So do you mean to say that any reopening imaginable will be integrated into the government’s single Restoring Your Railway scheme to be progressed (or not)? I think the difference with the Project SPEED approach is that they actually gave funding to Okehampton instead of leaving it indefinitely on hold like most of the others. Due to the scale of the Burscough Curves compared even to Okehampton - Crediton, they wouldn’t require much funding at all and the track work could be completed within weeks if started. The signalling might take a bit longer, but this is why I find it so unacceptable for them to remain closed. If only a third of the billed schemes stand a chance of even being considered for being built, then why did they need 3 rounds? Have you got any idea which ones are likely to be built and which aren’t, other than the Burscough Curves?
Merseyrail is effectively the default to travel between any random pair of stations along any one of its lines largely because it is likely to be the fastest way to get between the given points. Even if it isn’t, it is reliable and convenient enough for the few minutes difference it will make to be worth it, especially when most passengers are likely to travel from the same origin to several possible destinations on different occasions.
Any rail service from Southport to Ormskirk via Burscough whether it is a 777 or a 2 car 150 will have an undisputed time advantage over any road vehicle, but a through service to Liverpool as well as reducing the number of units opens up the whole length of the Ormskirk line to passengers from Southport, allowing journeys to Maghull and Aintree along the corridor of the 300 bus to be made by Merseyrail by default as well as Ormskirk itself. I can’t see any reason not to do this immediately.
At present there is more reason to use Merseyrail via Sandhills at some times of day than others because the bus can beat it if and only if the roads are completely empty, but because the train to Ormskirk can’t leave Sandhills until the train from Southport has arrived because of the conflicting movement, it is a reliable connection for a journey about 1 hour 10 minutes, which I find faster than a typical bus journey, but in the other direction the connection is only possible if the train to Southport is slightly late from Hunts Cross either at peak times or due to low rail adhesion.
I don’t know how Southport and Ormskirk are in a situation where a minimum of 1 hour 10 minutes has to be allowed for a reliable journey to a place 9 miles away which would take only 20 minutes if a less than half a mile single track curve was rebuilt on land wholly owned by Network Rail, but if this curve was open and a service ran on it, I make it that most of the time, to get from Southport Hospital to Ormskirk Hospital, it would be about half an hour faster to get a bus to the town centre at both ends to connect with this train service taking only 20 minutes than to get a direct bus between them. There are a lot of people who only travel between Southport and Ormskirk who are forced to because of hospital appointments.
Merseyrail have already returned to the 15 minute service on the Chester line however and this is with Ellesmere Port services still running.
Where are all these passengers going to come from? IMO, the current weekday Southport-Wigan frequency is overkill at 2tph, other than at peak periods. The service on that line needs to be rationalised and reduced west of Wigan, with all services from Southport banished from the Castlefield route. I am very disappointed that the Manchester Recovery plan option B was tweaked to permit such unnecessary services. Hopefully it can be removed once it has been shown in real life that such a service impairs recovery of Castlefield line reliability.