Improving or closing complete Basket Case Stations

[Bletchleyite]

Ideally it would be classed as a regional main line with two stoppers and two fast/semi fasts, although this would require some investment in loops.

One service pattern I've wondered about is 4tph but with each train only calling at all stations one side of Warrington rather than both, which would provide an acceptable end to end 4tph and journey time but also improve service at local stations to 2tph as well as giving Warrington a 2tph fast direct service to both Liverpool and Manchester, this could also potentially use the paths of the Norwich and Cleethorpes which could start at Piccadilly instead.

Ideally this would be wired but 195s should, in "performance mode", be able to make a decent go of such a service.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Aug 2023 ==

Could it not be added as a Metrolink service working as a Tram-Train service, such as going to be done with using the TFW Class 398's?

Metrolink/Merseyrail with buffer stops at Warrington has also been discussed but isn't a priority and really needs Northern Powerhouse Rail to be in place first.

 

[Ianigsy]

One person making a return journey five days a week, 48 weeks of the year generates 480 journeys a year. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of passengers using the sub-5000 stations weren’t schoolchildren or college students, in which case you may as well keep the station open and have them use a train which is already passing through the village. The alternative would either be to divert a bus (which slows it down for other passengers and makes the journey time unattractive) or an expensive taxi contract.

 

[mike57]

Its possibly worth looking at our local line, Hull - Scarborough. The service is 1 tph all stations Hull - Bridlington and 1thp Sheffield - Scarborough which runs semi fast between Hull and Bridlington, I haven't included Seamer and Scarborough as these numbers also include York - Scarborough services

Usage for 2021 - 22 is:
Cottingham 161,946
Beverley 518,028
Arram 738 (sparse service)
Hutton Cranswick 31,934
Driffield 212,082
Nafferton 27,220
Bridlington 442,558
Bempton 18,076
Hunmanby 36,834
Filey 153,574

On the OPs cut Bempton and Arram would be closed.

Lets consider Bempton, its my my local station (10 mins walk), so I will declare an interest, and it will probably pass the 20,000 mark within the next year or two anyway. However I also know quite a bit about how its used. The usage is generated by the local population of the two villages which is c1000 people and visitors to Bempton Cliffs. So if you close it you save a little bit of money on upkeep, its one platform, a ticket machine, PIS and a shelter, and maybe 2 minutes of journey time. You lose the revenue, not sure what that is, the cheapest journey would be Bridlington on a railcard maybe £3, a lot of journeys to Scarborough (it the easiest way durng the school holidays when parking is at a premium) and some longer journeys, for example London, Sheffield, Peterborough, Marne-La-Vallee as a few we've made over the last 12 months and a neighbour visits chldren in Birmingham by train on a regular basis (once/twice a month).

So thats 18000 extra car journeys on the local roads each year, and how many of those would be lost to rail altogether, I am going to say all the Bempton Cliffs visitors (because of geography, its too far for most people to walk to and from Bridlington), and half the rest, with the half that are not lost driving to Bridlington or Seamer to begin their journey, so thats lets say rail 12,000 journeys lost completely.

To me that is not the direction we want the railways to go.

Dont even mention buses. Until they are properly integrated both for ticketing and connections, regulated and can compete on journey time people will use their cars if the trains dont run, bear in mind the areas between the major centres which are Beverley, Driffield, Bridlington and Filey are rural, nearly every family has access to at least one car, so car will become the prefered option.

Arram is an oddball, I suspect it survives because it is the closest station to RAF Leconfield, and should that become busier Arram would be useful. It currently gets an almost parlimentary service, but I suspect it is retained for 'strategic' purposes.

 

[RobShipway]

Its possibly worth looking at our local line, Hull - Scarborough. The service is 1 tph all stations Hull - Bridlington and 1thp Sheffield - Scarborough which runs semi fast between Hull and Bridlington, I haven't included Seamer and Scarborough as these numbers also include York - Scarborough services

Usage for 2021 - 22 is:
Cottingham 161,946
Beverley 518,028
Arram 738 (sparse service)
Hutton Cranswick 31,934
Driffield 212,082
Nafferton 27,220
Bridlington 442,558
Bempton 18,076
Hunmanby 36,834
Filey 153,574

On the OPs cut Bempton and Arram would be closed.

