How would/will Kim McGuinness go around opening the Leamside Line?

[Egg Centric]

Not sure if this is the right part of the forum as this is part politics, part speculative, and part infrastructure.

But on Thursday there is a vote up here for the North East mayor. Kim is one of the two credible - by which I mean can plausibly win - candidates and one of her pledges is to reopen the Leamside line.

What's involved in that from both a political perspective (e.g. does the mayor have any power to direct this, either by telling NR to do it or perhaps allocating money there) and more importantly from perspective of this forum a technical perspective? There are some old threads lying around but they don't say very much as far as I can see.

Please keep any non Leamside Line politics out of this thread

Addendum: I just googled and the only other credible candidate (using the same definition of credible) Jamie Driscoll also backs it. But does the support of either actually mean anything?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Metro Mayors have no direct powers or funding to open/reopen lines.
But the present government has done deals with some Metro Mayors for investment on their patch, notably in Liverpool and West Midlands.
They are based on negotiations with the Treasury and cover funding over multiple years.
George Osborne was very keen to get such agreements in place, subsequent Chancellors less so, but they are still a thing.
One thing currently is that we are due a Comprehensive Spending Review which will set the national budget for such schemes.
They are usually packages of investment covering local aspirations with a decent business case.

One issue in the north east may be the fact that the Ashington line is already being reopened, which soaks up current reinstatement funds in the region.
Another is that Network Rail is probably not keen to reopen the line for current levels of traffic.
But at least it gets the enhancement on the agenda, and the government will have to listen to the Mayor's priorities.
For Mayors, if Liverpool City Region is anything to go by, it is sometime difficult for them to choose between several competing local schemes.

 

[takno]

There are some reasonably well-developed plans to open part of it for use as a Metro line, and some more speculative plans to open all of it for diversionary/freight purposes.

Mayors have some discretionary budget, and are generally more able to bid for various government funding like Network North than individual councils. I'd be surprised if the first five year term got anything further than a couple more planning stages, particularly since money is pretty tight everywhere at the moment, but if it makes any progress it will likely be on the Metro side.

 

[YorksLad12]

Combined Authorities have the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement. It's a five-year funding plan that covers everything from light rail to potholes. Money is released annually.

It's not a huge amount of money, comparatively speaking; Tracy Brabin can't use it to build Mass Transit, Oliver Coppard can't give the money to Rotherham to build a new rail station north of Masborough. But they can use the money to develop plans for Mass Transit/Rotherham Mainline, alongside other local transport interventions such as cycle routes or road junction reconfigurations.

Some schemes are retained by DfT, possibly for funding elsewhere; Rotherham Mainline being one. Something like a line reopening would be so expensive that it would have to be centrally funded, with local funding for "bells and whistles"; a connecting bus service, say.

By way of example, West Yorkshire schemes are here, and South Yorkshire's schemes are here. All dates speculative, of course

 

[Meole]

Leamside Line gets £8m boost as mayor vows to bring the Metro to Washington

North East mayor Kim McGuinness has announced an £8.6 million cash injection for plans to restore the mothballed Leamside Line and create a new Washington Metro Loop

www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Mayor vows to bring Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington with £8m boost for Leamside Line restoration​

North East mayor Kim McGuinness has announced an £8.6 million cash injection for plans to restore the mothballed Leamside Line and create a new Washington Metro Loop
North East mayor Kim McGuinness will pump more than £8 million into efforts to finally bring the Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington.

Huge plans to expand the Metro network could see it extend from its current endpoint in South Hylton through to Washington, the fourth biggest town in the UK without a railway station, then onto Follingsby and rejoin at Pelaw. The massive project would use the northern section of the mothballed Leamside Line, the restoration of which has been hailed as the single most important infrastructure upgrade needed across the North East.

 

[danbarjon]

Leamside Line gets £8m boost as mayor vows to bring the Metro to Washington

North East mayor Kim McGuinness has announced an £8.6 million cash injection for plans to restore the mothballed Leamside Line and create a new Washington Metro Loop

www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Mayor vows to bring Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington with £8m boost for Leamside Line restoration​

North East mayor Kim McGuinness has announced an £8.6 million cash injection for plans to restore the mothballed Leamside Line and create a new Washington Metro Loop
North East mayor Kim McGuinness will pump more than £8 million into efforts to finally bring the Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington.

