Re-opening of rail routes

[PR1Berske]

Building or re-opening railway lines is only one part of any project to invite passengers out of the cars and onto a train. Connectivity is the key: connecting people from their homes to the nearest railway station, either by bus or car-park provision; connecting towns or villages or suburbs to the network itself by building new train stations; connecting people from outlying branch lines to interchanges. It's expensive enough to just build a new line, let alone everything else along with it: very few of the projects talked about here or in Council wish-lists are without new stations for Somewheresville or Elsewheretown alongside the projected new lines. Nobody dares talk about the final bill.

As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, the UK has very little money around at the moment. Wishlists to re-open lines come about very regularly, and the best response to them on this forum is one of the earliest responses on this thread: "Where will the money come from?".

We're all different shades of rail enthusiast on this forum and we'd all like more lines, more stations, more connectivity. But we should be realists too. Austerity is reality right now. Wishlists are just that unless the business case can be made (the Borders line is a potentially fantastic example of how to do reopenings *with stations* this country has seen for a tidy while). Exceptions prove rules. Let's not try to transfer too much crayon onto the network map just yet.

 

[tbtc]

There are many sensible and logical extensions to the railway network proposed on these boards and bu other organisations. Lumping them all together as 'hare brained' schemes dreamt up by 'crayonistas' does your argument no favours.

There are many extensions to the railway network proposed on these boards, I agree.

Some of them are sensible and/or logical, but a lot of them seem to be driven by “how can we bring back some rural route closed fifty years ago”, rather than “how can we provide capacity to meet 21st century demand”.

Hence the obsession with routes like Colne – Skipton, rather than various New Towns/ out of town destinations etc.

HS2 would link lots of big cities together, but people on here aren’t interested in that because it’s a brand new railway – they are much more concerned with trying to link villages in Devon/ Galloway/ Cumbria/ North Yorkshire because that was a route that some Victorians once built. It’s more about a Historical Re-enactment Society for some people.

Instead of starting with a blank sheet of paper, people start with a 1960s Rail Atlas and try to justify re-opening routes through relatively empty bits of the country.

I don’t mind the proper “Blue Sky Thinking” Crayonista stuff, since it’s at least original.

So what is your answer? Force people to give up their cars and join some utopia of public transport provision? You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that :roll:

We need infrastructure investment in this country including in the road network.

Smarter traffic management, including better real time travel information, managed freight queues at peak times, and measures as simple as enforcing speed limits could all make a real difference instead of blithely expanding road capacity

“Smarter traffic management” sounds a bit like the “smart timetables” solution to the WCML, whereby we’ll apparently magic up lots of new capacity (and therefore not need HS2).

I’m similarly unconvinced.

People are suggesting fanciful ideas to reopen new railways and yet as a nation we are struggling to fund the electrification of major Intercity routes.

This needs repeating.

If we don’t have the resources to electrify the lines to cities like Bristol, Oxford, Swansea or Sheffield any time soon then I think we should stop the suggestions of rebuilding the quaint little branchline from Dibley to Ambridge.

If we can’t even find the resources to wire the MML before the end of the decade (when, AIUI, it’d be cheaper to electrify it than not to, given the great business case), there’s no point worrying about little branches that will take a long time to recover costs.

Focus resources on where they are best needed.

That probably wouldn't suit pax going to/from Durham - Belmont is really too far out for the city. However, in 2000, there was a plan to reopen the Leamside for these Middlesbrough-Newcastle services, with a station at Belmont

I could see a station at Belmont working, as a kind of “County Durham Park And Ride” – convenient for the A1 and A690 (spread across places like Peterlee, Sedgefield, Spennymoor, possibly parts of suburban Sunderland).

You’ve got the car park there already, the regular P&R buses into central Durham – but car parking at Durham station isn’t great (nor is driving into Durham generally, or walking up the hill from the Bus Station to the Train Station) – so there may be a market there for people in the wider County Durham area to use Belmont as a P&R.

Whether that’s a “Metro” service into Newcastle or a heavy rail one, I have no opinion about. I just think that there’s a market for something that would take motorists off the A1. Plus you get to serve Washington, which is a large place not to have any heavy rail/ light rail. Compare the obsession with places like Okehampton on here to decent sized places like Washington...

Presumably the "Woodhead" route between Sheffield and Manchester has dropped off the radar, despite having the expensive work already in being, ie the modern Woodhead tunnel, apparently only requires National Grid to move their cables into the old tunnel, and a route that would provide welcome additional capacity trans-Pennine, given that the Hope Valley route is near to capacity

There are easier ways to get more capacity from the two/ three/ four coach DMUs on the Hope Valley, without needing a whole new line.

The Hope Valley line just needs the passing loop it was promised in the “Manchester Hub” (somewhere between Grindleford and Bamford IIRC). Allowing freight to be overtaken would make a big difference (given the speed that the cement wagons trundle along at).

Woodhead services would be tediously slow west of Hadfield (it takes 323s over half an hour to do under fifteen miles to Piccadilly), and would require a whole new station at the Sheffield end (Victoria being unconnected to any other services).

Even if you could re-open the tunnel(s) for peanuts, I’m not convinced.

