Are any "bring back old lines" campaigns likely to succeed?

[Bald Rick]

Also Airdrie-Bathgate

And whilst it might not be that long a list that compares to the England (much much larger population) which has had:

• HS1
• East London Line
• Bicester Curve
• Eastleigh-Romsey (not sure quite when this was)
• Sinfin (stub, briefly)
• I'm sure there are a couple of other stubs that I can't think of

But proportionately not much relatively.

I’ve listed them elsewhere, but there’s also Halifax - Huddersfield, Snow Hill - Smethwick, Aylesbury Vale, Corby, Oxford - Bicester - Marylebone, Robin Hood Line (in 3 bites), several in Wales, Stratford - Tottenham, and more.

And to come we have East West Rail (in construction), Barking Riverside (in construction), Walsall - Wolverhampton (approved), Wednesbury- Merry Hill (approved), the Camp Hill line, Portishead (both in final stages of approval)... all of which connect sizeable communities to the rail network, enabling them to get to their nearby cities.

 

[yorksrob]

Do you know? You’re right. The guidance that has resulted in the approval of every single railway upgrade project for 20 years is tosh. All those reopenings in England, Wales and Scotland, tosh. All the new stations, tosh. The west coast upgrade, Thameslink, NW electrification, replacing the pacers, improved frequencies, the east coast upgrade, Todmorden curve, Halton curve, All tosh.

In future the decision makers should just listen to people who think they know best.

Or alternatively, take a leaf out of Scotlands book. They seem to know what they're doing.

 

[yorksrob]

Huddersfield, Snow Hill - Smethwick, Aylesbury Vale, Corby, Oxford - Bicester - Marylebone, Robin Hood Line .

Goodness, I didn't realise this was an historical thread. If we have to turn back the clock twenty years for our examples, it shows that things aren't progressing as they ought.

As regards Portishead, I'll believe it when it's built.

 

[CNash]

Quick pedant point: The line to Cromer and Sheringham does still exist (and is north of Norwich).

You're right of course, I had forgotten about Cromer. I should've said, "northwest of Norwich" or indeed "northwest Norfolk".

Some good discussions going on here I see. I'll have to look into the reopenings in Scotland more closely, but as has been said, Transport Scotland is a different beast to the DfT...

Someone reminded me earlier today of the guided busway that was built on the old railway tracks between Luton and Dunstable. I wonder if there's any scope for repurposings of this nature elsewhere (see also the Croydon Tramlink), but I suppose the infrastructure has to be largely intact with the routes protected.

 

[Bald Rick]

And @Bald Rick will correct me (I hope) when I get this wrong, but IIRC there's not any/not much capacity going into Stansted because of the "economical" single tunnel that connects the airport with the mainline.

The Stansted branch is indeed at capacity.

 

[Tobbes]

Do you know? You’re right.... In future the decision makers should just listen to people who think they know best.

And @Bald Rick succesfully bids for £50bn (£10bn pa over five years) in the Spending Review to be spent on upgrades directed by the users of railforums.... the laughted in HMT was only exceeded by that in DfT and NR HQ....

 

[Bald Rick]

Goodness, I didn't realise this was an historical thread. If we have to turn back the clock twenty years for our examples, it shows that things aren't progressing as they ought.

As regards Portishead, I'll believe it when it's built.

What going back 20 years shows, obviously, is that all the English reopenings had better cases than Scotland, and were therefore built first. Simple.

 

[Tobbes]

The Stansted branch is indeed at capacity.

Many thanks @Bald Rick - any idea on costs/likelihood of a second tunnel? Presume "massive" / "unlikely"....

 

[Bald Rick]

Some good discussions going on here I see. I'll have to look into the reopenings in Scotland more closely, but as has been said, Transport Scotland is a different beast to the DfT....

Transport Scotland is a different beast than DfT, in that they are spending more on all forms of transport; however they still assess them using the aforementioned guidance.

