Peaks and Dales line - feasibility study submitted

[stevieinselby]

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.

Nothing illogical about it at all.
Firstly, the cost of rebuilding a line now could easily exceed the benefit the line would bring, whereas had it remained open that capital cost wouldn't be an issue.
Second, the question of what has happened in the meantime, where the land has been reused it can be that bringing it back into railway use would do more harm than good by ripping out other amenities that have been developed since.

 

[Bald Rick]

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.

Look at your logic it the other way round.

The Settle & Carlisle shoudl never have been opened, so by your logic it should now be closed?

 

[Uncle Buck]

Nothing illogical about it at all.
Firstly, the cost of rebuilding a line now could easily exceed the benefit the line would bring, whereas had it remained open that capital cost wouldn't be an issue.
Second, the question of what has happened in the meantime, where the land has been reused it can be that bringing it back into railway use would do more harm than good by ripping out other amenities that have been developed since.

That is exactly right.

There would be numerous advantages to having the line open now- the connections it would enhance, plus the possibility of a London-Derby-Manchester service, which would greatly enhance resilience- but those advantages would not justify the cost and disruption it would entail to reopen the line in the present.

 

[tbtc]

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.

Agreed

AIUI Beeching wanted it to remain open, along with Woodhead (closing the Hope Valley route instead)

I agree with the Doctor, it shouldn't have closed

But British Rail did close it , so we have to deal with the reality of the situation

And the reality doesn't look great , it's so weak that even most of the True Believers who would back any reopening through the middle of nowhere aren't coming up with much support, not even some fan fiction about St Pancras services

You'd need huge sums spent on tunnels/cuttings/bridges etc (plus a second station at Buxton, since the Matlock line obviously doesn't touch the existing one),

The biggest unserved town would be the 'five thousand' at Bakewell (a town which has a lot more bus seats per hour for Sheffield/ Chesterfield than to Buxton, which maybe gives an idea of local demands)

You'd have to close a hugely popular leisure facility

You'd never be able to accommodate the wishlist of local stoppers/ long cement trains/ Manchester to Nottingham expresses without expensive four tracking sections...

Existing Manchester to Nottingham trains could be extended in length

We could have a fleet of electric buses running from Buxton to Matlock in the space of a few weeks if there were political will

Plus, if you think HS2 encountered NIMBYs , best of luck building all this infrastructure through the heart of the Peak District

Apart from that it's a great plan

Focus instead on wiring Hazel Grove to Buxton so the Manchester service can be half hourly with something nicer than a 150, and put down the crayons

 

[yorksrob]

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.

Nothing illogical about it at all.
Firstly, the cost of rebuilding a line now could easily exceed the benefit the line would bring, whereas had it remained open that capital cost wouldn't be an issue.
Second, the question of what has happened in the meantime, where the land has been reused it can be that bringing it back into railway use would do more harm than good by ripping out other amenities that have been developed since.

I think you'd find high seeming costs for any medium sized infrastructure projects including many roads.

I don't buy the argument that you're doing more harm than good by removing the cycle path. There are lots of good cycle paths around the country.

I think it would be quite nice to cycle/walk along the Settle & Carlisle line, but it's just far more useful as part of the national rail network.

Look at your logic it the other way round.

The Settle & Carlisle shoudl never have been opened, so by your logic it should now be closed?

I would dispute that - there was clearly a need at the time for the Yorkshire/NW link. It was just going to be either via Settle or Ingleton. We chose Settle.

 

[Oxfordblues]

It would benefit routeing of aggregates and cement trains, but by the time it was complete the quarries might be exhausted.

 

[yorksrob]

You'd never be able to accommodate the wishlist of local stoppers/ long cement trains/ Manchester to Nottingham expresses without expensive four tracking sections...

Yet inexplicably, they seem to manage it on the GE mainline, SW mainline, Didcot - Birmingham etc....

 

[The exile]

Yet inexplicably, they seem to manage it on the GE mainline, SW mainline, Didcot - Birmingham etc....

All of which do, of course, have 4-track sections.

 

[yorksrob]

All of which do, of course, have 4-track sections.

But all have substantial double track sections carrying local and express passenger as well as freight.

 

[quantinghome]

I think it would be quite nice to cycle/walk along the Settle & Carlisle line.

