I suspect that if you want to add resilience to rail to the Southwest with rising sea levels and adverse weather the Oakhampton route would fall down on the fact that it always the first line in Devon to close because of flooding at Cowley Bridge Junction and the River Yeo valley. It also runs alongside the Tamar sea estuary and across the Tavy Bridge on its approach to Plymouth.
There's still china clay traffic, and extensive quarrying in the Mendip area (although that area isn't affected by the Dawlish issue).
Everything is smaller. The weight of locomotives and rolling stock will be substantially lower, rails lighter (typically 30kg/m), structures cheaper to rebuild, or may not require any rebuilding at all if they can support the reduced loading compared to standard gauge. Obstructions are easier to build around etc.
Yes, its between a third and a half (ish) of a standard gauge heritage railway.
How many China Clay trains are there in an average week?
I'm inexperienced at RTT, I'm afraid, but there appear to be at least daily services from Fowey, alongside less frequent services to other locations.
I believe that the main flow is from Goonbarrow to Fowey Docks which is not affected by the Dawlish problem. I think there is a infrequent service to Stoke on Trent that is affected by Dawlish but that is in effect the only remaining freight and not likely to support major investment in a new or re-opened line.
Are you still allowed to have a 'speculative idea' that was part of the EMR franchise agreement to tender a study for and listed in the Department's RNEP summary?
Kemble - Cirencester - Fairford - Witney - Oxford would be an @Altnabreac Rules compliant commuter run.....
.The, ahem, more sensible one ( which I believe I might have posted already ) -
Barnstaple - Ilfracombe:
* Ilfracombe - pop 12k-ish, is the most deprived place in Devon County Council's area ( according to a report I lost sight of ) and a long way up near the top nationally
* It'd be probably 75-80 mins from Exeter, which is the only place to go to work ( other than Barnstaple, I guess - which is to a considerable degree a dormitory town itself ).
* The route is mostly clear bar a few obstacles in Braunton ( cough, let's ignore that some of them are ex-crossings, shall we? ) and the small case of a missing bridge over the tidal river.
* Braunton - pop 10k ish, and a number of popular beaches are on the way.
* The roads are picturesque, but awful. It's Exmoor, they're not going to get any better. Have a look at the A39 sometime...
The really daft one would be Okehampton - Bude, Bude is kinda hung out on the north coast there all on it's own( and I think putting that back has at least been looked at ) but mostly I'd just like to have taken a ride on it
Novel, two old railways with a new bit in the middle and some new bits around Witney. It was never a through route in the past.
Isn’t Ilfracombe station way above the town and about a mile from the beach? It’s a bus job.The, ahem, more sensible one ( which I believe I might have posted already ) -
Barnstaple - Ilfracombe:
* Ilfracombe - pop 12k-ish, is the most deprived place in Devon County Council's area ( according to a report I lost sight of ) and a long way up near the top nationally
* It'd be probably 75-80 mins from Exeter, which is the only place to go to work ( other than Barnstaple, I guess - which is to a considerable degree a dormitory town itself ).
* The route is mostly clear bar a few obstacles in Braunton ( cough, let's ignore that some of them are ex-crossings, shall we? ) and the small case of a missing bridge over the tidal river.
* Braunton - pop 10k ish, and a number of popular beaches are on the way.
* The roads are picturesque, but awful. It's Exmoor, they're not going to get any better. Have a look at the A39 sometime...
The really daft one would be Okehampton - Bude, Bude is kinda hung out on the north coast there all on it's own( and I think putting that back has at least been looked at ) but mostly I'd just like to have taken a ride on it
Oxford-Witney breezes through four of Altnabreac's rules (all except "regeneration potential"). Witney-Carterton gets four too (all except "mainly unobstructed trackbed"). But I have a hard time seeing Carterton-Fairford passing the tests, let alone new-build Fairford-Ciren.
Cullingworth is a village with a population of maybe 4k (counting the new builds) up a steep gradient through a mile-long tunnel.
I agree - it was always an intimidating hike up the hill from the centre of the town up to the station - and the station site is now home to one of one of Ilfracombe's largest employers. A pity, because the road access is undeniably awful, especially in summer. And threading a railway from the current station to the old Barnstaple Town would be challenging - not just a new bridge, but there's a shiny new(ish) retail park in the way.