As well as electrification and a couple of reopenings in the last decade, they have also spent £1bn on a bypass for Aberdeen, £700m on 5 miles of motorway in Glasgow, and are currently midway through spending £3bn on the A9 from Perth to Inverness.

The Borders railway was a special case, done for pure politics rather than a business case. All other Scottish projects have played by the rules.

 

[Bald Rick]

Many thanks @Bald Rick - any idea on costs/likelihood of a second tunnel? Presume "massive" / "unlikely"....

£200m-£300m+
It will only happen if Stansted pay. Besides, even if it was built, there’s no capacity to run trains south, and that’s where by far the majority of passengers actually want to go.

 

[muddythefish]

They got results....to the cost of the rest of Scotland. As the Transport Assessment Guidance would demonstrate.

I don't understand these arguments....same as the Wales govt objecting to HS2 because it didn't go through Wales.

 

[Tobbes]

£200m-£300m+
It will only happen if Stansted pay. Besides, even if it was built, there’s no capacity to run trains south, and that’s where by far the majority of passengers actually want to go.

Thanks, very interesting. Presumably four-tracking the Lea Valley would provide enough capacity? And yes, clearly MAG/Stansted should pay for it.

 

[Bald Rick]

As regards Portishead, I'll believe it when it's built.

You’d better start believing.

Quick question. In your mind what is the difference between reopening the Portishead branch and Walsall - Wolverhampton? Both projects:

* Open 2 new stations
* connect sizeable communities (25,000+) to the rail network
* Will provide an hourly, possibly half hourly train service to the nearby regional centre
* offer significant regeneration potential

 

[Bald Rick]

Thanks, very interesting. Presumably four-tracking the Lea Valley would provide enough capacity? And yes, clearly MAG/Stansted should pay for it.

4 tracking the Lea Valley provides no extra capacity on its own, which is why it hasn’t happened. To get more capacity on the WAML requires somewhere to send the extra trains south of Tottenham Hale, and that means Crossrail 2.

 

[tbtc]

I must admit, its always interesting to see those trying to defend the indefensible, attempting a new tack. The "short stub" argument argument however, falls down because Tavistock, Portishead, Wisbech, Skelmersdale etc are also short stubs, yet whereas Scotland's short stubs represent ample good practice, England's short stubs (or lack of them) represent only a littany of failure

I'm just trying to temper your idea that everything in Scotland gets built and nothing in England gets built (when, in around twenty five years of privatisation - and almost a similar period of devolution - there's only really been one re-opening in Scotland that hasn't been a relatively modest project - nothing on the scale of HS1 or East-West or the proposals for HS2. Manchester Metrolink alone has probably seen more miles of track than Scotland in the past thirty years.

Unlike you, I do not find the fact that this was brought about by the presence of a functioning political system, as something to be ashamed or distainful of. Infact it seems a lot better than our staid and moribund system where the provision of railway facilities has depended on how many marginal constituencies it serves

Context is important though - the line to Tweedbank wasn't built because Scotland is a magical land that doesn't need to worry about business cases - it was built because it was the equivalent of the infrastructure monies that the DUP got out of Theresa May - payback for agreeing to support a minority administration - the Borders being the LibDem heartlands - the context matters because it affects how likely any future proposals would get accepted.

In terms of aggregate benefits, yes of course in some cases it would be better to spend more money in areas that are already highly disadvantaged in terms of public transport, even if more motorists miss out on a five minute journey improvement.

So it's more important to reconnect a rural village to quantifiably benefit a small number of people than spend the money increasing capacity on busy lines to benefit a larger number of people?

I say "quantifiably" because I'm talking about the number of people who'd use a service week in, week out, rather than some unquantifiable stuff about "the prestige of putting the town on the map"

Also Airdrie-Bathgate

Apologies - I forgot that one

High Speed One and the Bicester Curve are serving existing markets, rather than providing new travel opportunities

HS1 and the Bicester Curve did provide new rail travel opportunities though.