I guess Matlock-Bakewell and onward towards Manchester is not up for consideration

What would it solve though?

It’d be a slow alignment for any long distance journeys (given the shape of the hills).

We’ll have HS2 and the WCML for the London to Manchester market (which will be built before a Bakewell route gets beyond feasibility studies, if anyone has ideas about an alternative route through Matlock).

We could find some spare 158s to increase Nottingham – Sheffield – Manchester – Liverpool to six coach operation.

Or electrify Derby to Stoke, to permit EMUs to get from the East Midlands to the North West that way. Certainly a lot of ways to improve capacity without needing a whole new line through the Peak District.

 

[snowball]

The Hope Valley line just needs the passing loop it was promised in the “Manchester Hub” (somewhere between Grindleford and Bamford IIRC). Allowing freight to be overtaken would make a big difference (given the speed that the cement wagons trundle along at).

A ministerial decision is still awaited on NR's application for a Transport & Works Order:

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/improvements/northern-hub/doregrindleford/

The page doesn't appear to have been updated for a year or so. The public inquiry must be over by now.

Edit: More info here:

http://www.fodats.net/html/hv_capacity.html

 

[furnessvale]

Yes. This is the "road builder's paradox". However, some road building schemes have merit, largely those which upgrade existing roads which are out of capacity. "Cut-offs" are the devil though. They do exactly the wrong thing.

A case in point. The A6 through Hazel Grove is very congested. Stone lorries from the Peak District add to that congestion. When a bypass is finally built it will, for a time, relieve the A6.

Sadly it will make the hauling of stone by road to the Greater Manchester area that bit cheaper. This will result in the transfer of traffic from rail to road, just as the Whaley Bridge and Chapel bypasses did in the late 1980s.

Just as in the late 1980s, stone lorries on the A6 through High Lane, Disley, New Mills, Furness Vale, Dove Holes, and to some extent Whaley Bridge even though it has a bypass, will increase.

An alternative solution is available. More stone traffic can be carried by rail relieving congestion on the A6. No chance of that happening when price is the driving factor with such product, and road haulage is subsidised by 70%

 

[Gareth Marston]

There's huge chunks of the UK where simply adding extra carriages to existing services will tick most boxes yet were infrastructure obsessed. Hammond & Co would have achieved one hell of lot more yesterday by buying a £400 million fleet of trains than giving it to Network Rail's digital railway.

 

[PR1Berske]

There's huge chunks of the UK where simply adding extra carriages to existing services will tick most boxes yet were infrastructure obsessed. Hammond & Co would have achieved one hell of lot more yesterday by buying a £400 million fleet of trains than giving it to Network Rail's digital railway.

That's a common politician problem. It's "sexier" to support big ticket projects.

 

[caliwag]

Err...Off topic, I know, but what the Hell is a digital railway? Is that an improvement by Hornby?

 

[Holly]

There's huge chunks of the UK where simply adding extra carriages to existing services will tick most boxes yet were infrastructure obsessed. Hammond & Co would have achieved one hell of lot more yesterday by buying a £400 million fleet of trains than giving it to Network Rail's digital railway.

Or just running new services on existing infrastructure.

For example Northwich-Warrington-NewtonLeWillows-Manchester which would be faster than the existing Northwich-Stockport-Manchester.
Though still slower than the Northwich-Manchester service was 50 years ago!

 

[Altfish]

A case in point. The A6 through Hazel Grove is very congested. Stone lorries from the Peak District add to that congestion. When a bypass is finally built it will, for a time, relieve the A6.

Sadly it will make the hauling of stone by road to the Greater Manchester area that bit cheaper. This will result in the transfer of traffic from rail to road, just as the Whaley Bridge and Chapel bypasses did in the late 1980s.

Just as in the late 1980s, stone lorries on the A6 through High Lane, Disley, New Mills, Furness Vale, Dove Holes, and to some extent Whaley Bridge even though it has a bypass, will increase.

An alternative solution is available. More stone traffic can be carried by rail relieving congestion on the A6. No chance of that happening when price is the driving factor with such product, and road haulage is subsidised by 70%

The SEMMS road currently under construction will remove quite a lot of traffic from Hazel Grove (Not all, I agree)

 

[glbotu]

Err...Off topic, I know, but what the Hell is a digital railway? Is that an improvement by Hornby?

So, it's the catch-all name for things like in-cab signalling (via ERTMS), the collecting for several disparate Power Signal Boxes and Integrated Electronic Control Centres into big "Rail Operating Centres", improvements to Passenger Information Systems etc.

 

[furnessvale]

The SEMMS road currently under construction will remove quite a lot of traffic from Hazel Grove (Not all, I agree)

Exactly my point. It will relieve Hazel Grove, but it will make stone haulage by road to places like Northwich that bit cheaper, resulting in abstraction from rail and MORE road traffic everywhere else.

Incidentally this road is expected to encourage traffic to the airport from the NE of Manchester to cut the corner, rather than using the M56. Ironically this traffic will have to pass through the centre of Hazel Grove before reaching the bypass!

One final point. SEMMMS means South East Manchester Multi Modal Study. Having studied the problem, they decided they needed MORE roads. Some use looking at Multi Modal!