No it wouldn't. It would be horrible. A constant gradient for mile upon mile up the long drag, with added headwind a good amount of the time, into some of the bleakest parts of the country. Don't get me wrong, the scenery is fantastic and the remoteness has a grandeur all of its own, but this is attractive only because YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT FROM INSIDE A NICE WARM TRAIN! It would only be used by a minor subset of grizzled hard core cyclists, not the typical holidaymakers who make so much use of the Monsal Trail.

 

[The Planner]

Yet inexplicably, they seem to manage it on the GE mainline, SW mainline, Didcot - Birmingham etc....

Most of those routes are nigh on full.

 

[yorksrob]

No it wouldn't. It would be horrible. A constant gradient for mile upon mile up the long drag, with added headwind a good amount of the time, into some of the bleakest parts of the country. Don't get me wrong, the scenery is fantastic and the remoteness has a grandeur all of its own, but this is attractive only because YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT FROM INSIDE A NICE WARM TRAIN! It would only be used by a minor subset of grizzled hard core cyclists, not the typical holidaymakers who make so much use of the Monsal Trail.

Nah, the cycling buffs would love it

Perhaps not all in one go !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Apr 2026 ==

Most of those routes are nigh on full.

Exactly - full of stoppers, expresses and freight - all very useful.

At least with the Bakewell line you might get the chance to try that combination without it being full (for the timebeing anyway).

 

[The Planner]

At least with the Bakewell line you might get the chance to try that combination without it being full (for the timebeing anyway).

You are looking at it in isolation. What happens at either end?

 

[yorksrob]

You are looking at it in isolation. What happens at either end?

Well, at least Northbound you could have a stopper into Buxton.

Join a stopper with the Hope Valley stopper at Chinley. I'm not saying the triangle wouldn't need a re-think.

 

[The Planner]

Well, at least Northbound you could have a stopper into Buxton.

Join a stopper with the Hope Valley stopper at Chinley. I'm not saying the triangle wouldn't need a re-think.

So based on that, if you were in Derby, its still going to be as quick via Sheffield. Piccadilly to Buxton is an hour. Piccadilly to Chinley is 36 minutes. Matlock to Derby is 36 minutes, add whatever the new route is.

Picc to Sheffield is 56, Sheffield to Derby is 28 plus say 10 for a change.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

One factor not yet mentioned is that the Bakewell route was not ideal as an express line - it was steeply graded and very curvaceous in places. The best timing for Derby to Manchester Central with a 'Peak' was around 90 mins for 61 miles. This was even with a fast approach to Manchester from Chinley via Cheadle Heath and the South District line. I think the potential is more for freight, relieving the Edale line.

 

[Russel]

This one again??

Couldn't they just dust off one of the many previous studies into reopening this line?

 

[Pigeon]

One factor not yet mentioned is that the Bakewell route was not ideal as an express line - it was steeply graded and very curvaceous in places. The best timing for Derby to Manchester Central with a 'Peak' was around 90 mins for 61 miles. This was even with a fast approach to Manchester from Chinley via Cheadle Heath and the South District line. I think the potential is more for freight, relieving the Edale line.

It should be borne in mind that the route from Chinley to Dore and thence to either Sheffield or Chesterfield is also pretty steeply graded; it may not have 3 miles at 1 in 90, but it does have most of its length at 1 in 100, and probably (estimating by eye) a smaller percentage overall of bits that are not exceptionally steep. I think there were about 3 significant slacks (Millers Dale, Rowsley and Ambergate) but apart from those the Midland used to run down both sides at 60-70mph.

I agree about the potential for freight on account of the gradients, since it is one of those situations fairly unusual nowadays where the loads originate at the top of the hill. It would be particularly advantageous for Hindlow trains, which at present have to go all the way down to Millers Dale, then all the way up the 1 in 90 and all the way down the other side back to the same altitude they started from, before they can "escape". This traffic is assured for the foreseeable future, since it'll take us a very long time indeed to dig all the limestone off the Peak. And it should be easy to accommodate it alongside a passenger service by running it at night.

 

[Bald Rick]

And it should be easy to accommodate it alongside a passenger service by running it at night.

At night where?

 

[furnessvale]

Would seem to be a natural route for anything from the Peak Forest or Hindlow quarries to anywhere south of Derby. All downhill in the loaded direction too...

At least half a dozen trains daily would benefit from the shorter mileage and better gradients in the loaded direction. This is before the shorter mileage makes railfreight to locations such as Burton, Derby and Nottingham a more realistic proposition.

