Tube trains on Harrogate Line

[IanXC]

It was disappointing that it was only considered 'feasible' to reinstate a branch from Harrogate to Ripon and not create a through route again. This would have had little benefit to Harrogate and not offered much more to residents of Ripon to the current bus service.

How about a half hourly service from Ripon to Leeds via Harrogate and a half hourly service from York to Leeds via Harrogate making 4tph Harrogate to Leeds?

 

[ECJS189]

How about a half hourly service from Ripon to Leeds via Harrogate and a half hourly service from York to Leeds via Harrogate making 4tph Harrogate to Leeds?

That would probably assume that the single line sections on the Knaresbough - York line were put back to double track. Then with reinstatement of the Bilton triangle in Harrogate, that would then also permit a Ripon - Starbeck - Knaresborough - York service.

Not sure this will happen in my lifetime though!

 

[PinzaC55]

It was disappointing that it was only considered 'feasible' to reinstate a branch from Harrogate to Ripon and not create a through route again. This would have had little benefit to Harrogate and not offered much more to residents of Ripon to the current bus service. There seems to be a lack of vision and looking at the 'bigger picture'

Of course if it did happen they could use cascaded pacers from the Leeds - Harrogate once they get underground stock!
(joking of course!)

Regarding a reopened line not being much benefit to Ripon over the bus service, I have an old pamphlet by the Railway Invigoration Society from 1977 which discussed what happened when railways were closed by Beeching.
They said that the "conventional wisdom" was that somebody going from say London to Ripon would take the train to Harrogate then the bus for the rest of the journey.
However they said studies had proven that the majority of people would either
A) Drive.
B) Take the bus all the way.
C) Not travel.
In each case the traffic was lost to the railway.
That's why in such cases as Stirling - Alloa the feasiblity studies sometimes seriously underestimate likely passenger numbers - because potential passengers see it as an entirely new travel opportunity, one which they wouldn't have done before because of the difficulty of working out train/bus times, combinations of tickets etc.
I'd say somebody in Northallerton or Darlington considering a day out in Ripon would have to be a masochist if they travelled train Northallerton - York - Harrogate then bus to Ripon?

 

[ChrisJ]

I think that the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Harrogate Chamber of Commerce has missed the obvious option. Forget about installing expensive 3rd and 4th rails and use the money saved to buy some second-hand Valenta diesel engines and generators from the recent HST refurbishment. These could be installed in the leading carriages of the underground trains to make screaming super-Thumper DEMUs for the Harrogate line. You know it makes sense....

I think everyone is missing the point - these people are serious about finding a an affordable solution to move people in large volumes on the Harrogate Line. Diesel just can't match electric on acceleration and braking and it's very expensive to maintain as well as being relatively unreliable when compared with electric. If the railway is to survive it needs to get to grips with providing frequent reliable and affordable services that passengers can get on. Keep the thumpers away from real railways - I used to travel on them from Charing Cross, and they were slow and uncomfortable (unless you were in 1st class), even if impressive to watch.
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Regarding a reopened line not being much benefit to Ripon over the bus service, I have an old pamphlet by the Railway Invigoration Society from 1977 which discussed what happened when railways were closed by Beeching.
They said that the "conventional wisdom" was that somebody going from say London to Ripon would take the train to Harrogate then the bus for the rest of the journey.
However they said studies had proven that the majority of people would either
A) Drive.
B) Take the bus all the way.
C) Not travel.
In each case the traffic was lost to the railway.
That's why in such cases as Stirling - Alloa the feasiblity studies sometimes seriously underestimate likely passenger numbers - because potential passengers see it as an entirely new travel opportunity, one which they wouldn't have done before because of the difficulty of working out train/bus times, combinations of tickets etc.
I'd say somebody in Northallerton or Darlington considering a day out in Ripon would have to be a masochist if they travelled train Northallerton - York - Harrogate then bus to Ripon?

The point about this proposal is that there would be more than enough rolling stock to serve Ripon if a reopening case could ever be made.
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With the greatest respect to the people of Harrogate, they simply do not understand the workings of the railway. If you told them that the line would be electrified at 25kV and every third train to either York or Leeds would be a through train to London, I'm sure they would "love" that idea even more.

Whilst this idea may be workable (not even sure about that), it is simply not sensible. If capacity is the issue, I have a better idea - build a fleet of new (hopefully CSRE Pulsar ) DMUs and place them where necessary in the UK. Then cascade Pacers to the Harrogate line in as many numbers as are necessary to make sure that everyone gets a seat.

