Peaks and Dales line - feasibility study submitted

[daodao]

A stupid proposal. I hope their constituents set them straight.

It is a reasonable proposal as there is no realistic prospect of this line ever reopening, given the massive costs of doing so for the limited potential benefit.

 

[Zomboid]

Whilst I don't set any future for the line as part of the national network, I would continue to safeguard the alignment from development. Further extensions of either the Monsal Trail or Peak Rail would have greater potential to enhance tourism (which I assume is the major industry on the national park) than someone building a house on the route.

 

[Killingworth]

What stopped Peak Rail getting to Bakewell?

Walk from their current Northwood terminus to Rowsley and on beyond Haddon Hall. Or just look closely at a detailed OS map.

The A6 bridge! Rebuilt it would have to be higher than the original for modern road clearance requirements. That would require building up the embankment south towards Northwood. Not too difficult but it adds to the gradient.

Coming off the north western end of this raised section the track almost immediately crosses the River Derwent, a footpath and a minor road. The track would need to be raised across all these (taking account of their heritage listing) before reaching the tunnel behind Haddon Hall. The landowner there has been less than keen on having a freight line, or any line, restored.

Just details but such things add significant extra costs.

 

[squingo44]

I have confidence the line will get built. Both national and local government seem to be coming round to the convex payoff distribution of railway investments, and to understand that investments in the transport network must necessarily come hand-in-hand with a reshaping of the built environment around them.

The potential for the line to transform the area is huge. I know many young professionals who would absolutely love to live in the peak district and commute into central Manchester for work - once NPR frees up capacity at Manchester Piccadilly, building this railway and apartment blocks around the stations could make commuting from the Peak District a reality.

I don't think that the old alignment should be reused, it's not built to modern standards. It would be far more sensible to build a 100mph line to modern main line standards. Therefore, I'm happy with keeping the Monsal Trail as a dedicated active travel corridor.

 

[Topological]

Whilst I don't set any future for the line as part of the national network, I would continue to safeguard the alignment from development. Further extensions of either the Monsal Trail or Peak Rail would have greater potential to enhance tourism (which I assume is the major industry on the national park) than someone building a house on the route.

This is why the safegaurding for the Monsal Trail makes sense. As you say, having buildings blocking the route would be silly. The Peak District Authority proposal is to safegaurd almost all the track as an active travel route.

The removal of safegaurding for rebuilding as a railway is also sensible. There is no reason to limit what can be done to support the Monsal Trail just because someone might put a railway line back. I assume the removal of the rail element also means that when people are doing searches for houses, potential reopening will no longer appear in their results.

The documents i read suggested this was still out for consultation, but since it is almost a year since the initial proposal to remove rail safeguarding, a result must be known soon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 May 2026 ==

I have confidence the line will get built. Both national and local government seem to be coming round to the convex payoff distribution of railway investments, and to understand that investments in the transport network must necessarily come hand-in-hand with a reshaping of the built environment around them.

The potential for the line to transform the area is huge. I know many young professionals who would absolutely love to live in the peak district and commute into central Manchester for work - once NPR frees up capacity at Manchester Piccadilly, building this railway and apartment blocks around the stations could make commuting from the Peak District a reality.

I don't think that the old alignment should be reused, it's not built to modern standards. It would be far more sensible to build a 100mph line to modern main line standards. Therefore, I'm happy with keeping the Monsal Trail as a dedicated active travel corridor.

Living in the Peak District is the reason that the line will NOT get built. It promotes over development. New towns and commuter locations for Manchester will concentrate to the South and West of Manchester. Do not expect any policies that promote commuting from areas of outstanding natural beauty.

The only thing getting built ever will be a tunnel (road and rail) from Manchester to Sheffield and that will have no access points or stations anywhere within the Peak District.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The potential for the line to transform the area is huge. I know many young professionals who would absolutely love to live in the peak district and commute into central Manchester for work

New Mills? Glossop? Anywhere on the Hope Valley?

This seems poor justification for a railway that would just connect Bakewell. The Bakewellians (?) probably wouldn't even want the spiralling house prices that might come with that so their kids can't afford to buy there after uni.

 

[Magdalia]

The potential for the line to transform the area is huge. I know many young professionals who would absolutely love to live in the peak district and commute into central Manchester for work - once NPR frees up capacity at Manchester Piccadilly, building this railway and apartment blocks around the stations could make commuting from the Peak District a reality.

The Peak District is a National Park. There won't be any apartment blocks built around stations in the park.