 

[Bald Rick]

At least half a dozen trains daily would benefit from the shorter mileage and better gradients in the loaded direction. This is before the shorter mileage makes railfreight to locations such as Burton, Derby and Nottingham a more realistic proposition.

Let’s call it 10 a day., 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year. 3000 trains a year.

The interest on the £2bn this line is going to cost (at least) is going to be £90m a year, and thats before paying any of it back. Therefore each train will need to save £30k in fuel and time just to pay the interest. That’s about 100x what the actual saving would be.

 

[Zomboid]

It's clear that there could be some benefits to building a new railway through the peak district, but if the best we're coming up with is an alternative route for an existing freight flow...

 

[furnessvale]

Let’s call it 10 a day., 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year. 3000 trains a year.

The interest on the £2bn this line is going to cost (at least) is going to be £90m a year, and thats before paying any of it back. Therefore each train will need to save £30k in fuel and time just to pay the interest. That’s about 100x what the actual saving would be.

Why are the simple ADD ON of a few freight trains suddenly expected to carry the entire cost of a reopening designed to provide various levels of passenger service as well?

In any case, if this reopening was a simple freight only single line, it would cost nothing like £2bn.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

I do find the negative rhetoric regarding any railway reopening in this country disheartening, and typical examples can be seen in this thread!
However there are some good points, which I would like to both echo and add to:

1) If this railway reopens it will be popular. There is an insatiable demand for rail travel in this country currently, and frankly if you laid a new line from one side of a field to another folk would use it.
Yes, there might not be much local traffic from Bakewell to Matlock, but there is a strong passenger flow from Manchester to Derby, and also to Leicester, Loughborough, St Pancras and to a lesser extent Luton and East Midlands Parkway. Most of this is currently via Sheffield, except for a small proportion of Derby travellers going via Stoke.
However passenger numbers are stymied by the awkwardness of the journey; some people choose to drive via the narrow, twisting cart track that claims to be the A6; many more either choose not to go, or at least don't go as often as they would if a direct service was offered.

2) Okay Pyewipe, so why not run via the curve at Dore?
Well (a) it's long-winded. Look at a map, you wouldn't plot a route from Manchester to Derby via Dore. (b) The Hope Valley can't cope with the extra traffic, and even some further resignalling is unlikely to free up enough extra capacity. (c) Such a routing would create conflicting moves at Dore with negative impacts on Sheffield to Manchester and Sheffield to Chesterfield services, and (d) operators are unlikely to resist the traffic draw of Sheffield a few minutes away, and would inevitably start sending trains there to reverse again.

3) So why not improve the bus service instead?
Because most people hate buses. It doesn't matter if they're electric, diesel, hydrogen, hybrid or powered by the wings of a thousand angels. Nor does it matter if they have leather seats, USB ports, WiFi, a champagne bar or a jacuzzi. The travelling public will refuse to go on them.
Plus the faff of a train to Buxton, bus to Matlock, train to Derby. I'd enjoy it because I like buses; the ordinary traveller, not so much.

4) What about the cycle/walking route?
I'm old enough to recall that many of these routes were originally created to preserve the alignments with the hope of reopening the railway lines eventually. Indeed Sustrans used to release statements at the opening of each new cycle route to the effect that one day the trains might return.
Yet if you propose such a thing there's immediately a storm of protest!
Nobody will stop visiting the Peak District if the Monsal Trail closes. They will find other things to do, other places to walk or cycle. They might even use the reopened train service to access other attractions.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm 100% in agreement with @Pyewipecarshed

I would only add that the route would soon become as indispensable to the people of Matlock, Bakewell and Buxton as the S&C is to the people of Settle and Appleby.

 

[Topological]

2) Okay Pyewipe, so why not run via the curve at Dore?
Well (a) it's long-winded. Look at a map, you wouldn't plot a route from Manchester to Derby via Dore. (b) The Hope Valley can't cope with the extra traffic, and even some further resignalling is unlikely to free up enough extra capacity. (c) Such a routing would create conflicting moves at Dore with negative impacts on Sheffield to Manchester and Sheffield to Chesterfield services, and (d) operators are unlikely to resist the traffic draw of Sheffield a few minutes away, and would inevitably start sending trains there to reverse again.

So, they are willing to ignore the traffic drivers of Sheffield and Chesterfield to run via Matlock, but would not avoid Sheffield if running via Dore?

