Peaks and Dales line - feasibility study submitted

[Stephen42]

Bit more about it here.....probably a bit biased.....

Reinstatement — Peaks & Dales Railway

Find out about our proposals to reinstate the Peaks and Dales Railway

www.peaksanddalesrailway.com

That turns out to be a different website with a different company number wanting to build the same (or similar) line. That one was submitted during the Restoring your Railways era. The project got submitted in two separate rounds and wasn't a successful bid in either.

The Better Value Rail Working Group doesn't have much of a presence, there is a Better Value Rail Toolkit available from the same group. Quote below from a big box on that page.

Better Value Rail is not a new source of funding or route to achieve planning consent. Using the guidance in the toolkit to set up your project in the right way and optimise early-stage design will allow you to make the best possible case when applying for funding and planning consent through existing routes.

Theoretically I could write a document titled feasibility study, send it to the contact email and make many of the same claims this group are. Not saying they haven't written a proper feasibility study by that, but it seems even if the working group think it's brilliant there's nothing they can do with it other than provide some advice.

 

[Bald Rick]

Theoretically I could write a document titled feasibility study, send it to the contact email and make many of the same claims this group are. Not saying they haven't written a proper feasibility study by that, but it seems even if the working group think it's brilliant there's nothing they can do with it other than provide some advice.

Whilst I don’t know, I would imagine the response from the ‘Better Value Rail Working Group’ (if they write one) will be little more than ‘thank you; this is the third time, little has changed, sorry”

 

[Tetchytyke]

Take the money spent on all these pointless feasibility studies and give it to High Peak to allow them to improve the TransPeak bus service.

That really would be better value.

 

[Bald Rick]

Take the money spent on all these pointless feasibility studies and give it to High Peak to allow them to improve the TransPeak bus service.

That really would be better value.

I’m not so sure that any serious money has been spent on feasibility studies. By ‘serious’ I mean more than a few tens of thousands. A proper feasibility study for this sort of proposal would be millions - and you’re right about it being better spent on a bus service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Take the money spent on all these pointless feasibility studies and give it to High Peak to allow them to improve the TransPeak bus service.

That really would be better value.

One of the problems we have in England is that there's little scope for railway-level regional express bus funding. We could far more usefully fill in gaps on the network if "Bahnbusse" were possible. There were the 1990s "RailLinks" services but they didn't properly fit into the railway fares system, they could only be added to the start or end. Though usefully you could use it to sneakily get Railcard discount for some bus-only journeys if the booking office staff didn't properly understand how it was meant to work

Wales does seem to be bringing in this concept to excellent effect with the Trawscymru network.

 

[deltic08]

Surely there are more places to walk and cycle in the Peak District than Monsal Trail. If it wasn't for the railway there would be no Monsal Trail.
How many aggregate trains from the Peak District quarries travel south via Hope Valley, Dore and Sheffield-Derby lines per day? It depends how much capacity would be freed up diverting stone trains reinstating via Bakewell. More capacity is needed on the Hope Valley line but £millions have just been spent increasing capacity here. It is a bit late now proposing spending on another route.

 

[Bald Rick]

Wales does seem to be bringing in this concept to excellent effect with the Trawscymru network.

Indeed, and Aberystwyth to Camarthen reopening threads (and proponents) do appear to have gone silent since the T1 (the bus between the towns) got going.

 

[Helvellyn]

What would the plan be for Peak Rail under this reopening? I presume they would need bought out. That being said, if that were feasible could the route be reopened to Bakewell, even if that still left Bakewell-Buxton as a missing link. It would at least move the rail head into the Southern Peak District further North.

 

[The exile]

The route itself is an immensely popular cycle track/walking route which fills nearby car parks with people driving into the Peak district from miles around, Manchester, Derby, Leicestershire and beyond to walk and cycle along this route

That being ironically one of the strongest arguments against the trail - it’s contributing to pollution and congestion rather than alleviating it.