Lets consider Bempton, its my my local station (10 mins walk), so I will declare an interest, and it will probably pass the 20,000 mark within the next year or two anyway. However I also know quite a bit about how its used. The usage is generated by the local population of the two villages which is c1000 people and visitors to Bempton Cliffs. So if you close it you save a little bit of money on upkeep, its one platform, a ticket machine, PIS and a shelter, and maybe 2 minutes of journey time. You lose the revenue, not sure what that is, the cheapest journey would be Bridlington on a railcard maybe £3, a lot of journeys to Scarborough (it the easiest way durng the school holidays when parking is at a premium) and some longer journeys, for example London, Sheffield, Peterborough, Marne-La-Vallee as a few we've made over the last 12 months and a neighbour visits chldren in Birmingham by train on a regular basis (once/twice a month).

So thats 18000 extra car journeys on the local roads each year, and how many of those would be lost to rail altogether, I am going to say all the Bempton Cliffs visitors (because of geography, its too far for most people to walk to and from Bridlington), and half the rest, with the half that are not lost driving to Bridlington or Seamer to begin their journey, so thats lets say rail 12,000 journeys lost completely.

To me that is not the direction we want the railways to go.

Dont even mention buses. Until they are properly integrated both for ticketing and connections, regulated and can compete on journey time people will use their cars if the trains dont run, bear in mind the areas between the major centres which are Beverley, Driffield, Bridlington and Filey are rural, nearly every family has access to at least one car, so car will become the prefered option.

Arram is an oddball, I suspect it survives because it is the closest station to RAF Leconfield, and should that become busier Arram would be useful. It currently gets an almost parlimentary service, but I suspect it is retained for 'strategic' purposes.

You also have to remember that figures for stations for the period from 2020 - 2022 are probably down on what was the figures pre - covid, as you possibly have more people now working from home on a permanent or semi permanent basis. So yes, this means less Journeys being made. But like you say stations like Bempton should not be closed. Encouragement should be given for people to use Bempton, but this is something that really should be done at Government level. In the same way that the Government has encouraged bus companies to be lowering bus fares for a period of time, the same should be done for train fares and not just the off peak fares.

 

[yorksrob]

One service pattern I've wondered about is 4tph but with each train only calling at all stations one side of Warrington rather than both, which would provide an acceptable end to end 4tph and journey time but also improve service at local stations to 2tph as well as giving Warrington a 2tph fast direct service to both Liverpool and Manchester, this could also potentially use the paths of the Norwich and Cleethorpes which could start at Piccadilly instead.

Ideally this would be wired but 195s should, in "performance mode", be able to make a decent go of such a service.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Aug 2023 ==

That could work. But why not have this pattern but have the two services continue Eastwards?

Funnily enough, on the Maidstone East line they had a train going all stops Ashford to Maidstone then fast to Victoria with the other going fast from Ashford to Maidstone then slow to Victoria, so such patterns can work.

 

[zwk500]

That could work. But why not have this pattern but have the two services continue Eastwards?

Because crossing the throat at Manchester is a performance nightmare. Keeping trains from the east on the eastern side of Piccadilly and trains from Castlefield on the Styal lines is a better compromise for passengers because although it puts a change in a relatively small amount of journeys, it guarantees more passengers that their trains will be on time.

 

[PGAT]

What's saved from closing a small station? A couple of pennies keeping the lamps on?

Meanwhile there is a decent cost and significant bureaucracy for doing so

 

[yorksrob]

Because crossing the throat at Manchester is a performance nightmare. Keeping trains from the east on the eastern side of Piccadilly and trains from Castlefield on the Styal lines is a better compromise for passengers because although it puts a change in a relatively small amount of journeys, it guarantees more passengers that their trains will be on time.

There are fewer trains going through Castlefield since the meltdown. Whilst your suggestion would increase resilience to an extent, I'm not convinced that it would outweigh the negatives.

 

[Dr Day]

What's saved from closing a small station?

In certain cases, reducing the journey time might be enough to trigger saving a unit, or train crew diagram. Also, potentially, the benefits arising from attracting more passengers by the faster through service could off set the losses for those from the stations no longer served. But the operational costs of an unstaffed station, relative to the operational costs of keeping a line open and operating the trains on it will probably be relatively low.

