solution as some people seem to think.

 

[The Ham]

No, of course not. But they are not the only solution as some people seem to think.

Quite, roads have there place if improvements are done sensibly. Likewise new rail services (either extra services, new lines or reopening) need to be carefully considered.

For instance there is no point spending money on a line to provide more services if beyond that line there is no spare capacity for the extra services. It's all well and good saying x must happen but if the new trains can't get anywhere useful then there's no point in doing it.

 

[billio]

A faster route than travelling through Birmingham is to change at Tamworth, surely?

In fact, checking NRE, the only "change" that it gives me for Nottingham to Milton Keynes other than one change at Tamworth is the option to change at Leicester and Nuneaton instead.

It isn't suggesting a change at Birmingham to me.

I agree Tamworth is more logical than Birmingham, in fact Trainline will not let you buy a ticket that goes via Birmingham.

However, the journey you propose would take just over two hours. I suggest, based on existing times for the parts of the route that exist, a journey time of around 1 hour and 15 minutes would be possible for the direct route via Market Harborough. Or from Leicester, possibly about 50 minutes compared with 1 hour and a half.

I think reductions in journey times of this order and a direct train would make an attractive service.

 

[The Planner]

So if Northampton Market Harborough etc is such a good proposition what councils, LEPs, action groups etc are pushing for them? I don't recall a RUS or anything suggesting it unlocks supressed demand. Middlewich which has its own thread seems to be a station with a robust case and backing/momentum in terms of the above but a lot of this and other ideas in the past are "disused railway on an OS map so it must be reopened"

 

[billio]

So if Northampton Market Harborough etc is such a good proposition what councils, LEPs, action groups etc are pushing for them? I don't recall a RUS or anything suggesting it unlocks supressed demand. Middlewich which has its own thread seems to be a station with a robust case and backing/momentum in terms of the above but a lot of this and other ideas in the past are "disused railway on an OS map so it must be reopened"

It is interesting that there isn't any local pressure, but I think that is to do with the fact the passengers who would benefit from this line are from outside the local authority. As we have noted there are no major settlements on the route similar to Middlewich so it is not surprising there is little local pressure. Perhaps the inhabitants of Brixworth would not want a station as it brings the threat of more housing in the area.

Also, I should imagine that the Northamptonshire County Council is more than happy to keep the trackbed as a linear wildlife park and footpath, which with the short heritage railway at the southern end, will attract some tourism.

The demand for this line arises from a desire to expand the overall railway network in a useful way. As the line seemed to keep closing and opening to passenger traffic in the 60's and 70's it might indicate BR thought this as well, but at the time the railways were on a course of decline so there was no impetus to keep it open.

 

[muddythefish]

So if Northampton Market Harborough etc is such a good proposition what councils, LEPs, action groups etc are pushing for them? I don't recall a RUS or anything suggesting it unlocks supressed demand. Middlewich which has its own thread seems to be a station with a robust case and backing/momentum in terms of the above but a lot of this and other ideas in the past are "disused railway on an OS map so it must be reopened"

Northamptonshire council is entirely roads focused. The county is criss-crossed with A roads and has plans for more. It also has one of fewest number of railway stations per head of population. I'm sure the Conservative led county council is very pleased.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

So you are saying no new roads should be built whatsoever?

Slightly playing devil's advocate here, but if you assume that in n years most cars will be self-driving and will have, for motorway use at least, what we'd call in-cab signalling... yes, it's very plausible to say that there'll be no need for new roads (other than access to new residential developments and the like).

 

[mr_jrt]

So if Northampton Market Harborough etc is such a good proposition what councils, LEPs, action groups etc are pushing for them? I don't recall a RUS or anything suggesting it unlocks supressed demand. Middlewich which has its own thread seems to be a station with a robust case and backing/momentum in terms of the above but a lot of this and other ideas in the past are "disused railway on an OS map so it must be reopened"

I can't deny there is a large element of that, yes, but you have to also consider that a disused corridor has several things going for it - namely that the large-scale earthworks will usually already exist, the surveying etc will have already concluded that that line was the best alignment factoring in gradients, natural obstacles and such, and usually, they existed for long enough that development occurred factoring in their presence, so restoring them is usually a case of removing a few infringing modern obstacles, rather than wholesale demolition of large areas just to create a narrow corridor. If you're lucky the tunnels and viaducts will still exist and if so may only need remedial work, and even removed bridges are likely to just need new modern decks if the abutments are still sound.

Of course, a lot has changed since most of these lines were originally surveyed in the 19th century. Nowadays we don't care as much about gradients, but about curvature, so there's that to factor in. Obviously, 150 years of development and the resulting demands will also have to be factored in, but this is less of an issue when it's regional connectivity you're trying to improve.