Reopenings - the positive narrative the railway industry needs !

[BayPaul]

Perhaps they could run it as a public transport connection !

Alternatively, if the line were reopened, maybe the tram could be repatriated to Eastbourne.

That’s an idea I haven't seen mentioned on here before, and it could actually be an interesting one.

I'd guess that the variable operating costs of the Seaton tramway are pretty low, so it wouldn't be ridiculous to run commuter timed and winter services. With it being a light, narrow gauge line, it would presumably also be relatively cheap to extend it to Seaton Junction.

That could be a good way to get a value for money rail connection to Seaton, whilst still keeping the tourist attraction element.

It doesn't solve the issue that Seaton is about the dullest coastal town in Devon, but you can't have everything!

 

[yorksrob]

That’s an idea I haven't seen mentioned on here before, and it could actually be an interesting one.

I'd guess that the variable operating costs of the Seaton tramway are pretty low, so it wouldn't be ridiculous to run commuter timed and winter services. With it being a light, narrow gauge line, it would presumably also be relatively cheap to extend it to Seaton Junction.

That could be a good way to get a value for money rail connection to Seaton, whilst still keeping the tourist attraction element.

It doesn't solve the issue that Seaton is about the dullest coastal town in Devon, but you can't have everything!

The main thing is that it would need an all-week, all-day service. Tourist times wouldn't do.

And I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't generally visit the West Country to be excited anyway.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2026 ==

It would, if it's affordable. But another case in point, for all the coastal towns along Lyme Bay a bus is the only option and it just about works out for DCC. The slightly more rural areas, and there's quite a lot ( think of Holsworthy, South Molton - which is 3x the size of Padstow, lots of places like that in D&C, mostly market towns ) even a bus is borderline. If cars get too expensive to run - let's not forget how unfriendly these areas are to EV operation - they're just going to die. Let's hope buses get cheaper because a lot of places will need public transport and with the best will in the world, they're not getting railways.

Where do people in Padstow actually want to go?

I certainly find the trains in Devon and Cornwall to be pretty reasonably priced in comparison to elsewhere nationally.

I mention Padstow because its one where I use the corridor regularly, so its a good comparator between rail and bus travel for inter urban journeys to tourist destinations.

I imagine there would be a demand from Padstow to Wadebridge and Bodmin as well as main line destinations.

 

[stevieinselby]

DCC swore when the interchange was being built that they'd leave provision for the railway to be replaced, which I suspect is why the A361 bridges the end of the station area rather than being on an embankment. The A3125 does chop it off, but that's a slightly more minor road & you could probably shut it to put a bridge in without overt chaos. My bigger issue is there's a road straight from Bideford to the station via one roundabout, and the railway would go all the way round the coast. Is it really like the Monsal trail though? the railway here is about shipping people into Exeter, not ferrying tourists out to the coast.

Good to know that passive provision for extending the railway was made when building the junction.

It's like the Monsal Trail inasmuch as you're looking to replace a very popular leisure route for cyclists and walkers with a railway. With a journey time to Exeter of about 1½ hours, I'm not sure how popular it would be with commuters and how much it would be about bringing visitors to the area – on the plus side, it should be a lot easier to provide an alternative cycle route in this area given the nature of the terrain, of it was deemed that the railway was worth reinstating.

 

[The Mercian]

Having cycled the Tarka Trail if they did reinstate to Bideford surely it’s not beyond the wit of engineers to be able to provide a railway with a cycle/walking path alongside?

 

[zwk500]

Having cycled the Tarka Trail if they did reinstate to Bideford surely it’s not beyond the wit of engineers to be able to provide a railway with a cycle/walking path alongside?

It's certainly possible on a former double track alignment to have a single track railway and cycle track alongside each other (the Bristol-Bath cycleway runs alongside the Avon Valley Railway for a decent distance, here's a street-level view: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Anvi3KfTf8P44N6w7) however, it will mean that the cycleway is potentially narrower than normal for 2-way traffic, and that the speed of any adjacent trains may need to be limited to avoid aerodynamic turbulence posing a risk to adjacent riders being forced into the hedge/fence (heritage railways being 25mph max so for Bristol-Bath it's not an issue).

There's also a cycle track alongside the narrow-gauge Welsh Highland Railway south of Caernarfon on former double-track standard gauge alignment.

 

[WAO]

To be fair, the article states that the service will cost £2m/year to run, which if operating Daily sounds about right. It makes no reference to any estimate of revenue generated, or that this has been offset against the £2m, and therefore any suggestion of not much custom is yours.
Bus operating costs will increase linearly as frequency increases, but the capital costs of using the existing roads are marginal. It will take a long time for business on a Carmarthen-Aberystwyth-Bangor route to increase to such an extent to tip the balance towards rail infrastructure investment.