 

[mike57]

You also have to remember that figures for stations for the period from 2020 - 2022 are probably down on what was the figures pre - covid,

Because the service North of Bridlington went to hourly from just before covid the last full years figures for Bempton are the highest ever, and are still rising.

The local bus service was also cut to a nominal two buses per day a couple of years ago. Unofficially I was told that the council reduced the subsidy because we now had an hourly train. The bus was never well used, a 25 minute journey to Bridlington against less than 10 mins by train.This pushed a few more people towards the train.

Where our local line may not be typical is that a lot of the journeys are for leisure with less commuting from North of Brid. At weekend trains are busier than weekdays.

When Sis in law visits us she says the train going home towards Hull is often standing from Bridlington at around tea time on a Saturday.

 

[Bald Rick]

If anything more stations should be built, rather than closed to get more people off the roads

Playing devil’s advocate here…

If closing some very lightly used stations on one stretch of line resulted in the existing train service having journey times reduced sufficiently that it attracted net more people on to the rails from the roads, would you support that?

Because there’s examples of that out there…

 

[ChrisC]

I'd used 20,000 as a benchmark to look at a station to then consider it's characteristics and whether it needs increased service patterns, new development, if it's too close to another station or if it needs to be closed. Of course many you would say are instantly not in a place to close. I just set 20,000 as a benchmark to start looking at them.

On Nottingham to Lincoln I would do this:
Carlton - Leave alone, lots of passengers and housing already built
Burton Joyce - Build more housing as it's just outside Nottingham
Lowdham - Build more housing as it's the same as Burton Joyce, also have a large car park as it's on the A6097
Thurgarton - Close and direct traffic to Bleasby as it's very close and Bleasby already has more passengers
Bleasby - Build housing and create a parallel road from Thurgarton to make the new transfer easy
Fiskerton - Build Housing as it's already the rail station for Southwell due to the busses
Rolleston - Close as it's less than a mile from Fiskerton which already has the busses from Southwell but also build houses to extend those busses to Fiskerton to serve
Newark Castle - Keep Obviously, Look to potentially Build housing to the North West but it is on an island in the Trent so there might be too much of a flood risk.
Collingham - Build housing to the South and East as the entire village is to the North West of the Station.
Swinderby - Close, It's too far from the village itself and not used as a railhead as it's quicker to drive to Lincoln, Hykeham or Collingham from the other small villages
Hykeham - Continue it's current development program but look to add housing to the immediate station area.

I probably worded by original post poorly but I was more in the idea of look at the individual situation for stations but 20,000 people and see what can be done to increase this or decide that the station is not worth it.

Much of what I had to comment upon has already been mentioned by others.

The NCT 26 bus route between Nottingham and Southwell is a very successful route and runs quite frequently for a route which is quite rural. The buses always seem to be well loaded and unusually for a route of this type runs in the evening and on Sundays. While ever the 26 runs this frequent service from village centre to city centre few people are going to use the train from places like Burton Joyce and Thurgarton.

Lowdham, also on the 26 bus route has always had higher passenger numbers than many of the other stations on the line, but it is quite a large village and does have good road connections, although no station car park.

Bleasby, Fiskerton and Rolleston are just small villages which will never generate large numbers of passengers. None of these three villages have a bus service to Nottingham but Fiskerton and Rolleston are on the 2 hourly bus route between Mansfield and Newark.

Stops at these stations do not slow down the Nottingham to Lincoln trains because these trains do not stop at these small stations. They are served by the Crewe to Newark Castle trains. Lowdham really lost out as it was used quite regularly by passengers to Lincoln.

All of these villages are close to the River Trent. I don’t think it would be a good idea to build huge numbers of houses on the flood plain. The Trent in this area does not flood on a regular basis like the River Severn does but floods are not unknown. The last big floods in the area were in November 2000. In 2000 there was significant flooding around Burton Joyce, Lowdham, Thurgarton, Bleasby and Fiskerton with most of the land around the villages under water and many houses flooded. Lowdham and Burton Joyce has had serious flooding more recently from small tributaries of the Trent but not the main river.

 

[RobShipway]

Playing devil’s advocate here…

If closing some very lightly used stations on one stretch of line resulted in the existing train service having journey times reduced sufficiently that it attracted net more people on to the rails from the roads, would you support that?

