England Finally Makes Decisions To Reopen Lines

[geoffk]

Most reopenings are entirely pointless. If the lines had not been closed in the first place most of them would justify being kept open. However they are gone.

We should throw out the circa-1960 railway maps and concentrate on where we go from here

I often get stick for crayonista behaviours, or at the very least an unhealthy obsession with tunnels and mass concrete, but we have to look at where we are now. I could think up numerous schemes that might not be particularly economic but no doubt score better than the kind of things we see proposed for reopenings of old railways that were abandoned largely for being railways to nowhere. (Mad schemes like a Meols to Prestatyn Tunnel or the Irish Sea crossing stuff)

Yet all the recent reopenings, in England, Scotland and Wales, have produced passenger numbers in excess of those forecast, in some cases greatly in excess. OK they don't make a profit but external benefits such as access to employment/education, reduced road congestion and income from tourism have also to be factored in. Some new stations on existing passengers lines have though been a disappointment, e.g. Stratford-on-Avon Parkway.

 

[HSTEd]

Yet all the recent reopenings, in England, Scotland and Wales, have produced passenger numbers in excess of those forecast, in some cases greatly in excess.

Well that depends on how you define "recent".

OK they don't make a profit but external benefits such as access to employment/education, reduced road congestion and income from tourism have also to be factored in. /quote]
If the alignment that maximises these goals' achievement per unit cost happens to be the old railway alignment great.
But in most cases it is very unlikely to be.

We have earthmoving techologies and tunnelling technologies that the engineers who built these railways originally couldn't even dream of.
We must be very careful not to place the Victorian and Edwardian railway on a pedestal.

Like I said, a Meols to Prestatyn tunnel is not something that has existed before but probably has far greater benefits in terms of public transport access and economic connections than most reopenings commonyl suggested

 

[a_c_skinner]

Well that depends on how you define "recent".

Of course. You imply you've a handle on "recent" that gives the lie to the assertion that most/all recent reopenings have done better than predicted. I have to admit I rather thought that too and would be interested to learn more, because "it depends ..." doesn't convey much by way of correction.

 

[HSTEd]

Of course. You imply you've a handle on "recent" that gives the lie to the assertion that most/all recent reopenings have done better than predicted. I have to admit I rather thought that too and would be interested to learn more, because "it depends ..." doesn't convey much by way of correction.

Well the Robin Hood line was hardly a runaway success, with services being cut back north of Mansfield.

Then there is the Sinfin Branch debacle.

It is true that on average reopenings currently tend to exceed predictions, but with such a small sample it is hard to draw too many conclusions.

It's also not clear how this would hold up if we reopened more lines because the difficulty in funding reopenings now means only the best schemes ever happen

 

[Bald Rick]

Not all reopening exceed passenger numbers. How many promoters of new lines / stations will issue a press release saying “new line has not see the number fo passengers forecast”

Aylesbury Vale anyone? There’s never been much news about Airdrie - Bathgate either.

 

[Bald Rick]

What am I missing....
Ollerton is a tiny place served by a branch that goes a long way round and is there a service you can extend to it?

Ollerton I don't think has a great case. The line is still there, but stations and other upgrades cost ridiculous amounts now, so it still can't be considered cheap. The journey time to Nottingham would probably be about an hour, barely quicker than the 70 minute bus journey and slower than driving, and the bus in question only runs once an hour with a very sparse evening and Sunday service.

The line would directly serve a number of communities, which between them have (very roughly) 5 times more people than between Skipton and Colne, and 100 times more people than live between Uckfield and Lewes, to use some examples.

The line is there, and would not need any planning consent to build, except perhaps at the stations which given the local authority are championing the proposal you would expect to be relatively straightforward. Some of the route will need upgrading, particularly signalling, but for the sort of service envisaged this can be relatively simple. I have no idea of the state of the infrastructure, but I suspect it is in reasonable condition. The extra resources needed to run the route are essentially one extra unit and 2-3 sets of train crew. You will struggle to find anywhere that has less work required for starting a passenger service. A complete guess would be that the cost of reinstatement would be in the range of £40m-£80m.

I’m not suggesting that it will have a ‘great’ case, but it will be far, far better than (for example) Skipton-Colne which many contributors to these pages consider a ‘no brainer’*

* which suggests that perhaps it is championed by those with no brain.

 

[yorksrob]

I love the way that this Forum veers from outrage at Guards getting new shirts every seven years when a franchise changes hands to being perfectly relaxed about spaffing billions of pounds at schemes with terrible cases (because re-opening failed lines is seen as a desirable end in itself).