 

[yorksrob]

How many times over could we have built HS2 by now, with the money we would have saved if we didn't spend a fortune on consultants rehashing these vampire routes every few years?

How many missing routes could we have opened by now for the money spent on HS2 ?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Apr 2026 ==

Whilst I don’t know, I would imagine the response from the ‘Better Value Rail Working Group’ (if they write one) will be little more than ‘thank you; this is the third time, little has changed, sorry”

On the contrary, I'd have thought they have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

 

[Topological]

How many missing routes could we have opened by now for the money spent on HS2 ?

0

Because HS2 is a major national infrastructure project solving issues of capacity across the UK (though currently just the WCML between Birmingham and London inclusive). There are no projects that have anything like that impact proposed anywhere that I know of.

So you are really saying that they release the same amount of funds as have been released for HS2, but spend the money on smaller projects that do not help major constraints?

If a project has investment benefit there are ways to fund that project. The link from Buxton to Matlock will never clear the threshold to make it investable and therefore no amount of cancelling other projects is going to bring funding.

 

[Farigiraf]

That being ironically one of the strongest arguments against the trail - it’s contributing to pollution and congestion rather than alleviating it.

Not necessarily. Manchester to the Midlands is a route where rail doesn't have a massive modal share (a 4-car train once an hour) - with a more direct and frequent rail route, the reduction in emissions from people leaving their cars at home for their trip from Manchester to Nottingham or Derby outweighs the pollution caused by replacing a trail with a electrified railway.

How many missing routes could we have opened by now for the money spent on HS2 ?

As we've seen with Network North, 0.

 

[stevieinselby]

How many missing routes could we have opened by now for the money spent on HS2 ?

Not enough to carry more than the tiniest fraction of passengers who would benefit from HS2.
Route miles are irrelevant, what matters is passenger miles. And you need a lot of branch lines running 2-car Sprinters once an hour before you're in the same ballpark as a long-distance line with 400m trains running every 5 minutes.

 

[The exile]

Not necessarily. Manchester to the Midlands is a route where rail doesn't have a massive modal share (a 4-car train once an hour) - with a more direct and frequent rail route, the reduction in emissions from people leaving their cars at home for their trip from Manchester to Nottingham or Derby outweighs the pollution caused by replacing a trail with a electrified railway.

Think you’ve misunderstood - my point was that the trail as is contributes to traffic congestion and pollution despite being a cycle / walkway (unlike, for example, the Bristol - Bath railway path which at least at the Bristol end I’m sure contributes to pollution and congestion reduction)

 

[Dr Hoo]

That being ironically one of the strongest arguments against the trail - it’s contributing to pollution and congestion rather than alleviating it.

The logical extension of that being that all (rural) cycle trails and, indeed, other pesky things like seaside resorts, Grand Prix circuits, racecourses, camp sites, etc. should also be scrapped to prevent people driving to them.

 

[The exile]

The logical extension of that being that all (rural) cycle trails and, indeed, other pesky things like seaside resorts, Grand Prix circuits, racecourses, camp sites, etc. should also be scrapped to prevent people driving to them.

Not really - the difference is that “active travel routes” are promoted as ways of cutting congestion and pollution (as well as contributing to a healthier lifestyle - which, accidents aside, cannot be disputed). This is certainly true where they form “genuine” transport corridors but falls away as an argument in their favour when they attract more traffic than they remove. It puts them on a par with all those things you mention, as opposed to placing them on the moral high ground.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not really - the difference is that “active travel routes” are promoted as ways of cutting congestion and pollution (as well as contributing to a healthier lifestyle - which, accidents aside, cannot be disputed). This is certainly true where they form “genuine” transport corridors but falls away as an argument in their favour when they attract more traffic than they remove. It puts them on a par with all those things you mention, as opposed to placing them on the moral high ground.

I'd question how much more traffic they attract to the Peak, rather than just people choosing there rather than other parts of the Park.