More talk of this (and how unlikely it is, even Oxford-Witney) in the local paper today:
www.oxfordmail.co.uk
LINKING Oxford and Witney by a new railway could be a 'light in the dark' to the huge traffic jams on the A40.
Plans to revive the railway between Oxford and the west of the county have been discussed before, as much of the old track bed on the way to Witney still exists.
When Oxfordshire county councillors met on Tuesday they gave their backing to the idea of carrying out a study into whether a rail link from Carterton, Witney and Eynsham to Oxford could be doable, as part of a solution to traffic on the A40.
Charles Mathew, the Conservative councillor for Eynsham proposed the plan, and in his motion for debate said a decision by Oxfordshire's Local Enterprise Partnership to withdraw money from a relief road project for the A40 'undermines sensible solutions to the endless traffic jams on the A40 between Witney and Oxford roundabouts'.
ALSO READ: Oxford Covid total doubles with university cases included
The proposed relief road, the Loop Farm project, would have seen a road built between Duke’s Cut on the A40 to the Loop Farm roundabout road on the A44, taking pressure off the Wolvercote roundabout.
Mr Mathew said a rail link could help to take the pressure of West Oxfordshire commuters off the roads by placing them on trains instead.
He said: "We need to look forward and solve the A40 problem, not just for today at its rate of 32,000 cars a day but for the next 20 years at least.
"An imaginative approach is needed.
"I would look to the old railway line… as the light in the darkness."
Traffic near Wolvercote roundabout in 2016. Picture: Richard Cave
Mr Mathew later added that continuing to improve the A40 would not solve its traffic problem, especially as more housing developments are being built along the road, and that a long term solution was needed.
He said: "This is in today’s age an absolute necessity that we should be looking 20, 30 40 years ahead.
"Funding is not impossible if you have the desire."
ALSO READ: New Lidl in Witney opens on the first day of lockdown 2.0
Other councillors were largely supportive of the idea of carrying out a study into the new railway line, including Paul Buckley, the Lib Dem councillor for Wolvercote and Summertown, where the impact of traffic on the A40 is keenly felt.
Mr Buckley said: "Frankly my residents around Wolvercote felt let down by the decision to remove the funding for the Loop Farm link road.
"The need for it has been apparent for years even before the new housing came along."
He added that while plans to fix the road had stalled, large new housing developments, including Oxford North, had been approved, which would add hundreds of cars to nearby roads.
A design drawing of council plans to dual the A40. Picture: Oxfordshire County Council
Mr Buckley added: "This is horrendous. It is simply unacceptable for the county council to blithely continue with no plan to fix congestion at the Wolvercote roundabout."
But Yvonne Constance, the Conservative-run council's cabinet member for transport and the environment said the planned relief road was still on the cards, as it was part of a long term 'connectivity strategy'.
Ms Constance added previous studies into reviving the railway line had shown it was not financially viable and said there were other priorities for the railways in Oxfordshire which needed to be funded, including reopening the Cowley Branch Line and the East-West rail link to Cambridge.
ALSO READ: Boutiques at Bicester Village still open in lockdown as it launches virtual shopping experience
Oxfordshire County Council has won a bid for £102m of Government transport funding which will allow it to dual the A40, and to add in new bus lanes along the road.
It hopes to build a new Eynsham park and ride for commuters into Oxford as well.
Only last year campaigners in the Witney Oxford Transport Group drew up a plan for a new railway line extending westwards out of the city, claiming the A40 upgrade would not be enough on its own.
Witney MP Robert Courts has also previously expressed an interest in whether reviving the railway line could be feasible.
I'm inclined to agree. Some sort of mid-rail (!) link between Cowley (or even, much better, Wheatley and beyond that the M40 services!) and Witney, using existing rail alignments where available (and no better alternative available, i.e. mostly through Oxford itself, which is heavily built up), but also potentially being more “trammy” through Oxford itself feels like a better idea. Once an hour from Witney would surely not get much custom, since the buses are way more frequent than that … getting to twice or three times an hour, on the other hand, with substantially faster journey times than the bus (and than a car, in peak flows), might be more viable for users. Stop intervals between those for buses and those for heavy rail would likewise make it a more useful option for many people perhaps. You'd need decent acceleration /and/ maximum speed to make that sort of hybrid thing work though.
A very good call.