Because there’s examples of that out there…

Depends on the definition of little used and if there is other forms of public transport out there that those people could use. If it meant though, that those people ended up using their cars instead, then the answer is no.

For example, a station may only have say 15 people a day using it. But those 15 people with the fumes from the cars, could potentially kill hundreds and not with just causing pollution.

If you take @ChrisC post above, Would you close Bleasby, Fiskerton and Rolleston? If you did close them, how would you expect anyone to get to say Nottingham? Would you pay the extra costs to those people that had season tickets or commuted regularly from Bleasby, Fiskerton and Rolleston to Nottingham for the inconvenience of not having a train service anymore?

As has been mentioned, it would probably cost you more to be closing Bleasby, Fiskerton and Rolleston, than it would to keep them open, especially if there was any legal challenges to keep them open either from local authorities or local residents.

 

[yorksrob]

Metrolink/Merseyrail with buffer stops at Warrington has also been discussed but isn't a priority and really needs Northern Powerhouse Rail to be in place first.

Plus its a bad idea, so should be discounted.

It's interesting all the talk of Nottingham - Newark. The stopper clearly doesn't get in the way of anything - even if you wanted to run more trains through to Lincoln, the flat crossing's in the way, so you'd hardly gain anything.

 

[Bald Rick]

Depends on the definition of little used and if there is other forms of public transport out there that those people could use. If it meant though, that those people ended up using their cars instead, then the answer is no.

For example, a station may only have say 15 people a day using it. But those 15 people with the fumes from the cars, could potentially kill hundreds and not with just causing pollution.

If you take @ChrisC post above, Would you close Bleasby, Fiskerton and Rolleston? If you did close them, how would you expect anyone to get to say Nottingham? Would you pay the extra costs to those people that had season tickets or commuted regularly from Bleasby, Fiskerton and Rolleston to Nottingham for the inconvenience of not having a train service anymore?

As has been mentioned, it would probably cost you more to be closing Bleasby, Fiskerton and Rolleston, than it would to keep them open, especially if there was any legal challenges to keep them open either from local authorities or local residents.

That doesn’t answer the question!as there’s no ‘it depends’.

If closing 5 stations meant that, net, car miles reduced by say 1million a year and rail passenger miles increased by 1 million miles a year, would you support it?

 

[The exile]

There are some stations that are in very close proximity to each other or on routes with major intercity traffic or large volumes of mixed traffic that are a barrier to the wider network, but tbh anything off the large quad-track networks and more than about 5 minutes ride from the next station should just be earmarked for a 10K town.

I’ve just stopped at one of those. Don’t have the 1982 passenger figures for Oldfield Park to hand - but back then it was deemed worthy of 5 trains per day. It’s a mile from Bath Spa, linked by regular bus routes and on an intercity main line. Probably would have satisfied your conditions. It now has 2tph and on certain trains sees far more passengers than its bigger neighbour. Little rural Freshford - once a sparsely served request stop - now tops WECA’s list of stations in line for accessibility investment. Ok, I accept that in Oldfield Parks case the population was always there, which makes it a bit different….

 

[yorksrob]

That doesn’t answer the question!as there’s no ‘it depends’.

If closing 5 stations meant that, net, car miles reduced by say 1million a year and rail passenger miles increased by 1 million miles a year, would you support it?

Apologies for jumping in.

I would say that there are far more beneficial and worthwhile ways of bringing in an extra 1 million miles a year, namely more competitive fares, better services etc.

 

[The exile]

That doesn’t answer the question!as there’s no ‘it depends’.

If closing 5 stations meant that, net, car miles reduced by say 1million a year and rail passenger miles increased by 1 million miles a year, would you support it?

How would closing five stations alone increase rail passenger miles while decreasing road ones?

 

[Neptune]

For example, a station may only have say 15 people a day using it. But those 15 people with the fumes from the cars, could potentially kill hundreds and not with just causing pollution.

That’s quite a hypobolic statement. 15 EV’s cause less pollution than 1x2 car diesel unit. I suspect 15 low emissions cars cause less as most new cars have auto stop/start.

Also do you know how low the odds are of being involved in a road death? I’ve lived over 50 years and driven for 35 of those and never been involved in anything that has even come close to causing a minor injury and I don’t know anybody who has. I’ve driven in some of the worst places for driving ability in the western world, New York, LA, Paris, Rome, Bradford and never so much as a scratch.