They just provided those opportunities in places with large populations that already had some form of railway access (rather than rural villages). I can see why you dislike them!

Let's test the Sheffield - Stocksbridge line against this (possibly for tram-train):

• Stocksbridge itself has a population of circa 10,000, plus the significant population along the line in Oughtibridge, Shirecliffe etc.
• Probably less than 60 mins from Stocksbridge to Sheffield
• Trackbed still exists so only upgrades would be required
• This is easiest with a tram-train which could run past Kelham Island and up Broad Lane (ex-A57) to the Cathedral (and then maybe down to Midland) as access to Sheffield Midland is tricky from this line via existing railways
• Much of this line is fairly deprived and a fixed rail connection to Sheffield and beyond could be a significan boost to the area

In other words, a solid 4.5/5, the same as what @Altnabreac gave the Leven line. I'd have thought this is one of the easier schemes to carry out, only require major works in Sheffield linking this line to the city centre. Also, now we have tram-trains it's less of a jump to extend the system (hopefully with less of the spiralling costs of course!).

Do you mean coming down (from the freight line) at Rutland Road and heading past Wickes to join the Supertram at Shalesmoor?

Stocksbridge would be a tough nut to crack - the steep hill on the southern side of the valley means that any central station (by Fox Valley Retail Park?) would be some walk from where most people live - and there's the obvious problems with alignment at the Sheffield end.

I am just suddenly wondering if there has ever been a case made for Bo'ness?

It's a short stub, the population is 14000+, it is close to major populations centres....

...or is the presence of a heritage railway a barrier?

And... what would be the junction arrangements? Yet another stop on the Ed-Gla mainline??

One problem with Bo'ness (like Grangemouth) is the lack of services to extend there. Any Edinburgh - Bo'ness/Grangemouth service is a path that could be used towards Stirling/Glasgow... and the same with any Glasgow - Grangemouth/ Bo'ness service (being a path that could be used towards Edinburgh). I could only really see Bo'ness being served by a shuttle from the main line - maybe get in a 139 or 230. One advantage of Levenmouth is that there are ScotRail services terminating at Thornton (and Markinch) that could be extended/diverted down the valley. Bo'ness has the same problem as St Andrews (in that there's nothing currently terminating at Leuchars, so you'd have to rip up some Edinburgh - Dundee - Arbroath services to provide a through train to St Andrews (unless you wanted to just run a shuttle to/from Leuchars).

(IMHO)

 

[Tobbes]

4 tracking the Lea Valley provides no extra capacity on its own, which is why it hasn’t happened. To get more capacity on the WAML requires somewhere to send the extra trains south of Tottenham Hale, and that means Crossrail 2.

Again, very helpful - tyvm. Roll on CR2, then.

 

[Bald Rick]

Let's test the Sheffield - Stocksbridge line against this (possibly for tram-train):

• Stocksbridge itself has a population of circa 10,000, plus the significant population along the line in Oughtibridge, Shirecliffe etc.
• Probably less than 60 mins from Stocksbridge to Sheffield
• Trackbed still exists so only upgrades would be required
• This is easiest with a tram-train which could run past Kelham Island and up Broad Lane (ex-A57) to the Cathedral (and then maybe down to Midland) as access to Sheffield Midland is tricky from this line via existing railways
• Much of this line is fairly deprived and a fixed rail connection to Sheffield and beyond could be a significan boost to the area

In other words, a solid 4.5/5, the same as what @Altnabreac gave the Leven line. I'd have thought this is one of the easier schemes to carry out, only require major works in Sheffield linking this line to the city centre. Also, now we have tram-trains it's less of a jump to extend the system (hopefully with less of the spiralling costs of course!).

Stocksbridge is an interesting example, and you’ve hit the nail on the head with the problem being at the Sheffield end, ie where to send the trains / trams.