 

[Dr Hoo]

It puts them on a par with all those things you mention, as opposed to placing them on the moral high ground.

I have never invoked ‘the moral high ground’ for the Monsal Trail and specifically excluded urban (active travel) routes from my comment.

But I agree with @Bletchleyite . Without the Monsal Trail people would just take their bikes and park up somewhere else.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I'd question how much more traffic they attract to the Peak, rather than just people choosing there rather than other parts of the Park.

Nevertheless, calling the trail an "active travel corridor" (to use the fashionable newspeak) is a bit of a stretch when the use is almost entirely leisure-based. Not saying it makes it automatically bad, but if you're arguing against reopening the railway because of the environmental benefits of the trail then you do have to consider the environmental impact of people using the trail. The vast majority of people cycling on the Monsal Trail aren't making journeys that they'd otherwise have driven, they've driven there specifically to go for a bike ride.

There are even other places you can do the same sort of leisure-based bike ride within the Peak District National Park, such as the Derwent Valley.

All that being said, I'm not convinced that there's a real need for this route to be reopened. The population added to the network is small, and the number of new journey options created is also tiny. If anything the biggest argument is for freight and diversionary use, and as we know diversionary capacity doth not a business case make.

 

[The exile]

Nevertheless, calling the trail an "active travel corridor" (to use the fashionable newspeak) is a bit of a stretch when the use is almost entirely leisure-based. Not saying it makes it automatically bad, but if you're arguing against reopening the railway because of the environmental benefits of the trail then you do have to consider the environmental impact of people using the trail. The vast majority of people cycling on the Monsal Trail aren't making journeys that they'd otherwise have driven, they've driven there specifically to go for a bike ride.

There are even other places you can do the same sort of leisure-based bike ride within the Peak District National Park, such as the Derwent Valley.

All that being said, I'm not convinced that there's a real need for this route to be reopened. The population added to the network is small, and the number of new journey options created is also tiny. If anything the biggest argument is for freight and diversionary use, and as we know diversionary capacity doth not a business case make.

Thank you - that’s put it much better. Not saying that anyone on here was claiming the moral high ground for the trail, but current trends do. Fair enough when its use reduces car journeys, less so when it doesn’t.

 

[yorksrob]

Not enough to carry more than the tiniest fraction of passengers who would benefit from HS2.
Route miles are irrelevant, what matters is passenger miles. And you need a lot of branch lines running 2-car Sprinters once an hour before you're in the same ballpark as a long-distance line with 400m trains running every 5 minutes.

I'm not convinced by the argument.

Given how much the grandes projects seem to cost, you could get a lot more bang for your buck improving connectivity between towns by investing in smaller projects such as this one.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Apr 2026 ==

I'd question how much more traffic they attract to the Peak, rather than just people choosing there rather than other parts of the Park.

I have never invoked ‘the moral high ground’ for the Monsal Trail and specifically excluded urban (active travel) routes from my comment.

But I agree with @Bletchleyite . Without the Monsal Trail people would just take their bikes and park up somewhere else.

If the cyclists will cycle elsewhere, we might as well reinstate the railway.

 

[DDB]

I think the better and more plausible future is a repeat/extension of this scheme to actually integrate bus and trains in the Northen bit of the peak district based on the Hope Valley line.

BBC News - 'Mini Switzerland' Peak District transport plan gets green light - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwywvrpv3xzo?app-referrer=deep-link

Plans for a new pilot project aiming to create a so-called "mini Switzerland" transport network in the Peak District have been given the green light.

The project in the Hope Valley has received £6m to deliver a Swiss-style integrated public transport system, modelled on Switzerland's clock-face timetables and connections between buses and trains.

Services will be timed to meet each other every hour, with simpler, joined-up ticketing and clearer information for passengers.

Even that is going to cost £6million and not happen until 2027!

However think you could do a lot if you had a similar scheme that properly integrated buses with the two stubs of the line at Matlock and Buxton. I assume the powers that be will want to see how the hope valley scheme works before investing in another one.