Or even better (there's better???) - electrify at 25 kV, joining Leeds OHLE to York OHLE and operate some proper EMUs on the route. Add to the LM/FTPE 350/2 build to give economy of scale to that order, and make the wider railway a better system.

The people concerned seem to understand better than you do that the liklehood of 25kV electrification of the Harrogate Line is virtually zero, though I agree no-one would turn it away if it were offered however.

They also recognise that the country is in a funding crisis and are therefore looking for a solution that might be achieved quickly and more affordably to solve a problem where repeatedly passengers are just left stranded because the trains are too full. Dream on about 25kV and diesels - I think both are unaffordable and diesels simply can't unlock the desire for any additional stations on the route without increasing journey times, whereas EMU's and particularly LU Metro rolling stock can because of its power to weight ratio. Also remember that most new EMU's are dual voltage anyway, so in the future a 377 or 378 could use the route if fitted with the right current collection shoegear.
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So they're suggesting that four major viaducts and Bramhope tunnel will need to be "rebuilt" unlike with every other OHL electrification scheme.

It will be run by standard metro cars, even though they will have been replaced from elsewhere in the country, and even then they won't have the standard pick up.

Maintaining ten units as spare just for this route will be better value for money over the long term than having units which are intersperseable with the rest of the local network to be swapped around as necessary.

Hmmm. If I were them, I would concentrate on the longer term strategy to overcome capacity constraints to start off with then press for a more suitable electrification scheme.

All the while, in other news we have perfectly sensible extensions of the third rail network which are turned down as not value for money whilst at the same time being told that there is apparently no future for DC third rail on the Southern Region which has been running slow and express trains largely successfully for nearly a century and which will presumably have to be replaced with OHLE at the farepayers expense.

They ARE concentrating on capacity constraints!! 40% more seating per train and a massive increase in standing plus trains that are 12% faster. What more can they do affordably? The press stuff mentioned running via the slow lines into a new platform at York (west side) and of capacity works already in Network Rail's plans for Leeds after 2014.

If the numbers are correct, around 20-25 trains are envisaged - that makes the operation only slightly smaller than the Bakerloo line - around 30 units out of Stonebridge Park and that seems to work OK without any need for interworking!

On third rail electrification, this is why Network Rail are investing heavily in conductor rail heating? They appear to have finally resolved the last outstanding shortcoming of their old electrification system! What the Harrogate people are proposing would not suffer from icing because it is an underside contact system. It should be low cost - it used to be before Network Rail ever got involved. Merseyrail got affordably extended to Chester and Ellesmere Port in 1992 I recall. Ditto East Grinstead.

 

[Anvil1984]

As someone who works on the line I can tell you that passengers are not repeatedly turned away from services on the Harrogate line that is an exaggeration. The only time of year there is difficulty is during the Yorkshire show and ok the occasion short formation (which is due to lack of normal stock).

Of the Harrogate Line diagrams the majority are 3 carriages or more at present, The Leeds - Knaresboroughs are almost exclusively 155+153 (so 69 metres) and The York - Leeds via Harrogate are usually 1 14x diagram with the rest 2x150 (plus a few guest units during the peak)
The only part of the line which really needs extra services or space is the portion between Leeds and Horsforth (off peak), Harrogate (peak), York to Knaresborough is not going to expand heavily to warrant a half hourly service because it only serves small villages en route. All this line needs at present is 4 units, 2 to replace the Pacer diagrams and maybe 2 to run Leeds to Harrogate shuttles
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As for extra stations, the majority of services have 20 - 30 minute waits at either Knaresborough - York which could be whittled down for that extra time, the Yorks usually sit at Skelton Jn going towards York for 3 or 4 minutes anyway, not that theres much need for extra stations on the line maybe one the other side of the tunnel at Knaresborough and maybe 1 at a push between Horsforth and Headingley but thats it really

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The point about this proposal is that there would be more than enough rolling stock to serve Ripon if a reopening case could ever be made.

There is no operational reason why this line should be re-opened. Look to the historical reasons for its closure, which are still vaild today. The cost implications alone would rule this proposal out.

Sorry, but I am a realist and a pragmatist.

 

[PinzaC55]

There is no operational reason why this line should be re-opened. Look to the historical reasons for its closure, which are still vaild today. The cost implications alone would rule this proposal out.

Sorry, but I am a realist and a pragmatist.