This leads to a broader point. The Golden Rules set by @Altnabreac are eminently sensible, but I’m sure the good man himself would agree that they are only a guide, and only one part of the equation. The other part, of course, is how much the proposal costs to build and operate. If there are two projects that, for example, each score 4.5/5 on the golden rules, but one costs £50m whilst the other costs £1bn, then it’s clear that the former is very likely to have a better case.

This is why shortish extensions, or those on extant railways (or preferably both) have much better cases, and are those that tend to happen.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Do you know? You’re right. The guidance that has resulted in the approval of every single railway upgrade project for 20 years is tosh. All those reopenings in England, Wales and Scotland, tosh. All the new stations, tosh. The west coast upgrade, Thameslink, NW electrification, replacing the pacers, improved frequencies, the east coast upgrade, Todmorden curve, Halton curve, All tosh.

In future the decision makers should just listen to people who think they know best.

Surely, by definition, if TAC guidance is what's used to decide on whether or not to build a line, then of course you can point to the lines built and say "Look, the guidance worked." Isn't that a circular argument? If the guidance/criteria were very different, but were the ones generally applied, you could point to whatever was then built and say that the guidance must work because they'd been built.

More important is the assumptions underlying any guidance - and including the political and value judgements, etc, underlying any supposedly rational and objective financial criteria - which are what really matter.

 

[yorksrob]

What going back 20 years shows, obviously, is that all the English reopenings had better cases than Scotland, and were therefore built first. Simple.

Well, if the English reopenings had better business cases than the Scottish ones, we should have spent the last twenty years undertaking the other projects in England, that have similar business cases to the ones in Scotland then.

You’d better start believing.

Quick question. In your mind what is the difference between reopening the Portishead branch and Walsall - Wolverhampton? Both projects:

* Open 2 new stations
* connect sizeable communities (25,000+) to the rail network
* Will provide an hourly, possibly half hourly train service to the nearby regional centre
* offer significant regeneration potential

I would say that Walsall - Wolverhampton is very similar to Portishead in that I'll believe it when I see it. Why are these reopenings (supposedly) only happening now, rather than the last twenty years, when we could have had a really substantial expansion of the passenger network underway by now.

 

[Bald Rick]

Surely, by definition, if TAC guidance is what's used to decide on whether or not to build a line, then of course you can point to the lines built and say "Look, the guidance worked." Isn't that a circular argument? If the guidance/criteria were very different, but were the ones generally applied, you could point to whatever was then built and say that the guidance must work because they'd been built.

More important is the assumptions underlying any guidance - and including the political and value judgements, etc, underlying any supposedly rational and objective financial criteria - which are what really matter.

Well yes, but then that doesn’t mean that the guidance is wrong or flawed because it doesn’t give the results that some people want. My point was that the guidance used in Scotland is the same that is used in England & Wales, and it has resulted in a signiifcant amount o money being spent on the GB rail network, which is one of the key factors in the growth in passengers.

Agreed about the underlying assumptions. But Politics do not come into the formal assessment.

The politicians can, of course, decide to overrule the assessment. As was done for Borders, and also (notably) the replacement of the Pacer fleet.

 

[CaledonianBlue]

One problem with Bo'ness (like Grangemouth) is the lack of services to extend there. Any Edinburgh - Bo'ness/Grangemouth service is a path that could be used towards Stirling/Glasgow... and the same with any Glasgow - Grangemouth/ Bo'ness service (being a path that could be used towards Edinburgh). I could only really see Bo'ness being served by a shuttle from the main line - maybe get in a 139 or 230. One advantage of Levenmouth is that there are ScotRail services terminating at Thornton (and Markinch) that could be extended/diverted down the valley. Bo'ness has the same problem as St Andrews (in that there's nothing currently terminating at Leuchars, so you'd have to rip up some Edinburgh - Dundee - Arbroath services to provide a through train to St Andrews (unless you wanted to just run a shuttle to/from Leuchars).

(IMHO)

OK yes that makes sense

 

[Altnabreac]

Stocksbridge is an interesting example, and you’ve hit the nail on the head with the problem being at the Sheffield end, ie where to send the trains / trams.