Huge plans to expand the Metro network could see it extend from its current endpoint in South Hylton through to Washington, the fourth biggest town in the UK without a railway station, then onto Follingsby and rejoin at Pelaw. The massive project would use the northern section of the mothballed Leamside Line, the restoration of which has been hailed as the single most important infrastructure upgrade needed across the North East.

Surely they would require some extra trains as well?

 

[Killingworth]

Surely they would require some extra trains as well?

It's probably a 25 year timescale if it goes ahead. The feasibility study is likely to take a year or two in itself and should consider detailed routes and necessary extra rolling stock.

The whole project would cost well over £1bn by the time it could be constructed. Will that bring value for money? Umm. Use of the South-East Northumberland line will undoubtedly be used in evidence.

 

[swt_passenger]

It seems to me they never satisfactorilly explain their assumed timetable. Loops cause problems. The whole point of the Metro Flow project was to provide for a reliable 6 tph to South Shields, so let’s assume that’s set in stone. What do you do with the other 6 tph arriving at Pelaw from Newcastle? Send them all via Boldon and terminate back at Pelaw? Would that need a new terminating platform? Or do you send 3 tph each way, because people in Washington will presumably want through services, but that’s a halving of the timetable at numerous stations, (but with the stations about half way round having the benefit of similar journey times either way).

I assume by default there‘s a plan to increase the fleet size.

 

[lachlan]

It seems to me they never satisfactorilly explain their assumed timetable. Loops cause problems. The whole point of the Metro Flow project was to provide for a reliable 6 tph to South Shields, so let’s assume that’s set in stone. What do you do with the other 6 tph arriving at Pelaw from Newcastle? Send them all via Boldon and terminate back at Pelaw? Would that need a new terminating platform? Or do you send 3 tph each way, because people in Washington will presumably want through services, but that’s a halving of the timetable at numerous stations, (but with the stations about half way round having the benefit of similar journey times either way).

I assume by default there‘s a plan to increase the fleet size.

Is there capacity to increase the number of trains from Pelaw through Newcastle Central?

 

[swt_passenger]

Is there capacity to increase the number of trains from Pelaw through Newcastle Central?

I don’t see why not. It’s basically what was possible before the Airport and Sunderland extensions were thought of. But eventually they resulted in the original part route services being binned, (Pelaw/Benton, St James/North Shields, ie the red and blue lines). That‘s mainly because the Sunderland extension was planned with no extra rolling stock being ordered.

I suppose that also serves as a precedent for a Washington extension being attempted with no stock increase of course.

I think from an overall timetabling perspective what you would ideally want is a 3rd northern destination for 6 tph, I recall someone suggested a short branch to somewhere such as Killingworth in an earlier discussion.

 

[LLivery]

Is the idea to still have rail and Metro? I never really saw the need for both tbh.

I'd extend the South Hylton branch to Penshaw (or to Washington if there's space for a 4 plat station, but no through service), and reopen Leamside from Pelaw to Fenhouses via Penshaw. Eventually down to the Durham Park & Ride if there's a decent business case for it.

Extending to Ponteland from just south of the airport could make sense, though it'd probably be better to re-site the Airport station for a through service. Could use the land from the airport to Ponteland for housing.

A branch from Palmersville to Killingworth, also filling the land with housing also looks to be a good idea.

Have 6tph Ponteland/Killingworth to Penshaw via Washington

 

[GrandCentral]

£8.6 million to put together a business case seems very steep. Does anyone have any more background on this?

 

[GrandCentral]

The new North East Mayor, Kim McGuiness has provided £8.6 million to fund a business case to reopen the Leamside Line. I was wondering if people could give me an idea if this is good value for money and does anyone have any comparable business cases? £8.6 million seems expensive and from what I can find the business case for the new Northumberland line which opens shortly only cost around £1.5 million.

Any information would be very much appreciated as I am genuinely curious.