 

[D365]

The Bakewellians (?) probably wouldn't even want the spiralling house prices that might come with that so their kids can't afford to buy there after uni.

It’s not as if a typical young person (or even a couple) could afford the Peak District as thing stand!

The Peak District is a National Park. There won't be any apartment blocks built around stations in the park.

And even if medium-scale apartment buildings were permitted, with the way that leaseholds are, they’d be buy-to-let.

 

[yorksrob]

What stopped Peak Rail getting to Bakewell?

Walk from their current Northwood terminus to Rowsley and on beyond Haddon Hall. Or just look closely at a detailed OS map.

The A6 bridge! Rebuilt it would have to be higher than the original for modern road clearance requirements. That would require building up the embankment south towards Northwood. Not too difficult but it adds to the gradient.

Coming off the north western end of this raised section the track almost immediately crosses the River Derwent, a footpath and a minor road. The track would need to be raised across all these (taking account of their heritage listing) before reaching the tunnel behind Haddon Hall. The landowner there has been less than keen on having a freight line, or any line, restored.

Just details but such things add significant extra costs.

Compulsory purchase. Does he think that these are still the days when Lord so and so can order the railway be put in a tunnel !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 May 2026 ==

New Mills? Glossop? Anywhere on the Hope Valley?

This seems poor justification for a railway that would just connect Bakewell. The Bakewellians (?) probably wouldn't even want the spiralling house prices that might come with that so their kids can't afford to buy there after uni.

I really don't see the line as promoting housing development in the area. If anything it would perform a similar function to the Windermere line, which hasn't spawned a glut of commuter flats in the Lake District.

 

[Killingworth]

The potential for the line to transform the area is huge. I know many young professionals who would absolutely love to live in the peak district and commute into central Manchester for work - once NPR frees up capacity at Manchester Piccadilly, building this railway and apartment blocks around the stations could make commuting from the Peak District a reality.

I don't know how many young professionals have been canvassed to form that view but there certainly will be 'quite a lot' who'd love to live somewhere in the Peak. However the railway has yet to restore the full pre-Covid services on the Glossop and Buxton lines into Manchester. Commuter numbers on the line in from Chinley to Piccadilly remain subdued. The much smaller westbound numbers from Sheffield and the Hope Valley are now above pre-Covid. I'm unable to imagine more than a few using the Peaks and Dales line to commute into Manchester.

I have relatives living in Essex and Sussex where rush hour trains run into London every 10-15 minutes and start very early and run into the small hours. There aren't the critical masses of people in the Peak District to ever make that level of service anywhere near possible. Park and Ride at places like Hazel Grove can work.

This feasibility study will inevitably find the scheme is feasible because they always do. It's the caveats that need very carefully considering, most particularly cost and how the benefits have been calculated.

2 examples. How would this line help a traveller get from Buxton to Ashbourne or from Bakewell to Chesterfield? It certainly wouldn't take significant car and commercial vehicle traffic off roads to and from the many smaller destinations. Most Peak District places are quite small.

Nottingham to Manchester? EMR are using more 170s on that hourly route and they load well enough. That is already taking traffic off the roads with more options by changing in Sheffield from there, Derby, Chesterfield and elsewhere.

The idea of massive apartment blocks round stations in the Peak would destroy the very amenity the new residents were coming to enjoy. But I suppose the idea being suggested is more apartments around Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Victoria? In which case we don't need this reopened line!

 

[Topological]

I really don't see the line as promoting housing development in the area. If anything it would perform a similar function to the Windermere line, which hasn't spawned a glut of commuter flats in the Lake District.

You might not, but the post from @squingo44 that @Bletchleyite and I responded to did talk about people commuting to Manchester from the Peak District.

In this case, you are right, the planning regulations and pricing would stop there being a rush of commuting. However, precisely that reason is what would make the re-opening uneconomical. The Windermere line was already there, serves Kendal and only operates with a short shuttle train for most of the day.

EDIT: Changed Keswick to Kendal, can I blame it being a Bank Holiday please.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You might not, but the post from @squingo44 that @Bletchleyite and I responded to did talk about people commuting to Manchester from the Peak District.

In this case, you are right, the planning regulations and pricing would stop there being a rush of commuting. However, precisely that reason is what would make the re-opening uneconomical. The Windermere line was already there, serves Keswick and only operates with a short shuttle train for most of the day.

Windermere is another line you'd not build now if it didn't exist but you would also not close.

Keswick is an identical copy pretty much - were it open you wouldn't now close it, but reopening it also isn't really viable when you can do it with what is a pretty good bus connection on a fairly fast road.