This leads to a broader point. The Golden Rules set by @Altnabreac are eminently sensible, but I’m sure the good man himself would agree that they are only a guide, and only one part of the equation. The other part, of course, is how much the proposal costs to build and operate. If there are two projects that, for example, each score 4.5/5 on the golden rules, but one costs £50m whilst the other costs £1bn, then it’s clear that the former is very likely to have a better case.

This is why shortish extensions, or those on extant railways (or preferably both) have much better cases, and are those that tend to happen.

Exactly. It’s a rule of thumb and just because you score 5 doesn’t mean the reopening will happen easily. And indeed many a reopening may have only been a 3 or a 4.

It’s more useful in pinpointing the number of schemes which score 0-1 but which have passionate campaigns of romantic champions. These can be safely ignored except by Transport Consultants looking for an easy way of earning £30K to say “Nae Chance”.

 

[Tobbes]

Exactly. It’s a rule of thumb and just because you score 5 doesn’t mean the reopening will happen easily. And indeed many a reopening may have only been a 3 or a 4.

It’s more useful in pinpointing the number of schemes which score 0-1 but which have passionate campaigns of romantic champions. These can be safely ignored except by Transport Consultants looking for an easy way of earning £30K to say “Nae Chance”.

Given that it is widely accepted that the Borders Line is the outlier that only happened because of a political fix, how would it have scored on your rules, @Altnabreac ?

(And I'm sure that the forum favourite - Carmathen to Aberystwyth - would be at least 4.5/5...!)

 

[Altnabreac]

Given that it is widely accepted that the Borders Line is the outlier that only happened because of a political fix, how would it have scored on your rules, @Altnabreac ?

(And I'm sure that the forum favourite - Carmathen to Aberystwyth - would be at least 4.5/5...!)

Borders was a 3.5-4
10k plus - Yes, both in Midlothian and Gala.
60 - 75 mins travel - Yes Midlothian, Just about from Gala.
Unobstructed trackbed - No, this caused a lot of the costs.
Extend an existing service - Yes
Regeneration potential - Yes

Even with that score of 4 the BCR was very marginal. In reality Borders Rail was a really solid reopening to Midlothian with an expensive extension to Gala that was quite marginal.

Weirdly of course in reality the Borders bit has performed better than the Midlothian bit but it was still very expensive hence the marginal BCR.

Interestingly lots of people on the forum (and David Spaven off it) are upset that the business case for Borders Rail wasn’t destroyed by making it much more expensive with extra double track, semi fast services to use up more terminal capacity, more work on the existing network at Portobello junction, electrification and more rolling stock.

In reality these things can be addressed incrementally post opening and seeking to fix all of these in advance would have guaranteed it never happening.

 

[Tobbes]

Borders was a 3.5-4
10k plus - Yes, both in Midlothian and Gala.
60 - 75 mins travel - Yes Midlothian, Just about from Gala.
Unobstructed trackbed - No, this caused a lot of the costs.
Extend an existing service - Yes
Regeneration potential - Yes

Even with that score of 4 the BCR was very marginal. In reality Borders Rail was a really solid reopening to Midlothian with an expensive extension to Gala that was quite marginal.

Weirdly of course in reality the Borders bit has performed better than the Midlothian bit but it was still very expensive hence the marginal BCR.

Interestingly lots of people on the forum (and David Spaven off it) are upset that the business case for Borders Rail wasn’t destroyed by making it much more expensive with extra double track, semi fast services to use up more terminal capacity, more work on the existing network at Portobello junction, electrification and more rolling stock.

In reality these things can be addressed incrementally post opening and seeking to fix all of these in advance would have guaranteed it never happening.

Very sound analysis, @Altnabreac breac, thank-you. Thoughts on extensions to Hawick and Peebles?

 

[Altnabreac]

Very sound analysis, @Altnabreac breac, thank-you. Thoughts on extensions to Hawick and Peebles?