We have heavy rail to tackle the biggest flows - we have buses and other public transport to tackle the smaller ones - buses are going to be much more suited to the kind of rural places much discussed on here.



Wonderful



Agreed - I'll admit that I wasn't even aware of how advanced the Ollerton project had got - but small sensible schemes like this get lost in a wave of nostalgia for quaint routes through rural Devon/ North Yorkshire/ South Downs

Well, you don't have to take my word for it. The railway companies have already done work on this in Connecting Communities. With some extra work, we already have the basis for a decent programme in there. Of course, £5 billion won't cover anything like all the proposals considered in there, but it should be possible to evaluate which are the best ones, but it could avoid re-inventing the wheel.

Of course, it won't suit those nostalgic for the days when a Beeching figure could spout some quasi-scientific nonsense and make everyone catch a bis.

In many cases, buses and bicycles will be the best way to reconnect communities to the rail network. I'd suggest that's what the five billion should be looking at, but that would imply integrated transport thinking, and whatever this government does you can be sure it won't be that.

Maybe, but what use is a bus for a long inter-urban journey like Tavistock - Plymouth where the road is already congested. In this instance, a railway taking you straight to the hub is what is needed.

Buses are more suitable for short intra-urban hops.

 

[yorksrob]

If Ollerton can't pass the threshold then we should just forget about any re-openings.

An outcome which would suit all Beeching era nostalgists.

 

[yorksrob]

Not all reopening exceed passenger numbers. How many promoters of new lines / stations will issue a press release saying “new line has not see the number fo passengers forecast”

Aylesbury Vale anyone? There’s never been much news about Airdrie - Bathgate either.

Aylesbury is hardly a reopening, given there has never been a station there before. It was a speculative new enterprise, and doubtless instigated for good reasons. But you can't justifiably use it as an excuse for not re-connecting settlements to the network.

 

[yorksrob]

The line would directly serve a number of communities, which between them have (very roughly) 5 times more people than between Skipton and Colne, and 100 times more people than live between Uckfield and Lewes, to use some examples.

The line is there, and would not need any planning consent to build, except perhaps at the stations which given the local authority are championing the proposal you would expect to be relatively straightforward. Some of the route will need upgrading, particularly signalling, but for the sort of service envisaged this can be relatively simple. I have no idea of the state of the infrastructure, but I suspect it is in reasonable condition. The extra resources needed to run the route are essentially one extra unit and 2-3 sets of train crew. You will struggle to find anywhere that has less work required for starting a passenger service. A complete guess would be that the cost of reinstatement would be in the range of £40m-£80m.

I’m not suggesting that it will have a ‘great’ case, but it will be far, far better than (for example) Skipton-Colne which many contributors to these pages consider a ‘no brainer’*

* which suggests that perhaps it is championed by those with no brain.

Surely the point of Uckfield - Lewes isn't simply to serve the populations of Barcomb Mills and Isfield, but to provide transport between the settlements either end of the route and beyond.

 

[yorksrob]

Well the Robin Hood line was hardly a runaway success, with services being cut back north of Mansfield.

Then there is the Sinfin Branch debacle.

It is true that on average reopenings currently tend to exceed predictions, but with such a small sample it is hard to draw too many conclusions.

It's also not clear how this would hold up if we reopened more lines because the difficulty in funding reopenings now means only the best schemes ever happen

The Robin Hood line has been a success. Would anyone dare close it now ? The North section might be even more successful with services to Sheffield.

I don't see the point of all the posts on this forum that go along the lines of "ooh I don't think people should be arguing for this or that line because its unrealistic compared to another line".

Instead of moaning that some people argue for unrealistic reopenings, why not argue for a policy that sets aside funding for the best reopenings and evaluates which ones they are.

 

[a_c_skinner]

I don't see the point of all the posts on this forum that go along the lines of "ooh I don't think people should be arguing for this or that line because its unrealistic compared to another line".

It seems to be railway think at least to the outsider. No need, no demand, enough done already, impossible because of, overkill, use the bus and so on. This caution which seems endemic and is helped by, perhaps causes the huge rigmarole of getting anything approved and actually built. Numerous GRIP phases interspersed with consultations and enquiries leading to prolonged sojourn on a civil servant's desk.

 

[yorksrob]

It seems to be railway think at least to the outsider. No need, no demand, enough done already, impossible because of, overkill, use the bus and so on. This caution which seems endemic and is helped by, perhaps causes the huge rigmarole of getting anything approved and actually built. Numerous GRIP phases interspersed with consultations and enquiries leading to prolonged sojourn on a civil servant's desk.