Probably true of the majority of rural lines. Even the Hope Valley (which serves far more than this) you probably wouldn't reopen if we had kept Woodhead instead.

 

[Topological]

Windermere is another line you'd not build now if it didn't exist but you would also not close.

Keswick is an identical copy pretty much - were it open you wouldn't now close it, but reopening it also isn't really viable when you can do it with what is a pretty good bus connection on a fairly fast road.

Probably true of the majority of rural lines. Even the Hope Valley (which serves far more than this) you probably wouldn't reopen if we had kept Woodhead instead.

I just realised I meant Kendal. I should really pay attention.

The Census suggests about 28,000 in Kendal. Much larger than Bakewell.

Keswick is definitely another example of a line you would not reopen based on the fact it closed as you say.

 

[Bald Rick]

I know many young professionals who would absolutely love to live in the peak district and commute into central Manchester for work

Absolutely nothing is stopping them do that now.

 

[Farigiraf]

Absolutely nothing is stopping them do that now.

Except house prices

 

[furnessvale]

Except house prices

...and ticket prices or the alternative A6 traffic jams.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The potential for the line to transform the area is huge. I know many young professionals who would absolutely love to live in the peak district and commute into central Manchester for work

What do you mean by the Peak District?

Quite a bit of the Manchester commuter belt is already right up against the Peak District National Park, which extends as far north as Marsden in West Yorkshire. Plenty of choice for people wishing to work in Manchester and live in the hills: the estates at top end of Uppermill are about 300 yards from the National Park.

Even with a new railway, the south of the Peak District National Park will simply be too far from Manchester to be a sustainable commuting distance. It is an hour from Buxton to Manchester and that's heading towards the limit of a sustainable commuting time. It would be at least 90 minutes from Bakewell and heading towards the 120 minute mark from Matlock.

 

[squingo44]

What do you mean by the Peak District?

Quite a bit of the Manchester commuter belt is already right up against the Peak District National Park, which extends as far north as Marsden in West Yorkshire. Plenty of choice for people wishing to work in Manchester and live in the hills: the estates at top end of Uppermill are about 300 yards from the National Park.

Even with a new railway, the south of the Peak District National Park will simply be too far from Manchester to be a sustainable commuting distance. It is an hour from Buxton to Manchester and that's heading towards the limit of a sustainable commuting time. It would be at least 90 minutes from Bakewell and heading towards the 120 minute mark from Matlock.

Unless, with additional infrastructure interventions, the outer stations could receive express services like London

 

[Bletchleyite]

Unless, with additional infrastructure interventions, the outer stations could receive express services like London

We're getting into utter fantasy here now. If this line reopened - and I'm confident it will not and should not - it would receive at best a service of one two-car all stations DMU per hour from about 6am to 10pm from each end.

 

[Killingworth]

The Peak District National Park includes some of the wilder western fringes of moorland Sheffield. People commute from there in under the hour despite the slowness of the Hope Valley line, but Sheffield has a large population to swell those numbers. 3 trains an hour include the stopper that picks up small numbers before News Mills but far more from there and Marple as it gets nearer to Manchester.

I'd expect a Peaks and Dales line to do similarly but without the critical mass of a big city and only picking up significant numbers from Hazel Grove - which has fairly frequent trains from Buxton already. There is minimal potential Manchester rail commuter demand from the more sparsely populated area south of Buxton.

Incidentally pre-Covid Buxton had a weekday half hourly service into Manchester. Currently that's peak hours only. On Sundays it used to be hourly. Currently it's 2 hourly only. Passenger numbers remain below pre-Covid levels, although they're getting nearer. Hazel Groves numbers remain very deflated but that's related to the much reduced level of services (a subject for another thread).

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wouldn't read anything into the Sunday low frequencies on Northern services - this is solely because of the well known issue with Sundays being voluntary and an unwillingness to cough up to fix it.

 

[Killingworth]

I wouldn't read anything into the Sunday low frequencies on Northern services - this is solely because of the well known issue with Sundays being voluntary and an unwillingness to cough up to fix it.

However it is very relevant to the Peak Distriict leisure market, something the proponents of this line suggest they wish to attract. Coughing up to fix it won't help the business cases of any routes operated by crews receiving that coughed up funding, 7 days a week.

However it's planning and construction costs that sink this project long before we get to passenger rolling stock, staffing and timetabling.

 

[Nottingham59]

Absolutely nothing is stopping them do that now.