I'm not aware of any road costs to buses using the roads other than their excise licence. With present populations (and the limitations of the former rail alignment) I can't see any argument for a passenger railway here. £2Bn has been quoted for a rail restoration.

A single decker coach, 8 stops, every two hours, with no concessions (reportedly) does not suggest long queues. Certainly public money has been earmarked and coaches purchased.

WAO

 

[eldomtom2]

1) this is happening in a matter of weeks, rather than a similar number of years to progress a new railway covering similar ground

Of course, part of the problem is that building infrastructure in the UK takes longer than other countries - and a lot of that time is not spent doing actual construction.

 

[The exile]

Of course, part of the problem is that building infrastructure in the UK takes longer than other countries - and a lot of that time is not spent doing actual construction.

Does it though (talking comparable countries, not dictatorships) - or are we just more aware of the full process because it’s happening on our doorstep.

 

[martin butler]

I've a question to those advocating more use of busses over trains, and it's this, are you happy about putting more traffic on to roads?

Think about it our road networks are already quite busy, and your advocating making them even busier still, how many busses does a train take off the roads? all it takes is one obstruction a set of roadworks, and your argument that Road is better, cheaper, falls flat on its face,

Many rural roads are windy up and down hill, routes, some not even really suitable for larger vehicles, and adding more larger vehicles, can only add to already existing problems,

 

[The Ham]

I've a question to those advocating more use of busses over trains, and it's this, are you happy about putting more traffic on to roads?

Think about it our road networks are already quite busy, and your advocating making them even busier still, how many busses does a train take off the roads? all it takes is one obstruction a set of roadworks, and your argument that Road is better, cheaper, falls flat on its face,

Many rural roads are windy up and down hill, routes, some not even really suitable for larger vehicles, and adding more larger vehicles, can only add to already existing problems,

The impact of more buses is fairly limited.

They take up the space of 2 cars.

In comparison a fairly empty bus with 8 people on board is carrying what typically 5 cars carry.

Even if the busses are every 5 minutes, that's only the equivalent of 24 cars (one way) when a busy road would have more than the equivalent of up to 1,100 cars (one way).

 

[Farigiraf]

how many busses does a train take off the roads?

Bus user demographics are fairly different to rail user demographics as well, as in most cases there's no reason to use a bus if you can drive but there are plenty of reasons why taking the train is a good option. So in reality, looking at loadings on the average train service, most likely less than half of those users would otherwise be in a bus. Some of them would be at home, some would be on a plane or bicycle, but most of them would be in their car. So the real question is how many cars does a train take off the roads?

And that question provides some interesting results - a 2-car 158 with half seats taken carries around 70 passengers. Let's say that train service were to no longer exist. If out of those 70, 15% wouldn't travel, 30% would take a bus and 55% would drive, and the average car carries around 1.5 passengers per vehicle, you'd be adding at a minimum 25 cars to the road - which takes up a lot more space than a 2-car 158. Then add on the bus users.

Even if quieter roads can handle that increase in traffic, road capacity along a particular corridor is only as large as the biggest bottleneck - e.g. a busy junction or urban section, where every car added creates more unnecessary delays to everyone's journeys.
Scales up vastly if you look at 6- or 8-car train services on more busier lines.

 

[BayPaul]

Bus user demographics are fairly different to rail user demographics as well, as in most cases there's no reason to use a bus if you can drive but there are plenty of reasons why taking the train is a good option. So in reality, looking at loadings on the average train service, most likely less than half of those users would otherwise be in a bus. Some of them would be at home, some would be on a plane or bicycle, but most of them would be in their car. So the real question is how many cars does a train take off the roads?

And that question provides some interesting results - a 2-car 158 with half seats taken carries around 70 passengers. Let's say that train service were to no longer exist. If out of those 70, 15% wouldn't travel, 30% would take a bus and 55% would drive, and the average car carries around 1.5 passengers per vehicle, you'd be adding at a minimum 25 cars to the road - which takes up a lot more space than a 2-car 158. Then add on the bus users.

Even if quieter roads can handle that increase in traffic, road capacity along a particular corridor is only as large as the biggest bottleneck - e.g. a busy junction or urban section, where every car added creates more unnecessary delays to everyone's journeys.
Scales up vastly if you look at 6- or 8-car train services on more busier lines.

I'd say that this is an argument against the kind of rural reopenings that only require a 2 carriage sprinter running an hourly service. Spending tens or hundreds of millions to remove 25 cars per hour off a rural road doesn't feel like good value - that sort of number of cars really isn't noticeable, even when it gets into congested suburbs. Even with the train at full capacity in the rush hour, that's still only 1 car per minute difference.

There may be other good reasons to do it, but removing traffic off of roads isn't really one.

As you say, when you get to the kind of opening that needs 5+ carriages per hour, it's a different story.