Peebles isn’t a good business case: sub 10k population, trackbed missing, no service to extend, no regeneration benefits. It’s a 1/5 and an expensive one as well.

Hawick ticks more boxes especially on regeneration but is fundamentally a bit too far from Edinburgh to generate a lot of commuting demand. Perhaps it could happen for political reasons but I suspect it’s another marginal BCR.

 

[Tobbes]

Peebles isn’t a good business case: sub 10k population, trackbed missing, no service to extend, no regeneration benefits. It’s a 1/5 and an expensive one as well.

Hawick ticks more boxes especially on regeneration but is fundamentally a bit too far from Edinburgh to generate a lot of commuting demand. Perhaps it could happen for political reasons but I suspect it’s another marginal BCR.

Very interesting, @Altnabreac , thank-you. I'm disappointed for Peebles, because I wondered if there was the option to divide 2 x 158 at Eskbank and run one to Gala and other to Peebles (I'd wrongly though that much of the trackbed was available, and that a station could be built on the north side of the town. Ah well!

 

[krus_aragon]

I don't understand these arguments....same as the Wales govt objecting to HS2 because it didn't go through Wales.

They weren't objecting to HS2 itself, but how Westminster said it would affect the Welsh Government's funding.

Wales (and Scotland, etc.) get money to fund their devolved services according to how much Westminster is spending in England on those services. If Westminster spends X on healthcare in England, Wales will get a particular fraction of X from the treasury too, according to a ratio known as the Barnett formula. Obviously there's no extra money (or Barnett consequential) when Westminster buys new ships for the Navy, because that spending is for the defense of the whole of the UK.

With HS2, the Welsh Government said "That's a nice railway line you're building from London toward Scotland. We presume we'll be getting X% of the cost as a Barnett consequential to spend on transport infrastructure in Wales?" Westminster responded along the lines of "No, because HS2 clearly benefits Wales as well, so there's no need to give you a separate pot of money" . Make of that what you will.

 

[Tobbes]

They weren't objecting to HS2 itself, but how Westminster said it would affect the Welsh Government's funding.

Wales (and Scotland, etc.) get money to fund their devolved services according to how much Westminster is spending in England on those services. If Westminster spends X on healthcare in England, Wales will get a particular fraction of X from the treasury too, according to a ratio known as the Barnett formula. Obviously there's no extra money (or Barnett consequential) when Westminster buys new ships for the Navy, because that spending is for the defense of the whole of the UK.

With HS2, the Welsh Government said "That's a nice railway line you're building from London toward Scotland. We presume we'll be getting X% of the cost as a Barnett consequential to spend on transport infrastructure in Wales?" Westminster responded along the lines of "No, because HS2 clearly benefits Wales as well, so there's no need to give you a separate pot of money" . Make of that what you will.

Barnett consequentials are more of an art than a science, which reflects the history of Barnett as a short-term fudge in the late 1970s, rather than a UK-wide needs-based public spending assessment, which if it were done would disproportionately benefit Wales and the English regions, largely at the expense of Scotland.

 

[CaledonianBlue]

One problem with Bo'ness (like Grangemouth) is the lack of services to extend there. Any Edinburgh - Bo'ness/Grangemouth service is a path that could be used towards Stirling/Glasgow... and the same with any Glasgow - Grangemouth/ Bo'ness service (being a path that could be used towards Edinburgh). I could only really see Bo'ness being served by a shuttle from the main line - maybe get in a 139 or 230. One advantage of Levenmouth is that there are ScotRail services terminating at Thornton (and Markinch) that could be extended/diverted down the valley. Bo'ness has the same problem as St Andrews (in that there's nothing currently terminating at Leuchars, so you'd have to rip up some Edinburgh - Dundee - Arbroath services to provide a through train to St Andrews (unless you wanted to just run a shuttle to/from Leuchars).

(IMHO)

Was there not an idea to run to Glasgow to Grangemouth via Cumbernauld? Would that not solve (or help) the terminating / capacity angle?