Apart from the unreliable train service

 

[Bletchleyite]

Apart from the unreliable train service

You don't make the service reliable by spreading your resources even more thinly by adding another barely viable line to the portfolio...

 

[Nottingham59]

You don't make the service reliable by spreading your resources even more thinly by adding another barely viable line to the portfolio...

Quite.

== == == ==

It seems to me that rather than trying to rerail the Monsal Trail, it would be more cost-effective to reinstate a third line between Chinley North Junction and New Mills South Junction, and a new single chord at Hazel Grove to allow stone trains coming down from Buxton to head south via Knutsford and Middlewich.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Quite.

== == == ==

It seems to me that rather than trying to rerail the Monsal Trail, it would be more cost-effective to reinstate a third line between Chinley North Junction and New Mills South Junction, and a new single chord at Hazel Grove to allow stone trains coming down from Buxton to head south via Knutsford and Middlewich.

If you want more capacity for Manchester-Sheffield (potentially to add an hourly Manchester-Leicester via the Dore South Curve, if Manchester-East Midlands really is viable?) then there are lots of small and relatively cheap interventions you can do along there. Those are some, others would be adding some platform loops to allow the stopping service to be overtaken. Wouldn't fit everywhere but I'm fairly sure there's space for a 3-4 car platform loop at at least one intermediate.

The only purpose in reinstating Buxton-Bakewell-Matlock would really be in serving Bakewell, and a properly integrated bus service would probably do that better and for less money (as Wales is starting to demonstrate). What would you rather, 4 buses per hour or one DMU per hour? The buses would probably be cheaper too...

As I've said if it was still open you'd not close it, but the cost of building a whole new railway (EWR style - basically a new build on an existing route) would be massive.

As for active travel - or reducing the car traffic relating to leisure cycling - getting an extension of the Trail all the way to Buxton (even if it can't follow the railway route precisely) would be worth it. Few will be willing to ride along the horribly busy A6, and the routes via minor roads are rather convoluted. Thus it's really a case of park in Hassop (mostly) and ride to one end then back. Is the railway there single track on a double track formation? If so could it be slewed to allow a cycle path alongside it?

 

[Topological]

For the Buxton end, this active travel LVR proposal is a genius one: Monsal Trail LVR IF you could get that into Chinley as well...

Anyone who has tried to cycle from the end of the Monsal Trail into Buxton will know just how dangerous that narrow and windy stretch of the A6 can be, with a never-ending stream of cars and heavy lorries trying to overtake. And with no pavement for most of the way, it’s even more hazardous for anyone who dares to walk it.

But it would be a real benefit for local people, visitors and businesses if a way could be fond to connect the Trail with the town. Which is why recently announced plans from Buxton Town Team’s Sustainable Travel Group might provide an exciting solution.

The all-volunteer Group have been talking to a company that has developed a small electric train called a VLR (Very Light Rail) which could use the existing freight line that runs just a short distance from the end of the Trail.

(Note the LVR/VLR error is in the webpage linked so has been recreated here)

When I was getting the route protection consultation information I did see some talk of running the trail alongside the single track, slewing as @Bletchleyite mentions, but now I cannot find it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

VLR really isn't the solution to that problem. The creation of a MK Redway standard cycle path (2m wide, tarmac) is. The lay of the land is quite difficult for it, but if the extant railway is a single track on a dual formation alongside it should be possible (though it might need to go round the tunnel), if not it would probably be possible to get something in a bit further south - there's for example a farm track for most of the distance south of the line which is a public footpath and could be upgraded as a cycleway.

 

[The Planner]

Quite.

== == == ==

It seems to me that rather than trying to rerail the Monsal Trail, it would be more cost-effective to reinstate a third line between Chinley North Junction and New Mills South Junction, and a new single chord at Hazel Grove to allow stone trains coming down from Buxton to head south via Knutsford and Middlewich.

Hardly worth the chord for what is effectively a handful of empties via Buxton that only come from Ashburys anyway, just send everything via Chinley.

 

[Nottingham59]

Hardly worth the chord for what is effectively a handful of empties via Buxton that only come from Ashburys anyway, just send everything via Chinley.

Well, my thinking was that without that extra chord any stone trains using the Buxton line are constrained to pass through the bottleneck of Stockport, so it only makes sense for traffic to and from central Manchester / Ashburys to go that way.

With a new chord at Hazel Grove giving access towards Crewe, many more stone trains could use the Buxton line and avoid the congested Hope Valley line altogether. Especially when/if HS2 phase 2a releases huge capacity for freight between Crewe and the South-East.