 

[Farigiraf]

I'd say that this is an argument against the kind of rural reopenings that only require a 2 carriage sprinter running an hourly service. Spending tens or hundreds of millions to remove 25 cars per hour off a rural road doesn't feel like good value - that sort of number of cars really isn't noticeable, even when it gets into congested suburbs. Even with the train at full capacity in the rush hour, that's still only 1 car per minute difference.

There may be other good reasons to do it, but removing traffic off of roads isn't really one.

As you say, when you get to the kind of opening that needs 5+ carriages per hour, it's a different story.

There aren't any feasible reopenings recently built/underway/proposed that do only involve a 2-car train every hour really. Portishead/Northumberland/Waterside/Ivanhoe are all 4-cars minimum, Cowley will have through trains to London (a decent interim solution I guess, but quite silly long-term) and most of the other common ones like Tavistock-Bere Alston aren't happening anytime soon anyway.

Though even if the recurring high cost low reward projects like Tavistock do end up going somewhere, I'd imagine that it would only be justified as either part of a larger local MetroWest/Devon Metro-adjacent commuter rail development project, such as a Plymouth Metro (which'll justify 4-car trains) or with lots of future growth in mind (the full route to Okehampton would also justify 4-car trains). A minimum of 50 cars off the roads from Plymouth to Tavistock every hour (noting that the Tamar Valley was saved in the first place due to the poor quality of such roads) will make a difference, but that's before you even get into the other benefits of modal shift and reconnecting regional towns to the rail network.

Proposals which do involve long-term low yields aren't going anywhere while there are still lots of higher potential projects waiting for funding. But I don't see people suggesting such proposals often anyway.

 

[Bald Rick]

Of course, part of the problem is that building infrastructure in the UK takes longer than other countries - and a lot of that time is not spent doing actual construction.

But, as I have said on various threads, this is not the case. Some other countries have the same issues we do. Stuttgart 21 for example. Or the LGV from Bordeaux to Toulouse.

I've a question to those advocating more use of busses over trains, and it's this, are you happy about putting more traffic on to roads?

But will it increase traffic in any material sense? An extra bus/coach or two an hour, and if just three car drivers swap to the bus/coach, then that’s a reduction. And I don’t think it is realisitic to say that no car drivers will swap to a bus/coach, but they definitely would to a train.

 

[The exile]

I'd say that this is an argument against the kind of rural reopenings that only require a 2 carriage sprinter running an hourly service. Spending tens or hundreds of millions to remove 25 cars per hour off a rural road doesn't feel like good value - that sort of number of cars really isn't noticeable, even when it gets into congested suburbs. Even with the train at full capacity in the rush hour, that's still only 1 car per minute difference.

There may be other good reasons to do it, but removing traffic off of roads isn't really one.

As you say, when you get to the kind of opening that needs 5+ carriages per hour, it's a different story.

There is no way anyone could make an economic case (even with the most optimistic assessment of derived benefits to the local economy) for reinstatement of a service that only attracted an average of 37 passengers per train (long term). You might be able to make the case for an extension to an operationally more convenient terminus or similar (on the grounds that the rest of the line was going to do much better). Inevitably you will get the odd service that only manages that many, but if that's the best average you can mange - forget it - unless the infrastructure is already there of course - but then the costs are rather different.

 

[yorksrob]

I'd say that this is an argument against the kind of rural reopenings that only require a 2 carriage sprinter running an hourly service. Spending tens or hundreds of millions to remove 25 cars per hour off a rural road doesn't feel like good value - that sort of number of cars really isn't noticeable, even when it gets into congested suburbs. Even with the train at full capacity in the rush hour, that's still only 1 car per minute difference.

There may be other good reasons to do it, but removing traffic off of roads isn't really one.

As you say, when you get to the kind of opening that needs 5+ carriages per hour, it's a different story.

I think the endless obsession with modal shift is overplayed quite frankly. As you say, there are other good reasons for providing good public transport.

Many on this forum have had a downer on smaller, local reopenings, yet the ones such as Okehampton and Borders are meeting and beating expectations. They also don't tend to get bogged down like the grandes projects.

A Wisbech and Portishead could do just as well.

 

[Falcon1200]

Think about it our road networks are already quite busy, and your advocating making them even busier still, how many busses does a train take off the roads?

But on the other hand, buses can go wherever the roads do whereas trains are (obviously) restricted to their tracks!

A rail re-opening possibility sometimes mentioned is Witney/Oxford. This would be extremely expensive, being not a re-opening at all but the construction of a new line, while there are already multiple bus services on the route, not only serving both town/city centres but also one direct to the major traffic draw that is the JR Hospital. Would a railway really be a justifiable and affordable alternative?

 

[yorksrob]

But on the other hand, buses can go wherever the roads do whereas trains are (obviously) restricted to their tracks!

