It's hard sometimes to argue against change because various different people can portray their own preferred version of what that change would be (as we found with Brexit, where some people voted to "Leave" to turn Britain into a European Signapore, others voted "Leave" to create a protectionist state with huge restrictions on immigration, others voted "Leave" to permit more migration from the Indian Subcontinent... some people support Scottish independence as a small country in the EU like Denmark or Ireland whilst others support Scottish independence as a fully independent country... these people may be bedfellows at a referendum but can't all have what they want)
Bradford Crossrail discussions can involve some people wanting to link Forster Square to the Pudsey line (without touching Interchange), some wanting to run through trains between two stations on roughly the existing sites, some wanting to replace the two stations with just one central one, we've had the suggestion of extending the Forster Square line through to meet the Interchange route but with buffer stops, like a West Yorkshire version of Kirkby/ Ormskirk (so that Halifax - Leeds trains would continue to run as they do now, with no diversion via Shipley). Clearly you can't do all of these with one project, but any 'Bradford Needs A Crossrail" campaign would get lots of people involved even though their preferred versions may contradict each other
Similarly, a lot of people want a Leamside line, but can't agree on whether this is a Metro extension, an HS2 alignment so that fast long distance trains can avoid the curves of Durham or a route to dump slow freights onto - again, one route can't tick all boxes
Okehampton - Tavistock is both a simple short alignment that only needs to handle one slow DMU per hour on a local service whilst also being capable of providing a Waterloo - Plymouth time that is competitive against the Paddington - Plymouth trains that run via Dawlish, plus also having plenty spare capacity to handle all diversions if Dawlish is closed
There's a trend to ague for a modest project ("it'd be a fraction of what we are spending on HS2" / "how hard can it be to reinstate just a few miles of track" etc) whilst also promising huge benefits that'd only come with a mega-project
So, here are a few questions for anyone supporting a line from Skipton to Colne:
1. Is this just a simple twelve miles of single track for the hourly Preston - Colne service to run through to Skipton, or something much more ambitious?
2. If you want through trains to Leeds then are these extensions of the existing Skipton - Leeds services (which are so busy that we had to order EMUs capable of increasing the length from four to six coaches)? In which case, are you talking about electrifying the line through Colne? And, would the wires end at Burnley, Blackburn, Preston, where? So a half hourly Leeds - Skipton - Colne - Burnley - Blackburn - Manchester/Preston service, with all of the infrastructure that that would mean (lots of electrification, doubling of lines etc)? If you run it through to Preston then would that mean the current Leeds - Bradford - Halifax - Burnley - Preston (Blackpool) trains being terminated somewhere short?
3. Or is the plan for the Leeds - Skipton - Colne (and beyond) trains to be additional to the current Leeds - Skipton trains (in which case you might be planning on running them as DMUs to save on the cost of electrification in Lancashire, but might need additional paths on the congested line through Shipley and a new platform at Leeds?
4. Plus Bradford trains? The SELRAP website talks about services running directly into Bradford City Centre, so is it two Leeds services per hour, plus one to Bradford too? (obviously Blackburn/ Accrington/ Burnley already have an hourly train into the city centres of both Leeds and Bradford, but I know that SELRAP like to pretend that the Copy Pit doesn't exist)
5. There was talk on the SELRAP site about regular trains to Manchester Airport, so would these be coming all the way from Leeds via Skipton and then the single track bits of line from Blackburn to Bolton (given how congested and unreliable Castlefield is)?
6. But if you can run regular trains from Colne to Manchester (without needing infrastructure improvements) then why aren't you focussing on that kind of deliverable goal, instead of all the complicated/ expensive/ flashy stuff? The website looks appealing when it promises that "commuting could become possible from East Lancashire to south Manchester", but we all know that there's nothing stopping trains from East Lancashire to south Manchester already - you don't need the train to have run via Skipton to achieve that
7. Burnley gained an hourly Manchester train six and a half years ago (via Rochdale) - long enough for trends to be noticed - has this had a significant impact upon house prices in Burnley/ unemployment in Burnley? Because if I was bringing up the amazing opportunities that people in East Lancashire could have, if only we spent a lot of money providing them with a regular train to a big city (e.g. Leeds) then presumably there's a lot of data to show how transformational it was when we previously introduced such a line (e.g. the one to Manchester)? If Burnley and Accrington are still two of the places with cheapest house prices in England (as the campaigner suggested), and hourly trains to both Manchester and Leeds haven't changed this then why do you think that a direct train to Skipton is going to be transformational? Did Blackburn's house prices/ unemployment rates etc change when the service to Manchester via Bolton was doubled a few years ago?
8. Would you be including the cost of grade separation at the Leeds throat to allow freight to be diverted via Colne and Skipton towards places like Drax? Or will we just accept the throat to this busy station closing for the sake of these diverted freight trains?
9. Would Clitheroe lose it's current Manchester trains, if you want to run all of these Leeds - Skipton - Colne services through to Manchester?
..because otherwise the whole thing is too abstract to discuss - it's just a simple short 12k but also a W12-cleared fully electrified double track link from Hull to Liverpool with lots of intermediate infrastructure requiring expensive upgrades - it's full of promises that don't require a Skipton link ("if only there was some way of giving Burnley through trains to Leeds each hour, if only there was some way of running a train from East Lancashire to South Manchester") and presumably plays on the "supporters" taking this at face value rather than questioning why lots of perfectly modest improvements can't be made to deliver a large share of the "benefits" that the SELRAP people promise.
That said, I'd quite like to see a fight between the SELRAP campaigners and the well heeled Southport folks over who gets to use the last path through Castlefield (in fairness to the Southport people, whilst I disagree with them, at least they keep to a simple and consistent demand - even if it tramples over other routes - rather than the nebulous SELRAP campaign)