Indeed. Personally I think there's also an element of NR not wanting to aquire any more assets to look after, which leads to reticence.

 

[a_c_skinner]

It is the whole railway, not NR. Not enough stock, short of paths, staff not trained, route not cleared, platforms too short, signals wrongly placed, new trains never work at first, the reasons things cannot be done are legion. No one never comes at this by saying "we'd need to extend some platforms" rather they reply "the platforms are too short". The difference is can do or can't do.

 

[HSTEd]

The Robin Hood line has been a success. Would anyone dare close it now ?

"Noone would dare close it" is not really the same as "has been a success".

The Far North Line is a basket case that is essentially useless as a transport system thanks to road upgrades rendering it hilariously noncompetitive
Would anyone dare close it?

 

[swt_passenger]

Aylesbury is hardly a reopening, given there has never been a station there before. It was a speculative new enterprise, and doubtless instigated for good reasons. But you can't justifiably use it as an excuse for not re-connecting settlements to the network.

Isn’t Aylesbury Vale also in an area planned for vast increases in housing? Not forgetting it’s role as a through station on a future EWR service. Perhaps it’s been built slightly earlier than needed but only with hindsight...

 

[yorksrob]

"Noone would dare close it" is not really the same as "has been a success".

The Far North Line is a basket case that is essentially useless as a transport system thanks to road upgrades rendering it hilariously noncompetitive
Would anyone dare close it?

The last I heard, the Robin Hood line had plenty of passengers. That makes it a success.

I terms of the far north line, I don't drive, so the trunk road network is essentially useless to me, unlike the railway.

 

[yorksrob]

Isn’t Aylesbury Vale also in an area planned for vast increases in housing? Not forgetting it’s role as a through station on a future EWR service. Perhaps it’s been built slightly earlier than needed but only with hindsight...

That's possibly true. I still don't think that you can use its current passenger figures as a justification for leaving places such as Tavistock off the network.

 

[Bald Rick]

That's possibly true. I still don't think that you can use its current passenger figures as a justification for leaving places such as Tavistock off the network.

And I wasn’t suggesting that. I was merely saying that you never hear of projects that haven’t hit their passenger targets, and because of that it is incorrect to say that every new line / station has been beaten target.

 

[yorksrob]

And I wasn’t suggesting that. I was merely saying that you never hear of projects that haven’t hit their passenger targets, and because of that it is incorrect to say that every new line / station has been beaten target.

You could probably say that about any sort of upgrade though. Yet the oft heard argument on here seems to be that we should spend on upgrades instead of reopenings.

 

[tbtc]

If costs can't be controlled perhaps we should forget about any reopenings. But there might be (Blyth and Ashington is the obvious example) better cases than Ollerton - Ollerton is a good example of a rural backwater (smaller than Tavistock in fact) which supports only a very limited bus service. That's not to say it shouldn't have a train service, but there are limits to how much can be spent on it

The big two advantages of Ollerton are that there's track there and there's a service that can be extended there fairly easily (rather than, say, somewhere like Grangemouth which is larger but there's no obvious way of serving without disrupting other services/passengers).

Yet all the recent reopenings, in England, Scotland and Wales, have produced passenger numbers in excess of those forecast, in some cases greatly in excess

It's worth considering what the forecast passenger numbers were though.

My understanding is that Ebbw Vale was built on the basis of a service to Newport - but in the end got a service to the bigger city of Cardiff (and came at a time when the steel works were closing, so the need to travel outside of Ebbw Vale to seek employment suddenly increased significantly). So comparing final passenger numbers to predicted ones isn't wholly fair.

The Alloa branch was re-opened to get freight off the Forth Bridge - sticking a platform for a passenger service was the simple cost of running freight trains through the town.

Similarly, a line to Tweedbank was the price paid to get the LibDems into coalition at Holyrood.

So in both the Scottish cases, the passenger service was going to happen regardless - these branches weren't built because of an amazing business case, they were built to suit political demands - hence nobody doing a huge amount of work to assess demand - they weren't built because they had amazing demand - the fact that the passenger numbers are higher than expected is great but the two lines could still be running significant financial losses even if passenger numbers were double projections. There's probably a few Scottish schemes with better business cases and better projected passenger numbers that never saw the light of day. And some Scottish schemes that were built that never get discussed in these debates (e.g. anyone boasting about Larkhall?).

Take those three away and what have you got though? Some fairly underwhelming re-openings, some doing a bit better than expected, some doing a bit worse, but certainly nothing to justify the faith that some here have.

An outcome which would suit all Beeching era nostalgists.