I do not know exactly the expected journey times, but via Dore South may not actually be much slower than most options being talked about as Matlock-Buxton re-opening.

The Hope Valley Capacity issue still exists with a via Matlock route since you need to get into Manchester. Once you have the path out of Manchester then you are free to take any route. The only relevant upgrade comparison is the one which created the 3rd fast path. Now the 3rd fast path only needs to cover Dore to Chinley and does not need work at Sheffield Midland.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

So, they are willing to ignore the traffic drivers of Sheffield and Chesterfield to run via Matlock, but would not avoid Sheffield if running via Dore?

Yes, because via Matlock it's not possible to call at Sheffield! Trust me, if they ran it via Dore it wouldn't be long before Sheffield appeared in the calling pattern... the odd journey at first, then a few more, then all of them!

And the capacity problems are not necessarily as pronounced from Chinley towards Manchester. Quite a bit of the freight on the Hope Valley proper starts/terminates at Earles Sidings and heads to/from the Sheffield direction.
The real pinch point would be Chinley North Junction to New Mills South, from where you have a choice of via Stockport or Romiley to get to Manchester. If heading via Stockport you lose more of the freight at Hazel Grove High Level, where the line to Northenden diverges. And as others have said, some of the freight originating around Buxton could be sent via the reopened line towards Derby.
And there's enough railway land around Chinley to insert a couple of loops or even reinstate the 4-track alignment for a bit.

Granted Stockport to Manchester might cause an issue, but given that it's still absolute block through Stockport it must be due for resignalling at some point anyway.

 

[Topological]

Yes, because via Matlock it's not possible to call at Sheffield! Trust me, if they ran it via Dore it wouldn't be long before Sheffield appeared in the calling pattern... the odd journey at first, then a few more, then all of them!

And the capacity problems are not necessarily as pronounced from Chinley towards Manchester. Quite a bit of the freight on the Hope Valley proper starts/terminates at Earles Sidings and heads to/from the Sheffield direction.
The real pinch point would be Chinley North Junction to New Mills South, from where you have a choice of via Stockport or Romiley to get to Manchester. If heading via Stockport you lose more of the freight at Hazel Grove High Level, where the line to Northenden diverges. And as others have said, some of the freight originating around Buxton could be sent via the reopened line towards Derby.
And there's enough railway land around Chinley to insert a couple of loops or even reinstate the 4-track alignment for a bit.

Granted Stockport to Manchester might cause an issue, but given that it's still absolute block through Stockport it must be due for resignalling at some point anyway.

You are right. A via Dore South probably would get a Sheffield stop added.

But what you are not addressing is why via Dore South would get Sheffield added. It is because there is insufficient demand for Derby to Manchester on a direct train. If there were demand then the via Dore South (likely quicker than via Matlock) would not get a Sheffield stop added.

It feels to me like the Derby / East Midlands to Manchester traffic is not so time sensitive that the via Sheffield times significantly reduce demand.

These days Leicester to Manchester times nicely with a connection at Nuneaton which really saves time (and offers another route if it was not for Colwich)

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

But what you are not addressing is why via Dore South would get Sheffield added. It is because there is insufficient demand for Derby to Manchester on a direct train. If there were demand then the via Dore South (likely quicker than via Matlock) would not get a Sheffield stop added.

Sorry, I see what you're getting at.
From experience of working and travelling on the trains there is sufficient demand now for a direct service from Manchester to Derby and beyond. In addition I would expect that a direct service would create additional traffic from people who currently either drive or choose not to travel. As @yorksrob states, if the "Peaks and Dales" reopening took place there would also be traffic from Matlock, Bakewell etc.

However, if the service went via the Dore curve IMO the various transport planners, mayors etc. would not be able to resist the temptation to "sweat the assets" and divert the service via Sheffield, leading to a longer journey time and probably to overcrowding.

Again IMO, to unlock the full potential of the Manchester to Derby flow (and vice versa, of course) you would need to reopen the "Peaks and Dales" route.

 

[The Planner]

Why are the simple ADD ON of a few freight trains suddenly expected to carry the entire cost of a reopening designed to provide various levels of passenger service as well?

In any case, if this reopening was a simple freight only single line, it would cost nothing like £2bn.

Why wouldn't it? Still needs track and structures capable of 2000 tonne aggregate trains and signalling etc. If anything its cheaper if freight didn't use it. Add on what needs tp be done at either end on the existing network too.