People have this odd impression of roads seemingly thinking that everytime you get out of a car in one piece you’re lucky. It’s bull.

I still don’t think you should be closing stations with a 20000 pax footfall though. That’s just mad.

 

[yorksrob]

That’s quite a hypobolic statement. 15 EV’s cause less pollution than 1x2 car diesel unit. I suspect 15 low emissions cars cause less as most new cars have auto stop/start.

Also do you know how low the odds are of being involved in a road death? I’ve lived over 50 years and driven for 35 of those and never been involved in anything that has even come close to causing a minor injury and I don’t know anybody who has. I’ve driven in some of the worst places for driving ability in the western world, New York, LA, Paris, Rome, Bradford and never so much as a scratch.

People have this odd impression of roads seemingly thinking that everytime you get out of a car in one piece you’re lucky. It’s bull.

I still don’t think you should be closing stations with a 20000 pax footfall though. That’s just mad.

In comparison to some of the miniscule risks the railway (and consequently passengers) are forced to pay out to mitigate, I'm afraid the roads are indeed a mad max style deathtrap.

 

[RobShipway]

That doesn’t answer the question!as there’s no ‘it depends’.

If closing 5 stations meant that, net, car miles reduced by say 1million a year and rail passenger miles increased by 1 million miles a year, would you support it?

Apologies for jumping in.

I would say that there are far more beneficial and worthwhile ways of bringing in an extra 1 million miles a year, namely more competitive fares, better services etc.

I would have to agree with @yorksrob.

That’s quite a hypobolic statement. 15 EV’s cause less pollution than 1x2 car diesel unit. I suspect 15 low emissions cars cause less as most new cars have auto stop/start.

Also do you know how low the odds are of being involved in a road death? I’ve lived over 50 years and driven for 35 of those and never been involved in anything that has even come close to causing a minor injury and I don’t know anybody who has. I’ve driven in some of the worst places for driving ability in the western world, New York, LA, Paris, Rome, Bradford and never so much as a scratch.

People have this odd impression of roads seemingly thinking that everytime you get out of a car in one piece you’re lucky. It’s bull.

I still don’t think you should be closing stations with a 20000 pax footfall though. That’s just mad.

I first to admit that I have had a few incidents in the 30 years I have been driving. Like you I have lived over 50 years, in fact will be 54 in October, but don't pass my driving test until I was 21.

The incidents I have had though, in some cases have been down to others trying to rush too much their driving from a to b and not making sure that they have enough time to travel.

If a station had a footfall of say 30 people and there was other alternatives in travelling by public transport that people where generally using, then yes, there might be a case to close it. But on that basis stations like Longcross on the Waterloo to Reading line would close as it does not get many trains a day and I suspect that its footfall is quite low. But what do you do about getting people to the nearby Longcross film studios that work there?

With Longcross studios growing in size the last few years, would it not be prudent to keep it open? If you keep it open, where do draw the line. Do you do it on the basis of footfall or the basis work needs or sighting spot?

To me there needs to be more reasons than low footfall to be closing a station, otherwise we would end up closing more stations than the Beeching Act.

If stations where to be closed on footfall of 20000, then I suspect stations like Martins Heron would be closed? Even though when I lived in the area between 2007 - 20017, the car park was completely full of cars for the station - Monday to Fridays.

 

[Dr Day]

How would closing five stations alone increase rail passenger miles while decreasing road ones?

If the extra 'end to end' passengers who are now attracted from road to rail by having a faster service because it doesn't call all shacks were previously driving longer distances than those at the closed stations who are now having to drive.

Like @Bald Rick , just playing devil's advocate here. Sometimes, in terms of overall economic and environmental benefit, it may be worth sacrificing tiny village markets if it means a much more attractive service for larger, longer distance town-city markets.

 

[Philip]

With the CLC we just need to decide what it is - is it a mainline, in which case Sankey for Penketh, Padgate, Glazebrook*, Chassen Road, Humphrey Park and Trafford Park stations should probably close, or is it a local line which should be electrified and run like Merseyrail with 4 EMUs an hour all calling all stations primarily providing for local needs. If Northern Powerhouse Rail is to be built on the Fiddlers Ferry line the latter seems of more favour, but if it isn't it's probably needed as a mainline.