"Historical reasons". Yes , we are talking about 44 years ago! I remember using Northallerton station in 1979-81 before the buildings were demolished and I remember it as a ghost station where you rarely saw any passengers board the few trains which called there. Nowadays huge numbers of people are often on the platform especially at weekends.
When Grand Central started their service from Sunderland I thought it was doomed to failure, but I am happy to report that I was utterly wrong and trains often run full. The Northallerton - Eaglescliffe section of the Leeds Northern was reduced to goods only at the same time as the Ripon part was closed, and if I was able to bet I would bet that a reopened Ripon line would be a success.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

"Historical reasons". Yes , we are talking about 44 years ago! I remember using Northallerton station in 1979-81 before the buildings were demolished and I remember it as a ghost station where you rarely saw any passengers board the few trains which called there. Nowadays huge numbers of people are often on the platform especially at weekends.
When Grand Central started their service from Sunderland I thought it was doomed to failure, but I am happy to report that I was utterly wrong and trains often run full. The Northallerton - Eaglescliffe section of the Leeds Northern was reduced to goods only at the same time as the Ripon part was closed, and if I was able to bet I would bet that a reopened Ripon line would be a success.

I note that you have made reference to my posting on the part that you have answered above, but surely Northallerton is well served by the ECML from York and Thirsk and carries traffic from the junction north of the station to both Newcastle and to Middlesbrough. As you quite rightly state, Northallerton from its existing service base is very well patronised, especially at weekends.

As has been stated previously, the ECML was quadrupled in past days to allow extra capacity, which led to the rationalisation measures that saw the closure of the line northwards from Harrogate, through Ripon, to Northallerton.

The question in my posting that you did not address covered the cost implications of reinstating the Harrogate to Northallerton line back to full double track running. I await any comment upon this hypothetical costings analysis which is to include any reinstatement of railway stations.

 

[PinzaC55]

Obviously I've no way of knowing what the cost of reinstating the line would be, but then neither have you?
The cost quoted in 2004 was £40 million for Ripon to Harrogate as a single track which presumably included a new station at Ripon. North of Ripon the line would encounter several problems, name the Ripon bypass built on the trackbed, the missing Ure viaduct and the filled in A1 road bridge, not to mention the cost of the physical junction at Northallerton.
The quadrupling on the ECML is irrelevant since it serves a different transport corridor (York - Darlington) whereas this line allowed freight from the Teesside area to access Leeds while completely bypassing Northallerton and it does nothing for potential passengers in the Harrogate - Ripon area who wish to travel north without creaking along through Hammerton on a Pacer.
My point about Northallerton was to illustrate that where a good service is provided people will use it, also that the passenger figures in the last year are unrelated to what they might be now - as we all know the railway is to some extent a victim of it's own success in recent years.
BTW somebody said that at closure Ripon was the only station left open but in fact Melmerby was also open till the end.However I don't think there would be a case for reopening any of the stations apart from Ripon.

 

[yorksrob]

They ARE concentrating on capacity constraints!! 40% more seating per train and a massive increase in standing plus trains that are 12% faster. What more can they do affordably? The press stuff mentioned running via the slow lines into a new platform at York (west side) and of capacity works already in Network Rail's plans for Leeds after 2014.

If the numbers are correct, around 20-25 trains are envisaged - that makes the operation only slightly smaller than the Bakerloo line - around 30 units out of Stonebridge Park and that seems to work OK without any need for interworking!

On third rail electrification, this is why Network Rail are investing heavily in conductor rail heating? They appear to have finally resolved the last outstanding shortcoming of their old electrification system! What the Harrogate people are proposing would not suffer from icing because it is an underside contact system. It should be low cost - it used to be before Network Rail ever got involved. Merseyrail got affordably extended to Chester and Ellesmere Port in 1992 I recall. Ditto East Grinstead.

If you read the proposal, those re-doublings and the extra platforms are part of the "long term strategy". Frankly I think that they'd be better off pushing for these to be put in in the short term, to be improved by OHLE in the longer term.

Third rail electrification will not be cheap either. If they are so certain that they can get funding for that, why aren't they pushing for OHLE to be added as a continuation after the Lancashire triangle is completed, keeping costs down by using the same procurement/contractors etc. This would be a far better way to save money - rather than yet another costly and doomed experiment of the type which seems to be heaped on our railway so often.

If there was any sort of strategic planning or management on the railway, there would already be a scheme of progressive infill electrifications, but instead we have the frankly ridiculous situation where one part of the network, already electrified by a perfectly workeable third rail system is deemed as outmoded, putting the kybosh on many sensible infill schemes, whilst at the other end which already has the optimal system, we are filling it in with the less suitable one.

With regard to the Bakerloo line, you will find that it, like the rest of the Underground network, is very costly to maintain and operate. However, since this serves an entirely built up urban area of some seven million people, it is deemed to be value for money and you can bet your bottom dollar that it gets a great deal of value for money from it's 30 or so trains. None of this would be true for the Harrogate corridoor if it also incurred the costs of being operated seperately.