 

[stevieinselby]

Even that is going to cost £6million and not happen until 2027!

I hate to break it to you, but 2027 is only next year

Bearing in mind how much there will be to sort out in terms of planning timetables, acquiring additional vehicles, taking on more staff, coming to agreements with operators already running routes in the area, I don't think that's an unambitious target. Rolling out along the A6 corridor would be more powerful, yes, but would also be a lot more complicated! So probably better to start small and use Hope Valley as a proof of concept, and then extend it to a wider area after that.

 

[Farigiraf]

I think the better and more plausible future is a repeat/extension of this scheme to actually integrate bus and trains in the Northen bit of the peak district based on the Hope Valley line.

BBC News - 'Mini Switzerland' Peak District transport plan gets green light - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwywvrpv3xzo?app-referrer=deep-link





Even that is going to cost £6million and not happen until 2027!

However think you could do a lot if you had a similar scheme that properly integrated buses with the two stubs of the line at Matlock and Buxton. I assume the powers that be will want to see how the hope valley scheme works before investing in another one.

To give an idea into how the peak district taktfahrplan could work: for a fraction of the cost of a rail reopening, you could run an hourly bus service connecting with trains at either end of the route*, integrated into rail ticketing systems and only calling at Bakewell along the way. Passenger usage from this bus service can be measured to see how well a train service could work, adjusting to account for the extra Manchester-Midlands traffic that would also use the line, and then you'd get an idea of how much usage you'd get out of the line for just over £1 billion.

*not perfectly timed connections at both ends as that would require adjusting either the Matlock line or Buxton line rail timetable

 

[Bald Rick]

What would the plan be for Peak Rail under this reopening?

Well, according to the website linked to earlier, whcih suggests it has proved the feasibility of the proposal….
it is too early to say.

Even that is going to cost £6million and not happen until 2027!

I hate to break it to you, but 2027 is only next year

36 weeks to go…

To give an idea into how the peak district taktfahrplan could work: for a fraction of the cost of a rail reopening, you could run an hourly bus service connecting with trains at either end of the route*, integrated into rail ticketing systems and only calling at Bakewell along the way.

You could run it for a year for a fraction of the cost of a proper feasibility study…

 

[AndrewE]

To give an idea into how the peak district taktfahrplan could work: for a fraction of the cost of a rail reopening, you could run an hourly bus service connecting with trains at either end of the route*, integrated into rail ticketing systems and only calling at Bakewell along the way. Passenger usage from this bus service can be measured to see how well a train service could work, adjusting to account for the extra Manchester-Midlands traffic that would also use the line, and then you'd get an idea of how much usage you'd get out of the line for just over £1 billion.

*not perfectly timed connections at both ends as that would require adjusting either the Matlock line or Buxton line rail timetable

or run it twice an hour which might work perfectly. Passengers can choose which end to wait at - and a bus delayed by traffic congestion won't leave people waiting an hour for their onward connection. (We keep being told how cheap buses are compared wth rail reopenings!)

 

[Uncle Buck]

This must be one of the leading examples of lines which should never have been closed but should now never be reopened- a fairly extensive category.

 

[yorksrob]

This must be one of the leading examples of lines which should never have been closed but should now never be reopened- a fairly extensive category.

That is quite an illogical statement to my mind.

If a line shouldn't have been closed in the past, logically it should be reopened now, when traffic would likely be double what it was when it closed.

 

[Zomboid]

It makes perfect sense. If it was still there now then it would probably justify it's continued existence. But building a brand new railway is a completely different equation.

 

[YorkshireBear]

That is quite an illogical statement to my mind.

If a line shouldn't have been closed in the past, logically it should be reopened now, when traffic would likely be double what it was when it closed.

Logical in my eyes. Cost and complexities of construction are big factors.

Having walked the trail many times, while all the obvious infrastructure will need some work, the huge rock cuttings will need 100s of millions of £s of remedial works alone.