The CLC route should retain some form of 'long distance express' status as it is one of only two routes between Manchester and Liverpool which can offer this service; the Chat Moss route has its own small stations & local service to cater for, so transferring the CLC express services onto Chat Moss wouldn't work as they'd get held up by the local trains. I think the current arrangement of a mix on both works well.

As for stations, what do people think about the smaller stations on Manchester-Bolton-Preston; Clifton, Kearsley, Farnworth, Moses Gate, Blackrod and Adlington? Are these basket cases or do they all serve a useful purpose?

 

[The Planner]

Every minute saved has a value, especially when you start looking at generalised journey times.

 

[RobShipway]

If the extra 'end to end' passengers who are now attracted from road to rail by having a faster service because it doesn't call all shacks were previously driving longer distances than those at the closed stations who are now having to drive.

Like @Bald Rick , just playing devil's advocate here. Sometimes, in terms of overall economic and environmental benefit, it may be worth sacrificing tiny village markets if it means a much more attractive service for larger, longer distance town-city markets.

So okay also playing devils advocate, how would you choose which stations. If it is just done on footfall, how would you make sure that those passengers that travel daily can still reasonably get to where they need to be going?

You also have to bear in mind, that some of those passengers using the train may not drive. So in closing the station because of low footfall, you maybe doing them out of a job that maybe a job such as working in a store, which cannot be done from home. How do you compensate those people?

 

[yorksrob]

Every minute saved has a value, especially when you start looking at generalised journey times.

We shouldn't kid ourselves that anything other than fares are the main influencing factor.

The sort of time savings from closing the odd station will have a miniscule effect on demand. Fiddling with the deckchairs while Rome burns

 

[zwk500]

So okay also playing devils advocate, how would you choose which stations.

By careful analysis of revenue, timetable and future prospects.

How do you compensate those people?

By explaining the railway system cannot be all things to all people without a substantial uplift in fares or a major upheaval in the political system.
Sometimes, people will miss out. You justify that with the wider economic benefits by ensuring that if you make the change, the number of people who benefit and by how much will be worth the pain for others.
it's a very similar calculation to working out whether or not you should (re)open a station on an existing line.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How would closing five stations alone increase rail passenger miles while decreasing road ones?

If their closure means a better service can be operated on the railway, presumably.

The Marston Vale is a sort of example of this (though it involved retaining 5 stations, not closing 5, if I recall). I'm broadly supportive of this but think the 5 they chose are wrong (in particular it doesn't make sense to keep Bedford St John's about half a mile from Midland yet have no Milton Keynes stations bar Bletchley itself - I'd close St John's but keep a station somewhere around south east MK, perhaps nearer the built up area than Bow Brickhill presently is) and the mitigating measures not adequate either.

 

[RobShipway]

By careful analysis of revenue, timetable and future prospects.

By explaining the railway system cannot be all things to all people without a substantial uplift in fares or a major upheaval in the political system.
Sometimes, people will miss out. You justify that with the wider economic benefits by ensuring that if you make the change, the number of people who benefit and by how much will be worth the pain for others.
it's a very similar calculation to working out whether or not you should (re)open a station on an existing line.

I would also suggest a careful impact analysis on the people locally as to how the closure of the station effects them. I have been someone that has lost his job a few times, due to cuts in budgets for the company I have worked for, not sure how people would feel if they lost they jobs due to cuts in budgets for Network Rail and TOC's with all the money that is currently being spent on HS2.

Many people would be living near the stations that could potentially be closed because it gives them access, whether they own a car or not. So a survey of the local residents needs to be done prior to the stations being closed. But I would suggest a lot better survey than the one done for the platform extensions on the Reading line, done prior to the class 458 units being introduced on the line.

 

[yorksrob]

By careful analysis of revenue, timetable and future prospects.

By explaining the railway system cannot be all things to all people without a substantial uplift in fares or a major upheaval in the political system.
Sometimes, people will miss out. You justify that with the wider economic benefits by ensuring that if you make the change, the number of people who benefit and by how much will be worth the pain for others.
it's a very similar calculation to working out whether or not you should (re)open a station on an existing line.

But railways have, and continue to be all things to all people. That's the whole point of the mixed railway.