I think the word is "realists".

The Robin Hood line has been a success. Would anyone dare close it now ?

As @HSTEd pointed out above, there are lots of basket case stations/lines but nobody dares even close something like Breich - the fact that nobody in any position of power is suggesting closing lines where the average passenger load could be accommodated by a minibus (e.g. Burnley - Colne) doesn't mean that they are a "success", just that no politician is going to ask for something that'd be unpopular with the public (even though 99.9% of the public don't use it).

Instead of moaning that some people argue for unrealistic reopenings, why not argue for a policy that sets aside funding for the best reopenings and evaluates which ones they are.

Firstly because we already waste huge sums on evaluations (the "Aberystwyth to Carmarthen feasibility study" industry is one of Wales's major employers!)

Secondly because you are clearly asking for something which is guaranteed to give the answer "re-open some long abandoned railway" - by all means assess which railway project has the best business case but by demanding we have a separate pot just for re-openings and that we must only spend that money on re-openings, you are trying to fix it to only give you an answer you'll want to hear.
​

I terms of the far north line, I don't drive, so the trunk road network is essentially useless to me, unlike the railway.

You're going to have your mind blown when you hear about things called "buses" and "coaches".

Remember, Wick sees an average twenty four departing passengers a day. That's not "per hour" or "per service", that's two dozen departing passengers a day. We're talking minibus levels of demand (but operated with a 158 that only manage a mile or two to the gallon, at least two members of staff on board, large sums required on infrastructure/maintenance/ signalling etc).

Heavy rail really isn't the answer to every problem.

 

[Starmill]

Instead of moaning that some people argue for unrealistic reopenings, why not argue for a policy that sets aside funding for the best reopenings and evaluates which ones they are.

Because there are only a limited number of business cases that can be in development at the same time, and they are difficult to get the people who want the line reopening to fund. Lots of campaign groups don't want Strategic Outline Business Cases landing for their pet project, either - it would make clear just how awful their value for money is.

 

[yorksrob]

Because there are only a limited number of business cases that can be in development at the same time, and they are difficult to get the people who want the line reopening to fund. Lots of campaign groups don't want Strategic Outline Business Cases landing for their pet project, either - it would make clear just how awful their value for money is.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I can think of several reopening schemes that have funded studies themselves, often more than one. The problem is in getting funding to actually build the line.

I don't think anyones expecting lots of lines to be reopened at the same time. Prioritising and making a start is what's needed.

 

[Starmill]

I don't think anyones expecting lots of lines to be reopened at the same time. Prioritising and making a start is what's needed.

Given the current envelope of central government funding that is actually available then I would argue that a very good start is being made on this.

Of course, a government that wanted to spend more money, a lot more money in some cases, could have easily and plausibly been elected in December.

One wasn't.

 

[yorksrob]

Given the current envelope of central government funding that is actually available then I would argue that a very good start is being made on this.

Of course, a government that wanted to spend more money, a lot more money in some cases, could have easily and plausibly been elected in December.

One wasn't.

Well, it is a start - provided it actually leads to trains running.

 

[Brush 4]

The 4 reopening lines I mentioned in the first post are the start. Now we need to keep up the momentum. Ollerton seems to be a contender as well. It is all good, the romantic element is irrelevant, a line isn't worth ignoring just because it was fondly remembered. Hoo, Ollerton and the Waverley Route are equally worthy.

 

[Bald Rick]

You could probably say that about any sort of upgrade though. Yet the oft heard argument on here seems to be that we should spend on upgrades instead of reopenings.

No, the argument ‘on here’ is that money on rail improvement schemes is best spent where it achieves the best result for society. It’s difficult to argue against that.

 

[HSTEd]

There is no particular reason that the Edwardian or Victorian rail network we had before Beeching represents the optimum system for the modern era.

We have technologies that they could barely dream of.
Reopening costs are comparable to a new line in open terrain, and thanks to our access to heavy earthmoving equipment, we can tackle terrain they could not.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Isn’t Aylesbury Vale also in an area planned for vast increases in housing? Not forgetting it’s role as a through station on a future EWR service. Perhaps it’s been built slightly earlier than needed but only with hindsight...

Yes. The last time I drove through that area, there were many houses still being built and some newly completed which hadn't yet been sold. It's too early to decide if the station at Aylesbury Vale is a success or not.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

No, the argument ‘on here’ is that money on rail improvement schemes is best spent where it achieves the best result for society. It’s difficult to argue against that.

Agreed. It's very difficult to argue against that, but some find it easy to ignore that consideration completely and pretend it's a non-issue.