McNulty bangs on about the unacceptable cost of the railway. Two things have been proven time and time again to increase costs on the railway. Non standard operating systems and fragmented management. McNulty is an idiot because he proposes yet more of these as a solution to the (apparently) high cost of the railway. And in this scheme we are merely dancing to his merry tune of stupidity.
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Keep the thumpers away from real railways - I used to travel on them from Charing Cross, and they were slow and uncomfortable (unless you were in 1st class), even if impressive to watch.

You must have a different physiology from me because I know from personal experience that those particular thumpers were far more comfortable than any of the post slam door commuter trains I have ever travelled on (not to mention an underground carriage)

However, that is a digression

 

[tbtc]

McNulty bangs on about the unacceptable cost of the railway. Two things have been proven time and time again to increase costs on the railway. Non standard operating systems and fragmented management. McNulty is an idiot because he proposes yet more of these as a solution to the (apparently) high cost of the railway. And in this scheme we are merely dancing to his merry tune of stupidity

I have to agree with you there.

I've seen a couple of references on here recently to the saying that "It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail"...

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument)

...I think that you could sum up this daft proposal up as "It is tempting, if the only spare stock you can find are superannuated London Underground trains, to treat everything as if it were a stretch of Third Rail track"....

It feels like people are working backwards from "what stock will be redundant in a few years" to try to justify reasons why it could be used on the Harrogate line (notwithstanding that Harrogate Chamber obviously want to get their railway discussed more and obviously want an expensive new depot built in Harrogate to create more jobs in the town)

 

[IanXC]

The people concerned seem to understand better than you do that the liklehood of 25kV electrification of the Harrogate Line is virtually zero, though I agree no-one would turn it away if it were offered however.

They also recognise that the country is in a funding crisis and are therefore looking for a solution that might be achieved quickly and more affordably to solve a problem where repeatedly passengers are just left stranded because the trains are too full.

The Network Rail Electrification RUS quotes £500k-£650k per Kilometre for OLE. So 62km (Leeds-Harrogate-York), even if we assume its all double track and cost is midway in the range quoted (given its not going to be a high speed installation), would cost around £72m.

On the stock front it has been described that 5 units are required for the daytime service, plus a couple of extra peak time services, and some spares. So if 378s were ordered (at £1m per vehicle, as per LO order) direct replacement would cost £40m (4*10). If frequencies were to be doubled, then thats £80m. Conveniently 378s have 20m carriages so would fit on the current platform lengths.

Total cost £152m.

I fail to see how £150m is affordable, but £152 isn't.

 

[yorksrob]

I have to agree with you there.

I've seen a couple of references on here recently to the saying that "It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail"...

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument)

...I think that you could sum up this daft proposal up as "It is tempting, if the only spare stock you can find are superannuated London Underground trains, to treat everything as if it were a stretch of Third Rail track"....

It feels like people are working backwards from "what stock will be redundant in a few years" to try to justify reasons why it could be used on the Harrogate line (notwithstanding that Harrogate Chamber obviously want to get their railway discussed more and obviously want an expensive new depot built in Harrogate to create more jobs in the town)

Indeed. A very apt illustration IMO.

 

[142094]

Mention of a new platform at York on the west side. Where would this go? You'd have to shift some of the car park for the IECC and Unipart Rail as well. Cannot see that happening, unless you use the sidings at the south side and run via the Avoider.

 

[yorksrob]

Mention of a new platform at York on the west side. Where would this go? You'd have to shift some of the car park for the IECC and Unipart Rail as well. Cannot see that happening, unless you use the sidings at the south side and run via the Avoider.

I must admit I'd not thought of the avoiding line as a potential route in from the North, but looking at google it could be the easier option.

 

[PinzaC55]

Use of the Avoiding Line and a new curve to allow Harrogate trains to arrive/depart from platform 11 is one of those ideas that British Rail/Railtrack/Network Rail like to put forward every few years when they want to be seen to be "doing something".
There is of course a disused bay platform next to the current platform 8.

 

[yorksrob]

To be fair, a new platform on the west side would help to avoid some pathing conflicts on the down main.

 

[142094]

There is of course a disused bay platform next to the current platform 8.

Probably be quite easy to get this back open, seeing as the platform is still maintained anyway. Only a couple of OHL supports and a signal to shift and then the trackwork to replace.

To be fair, a new platform on the west side would help to avoid some pathing conflicts on the down main.

Probably one of the best benefits to having a platform there.