 

[ainsworth74]

The realism is total number of bus passengers far exceeds that of rail. Are they all enthusiasts?

Isn't the overwhelming majority of that bus usage in London though? Outside of there bus travel seems to be avoided by all unless you have no other choice (the young, the old and those that can't afford to run a car).

 

[edwin_m]

Isn't the overwhelming majority of that bus usage in London though? Outside of there bus travel seems to be avoided by all unless you have no other choice (the young, the old and those that can't afford to run a car).

Curiously, two government statisics tables for the same year seem to disagree on whether London useage is in the majority. But it's very clear that bus usage is growing within London but falling in most other places, particularly other metropolitan areas.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ual-bus-statistics-year-ending-march-2015.pdf

 

[Chrisgr31]

So far, it seems that dog hasn't barked.

Presumably, the report whose publication is being pressed for is the London and South Coast Rail Corridor Study. It's amusing to speculate on whether the delay in publishing it is because it comes to some hideously unacceptable conclusion. Might it have come up with such a good BCR for reinstating Uckfield-Lewes that it would be politically impossible not to go ahead? Or, conversely, does it suggest closing Hurst Green-Uckfield altogether? Compulsory purchase of the Bluebell? Converting the main London-Brighton line to a guided busway? Building a completely new High Speed route through the South Downs National Park? The possibilities are extensive.

Its going to be interesting. I seem to recall that one of the last reports stated the BML was not shut often enough to justify a diversionary route. Fairly sure it has been shut a lot more frequently since that report.

Problem is though who is going to pay for BML2?

 

[A0]

There's huge chunks of the UK where simply adding extra carriages to existing services will tick most boxes yet were infrastructure obsessed. Hammond & Co would have achieved one hell of lot more yesterday by buying a £400 million fleet of trains than giving it to Network Rail's digital railway.

Using SWT's 5 car Desiro order as an example that would have bought you about 60 trains - which is fine. But what do you order? What's the lead time? Where's the manufacturing capacity? Is the infrastructure ready?

With most legacy trains you can't just 'stick another carriage' in the middle of it. Even relatively recent units - I'm thinking Voyagers, Pendos etc - can't just have a new carriage built for them.

Add in the fact you've already got a fairly long order book open for new trains which will lead to a mix of cascades and withdrawls and you have to say it really isn't as simple as going off an ordering 60 new trains. If it were that simple, I suspect that approach may have been followed.

 

[Amy Worrall]

Why can't Voyagers? They chop and change them to make 4 or 5 car units. Are you saying they can't go more than 5 car?

 

[glbotu]

Why can't Voyagers? They chop and change them to make 4 or 5 car units. Are you saying they can't go more than 5 car?

1. Because no-one will build Voyager cars anymore, certainly none with motors.

2. If you build them as trailer cars, you start to hinder your acceleration. You can re-form the existing ones to your heart's content (I believe you can make up to 7 car Voyagers before you need an extra pair of cabs).

 

[A0]

1. Because no-one will build Voyager cars anymore, certainly none with motors.

2. If you build them as trailer cars, you start to hinder your acceleration. You can re-form the existing ones to your heart's content (I believe you can make up to 7 car Voyagers before you need an extra pair of cabs).

This exactly - that said I'd have thought that Voyagers could be made up to 9 car - some of the Meridians were delivered as 9 cars for MML's proposed London St P - Leeds service which the SRA put the skids on. So EMT then reformed the Meridians into a mix of 4, 5 and 7 car units.

 

[glbotu]

This exactly - that said I'd have thought that Voyagers could be made up to 9 car - some of the Meridians were delivered as 9 cars for MML's proposed London St P - Leeds service which the SRA put the skids on. So EMT then reformed the Meridians into a mix of 4, 5 and 7 car units.

One of the difference between Voyagers and Meridians is that Voyagers only go up to 7. I think it's something to do with software (although I could be cataclysmically wrong about that).

 

[Gareth Marston]

Using SWT's 5 car Desiro order as an example that would have bought you about 60 trains - which is fine. But what do you order? What's the lead time? Where's the manufacturing capacity? Is the infrastructure ready?

With most legacy trains you can't just 'stick another carriage' in the middle of it. Even relatively recent units - I'm thinking Voyagers, Pendos etc - can't just have a new carriage built for them.

Add in the fact you've already got a fairly long order book open for new trains which will lead to a mix of cascades and withdrawls and you have to say it really isn't as simple as going off an ordering 60 new trains. If it were that simple, I suspect that approach may have been followed.

It's a pan European rolling stock manufacturing market now I doubt Europes order books are full.

 

[A0]

It's a pan European rolling stock manufacturing market now I doubt Europes order books are full.

Maybe so - but unless you're looking at introducing something different, then you're stuck behind the lead-time of the units already ordered.

e.g if you want Desiros, Siemens aren't suddenly able to offer you these 'off the shelf' when they've already got a couple of years production lined up.

And there is a down-side to going for non-standard stuff in terms of compatibility with other stock. And small, non-standard fleets tend to cost more to run and offer poorer reliability - e.g. Class 180s.