A rail re-opening possibility sometimes mentioned is Witney/Oxford. This would be extremely expensive, being not a re-opening at all but the construction of a new line, while there are already multiple bus services on the route, not only serving both town/city centres but also one direct to the major traffic draw that is the JR Hospital. Would a railway really be a justifiable and affordable alternative?

The fact that there are lots of buses suggests that it might be.

Perhaps the Government needs to enact the modern day equivalent of a light railway order so that such lines can more easily follow the old infrastructure (as preserved railways do). You wouldn't need to run trains at 125 mph to Witney.

 

[Falcon1200]

The fact that there are lots of buses suggests that it might be.

But as I said, the buses serve places that the railway cannot! Would a Witney/Oxford train be as attractive or useful to passengers if their origin and destination were remote from the station?

 

[yorksrob]

But as I said, the buses serve places that the railway cannot! Would a Witney/Oxford train be as attractive or useful to passengers if their origin and destination were remote from the station?

You could say the same about almost any station outside of London, yet passengers still come.

 

[Zomboid]

But as I said, the buses serve places that the railway cannot! Would a Witney/Oxford train be as attractive or useful to passengers if their origin and destination were remote from the station?

Depends on the first and last miles. If the service went beyond Oxford then that'd offer something the buses don't (though there are a few Oxford Tube coaches from Witney now, which further supports the notion that there's demand for transport - I bet if the Oxford terminating fasts continued to Witney they'd sell a lot of tickets), and the buses into the city currently have to sit in the traffic on Woodstock Road, which can be truly dreadful. Don't know if they'll put things back how they used to be when Botley Road reopens, but that route wasn't exactly plain sailing before the bridge works either.

I doubt it'll ever happen, but a new line to Witney probably has a better case than a lot of reopenings that get talked about.

 

[eldomtom2]

But, as I have said on various threads, this is not the case. Some other countries have the same issues we do. Stuttgart 21 for example. Or the LGV from Bordeaux to Toulouse.

There are obviously cases of things going wrong in other countries as well, but overall continental European countries build things faster and cheaper. For a recent comparison, construction started on Line B of the Brest tramway in April 2023 and it opened in February 2026. Construction of the extension to Dudley for the West Midlands Metro, a route of comparable length, began in early 2021 (2017 if you count work done on the disused ROW that the extension reuses) and is still not complete. That's the UK taking over five years to do what France did in less than three.

 

[WAO]

The figure of 37 passengers per train has been quoted. For 36 trains per day (18 each way) that is almost 500 000/year, quite respectable for a single station. If each contributed £10, then £5M/year in farebox. True you would have be spend carefully on re-instatement and use written down not leased stock, but not impossible.

Buses have their place but provide much longer and less comfortable through journeys. Ideally bus and train work together, like in London.

WAO

 

[Falcon1200]

You could say the same about almost any station outside of London, yet passengers still come.

Indeed - On existing railways! But have there been any railways, not re-opened but effectively rebuilt from scratch, serving places of similar size and traffic potential?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed - On existing railways! But have there been any railways, not re-opened but effectively rebuilt from scratch, serving places of similar size and traffic potential?

East West Rail's Oxford-Bletchley section is basically a new railway on an existing formation. The Marston Vale will be by the time that bit's done.

The bit towards Cambridge, assuming it happens, is totally new, route and line.

 

[yorksrob]

Indeed - On existing railways! But have there been any railways, not re-opened but effectively rebuilt from scratch, serving places of similar size and traffic potential?

I can't think of any (although Bedford - Cambridge will serve such settlements).

However isn't that more of a result of very few towns of note never having had a railway of any sort at some time in the past.

 

[zwk500]

Perhaps the Government needs to enact the modern day equivalent of a light railway order so that such lines can more easily follow the old infrastructure (as preserved railways do). You wouldn't need to run trains at 125 mph to Witney.

You don't need 125mph but you do need more than Preserved railway's 25mph. If we are building a line from scratch (minus some earthworks) again, I would suggest that building in anachronistic operational pain (& cost) is bad service to the public purse and the passengers.

 

[The exile]

You don't need 125mph but you do need more than Preserved railway's 25mph. If we are building a line from scratch (minus some earthworks) again, I would suggest that building in anachronistic operational pain (& cost) is bad service to the public purse and the passengers.

You would also not need / want some of the “concessions” which were bought with that reduction to 25mph. 50mph for a reasonably short branch is probably sufficient - is there a rough “rule of thumb” for what each extra 10mph adds to cost?

 

[yorksrob]

You don't need 125mph but you do need more than Preserved railway's 25mph. If we are building a line from scratch (minus some earthworks) again, I would suggest that building in anachronistic operational pain (& cost) is bad service to the public purse and the passengers.

Most railways even in the olden days tried to get as directly as possible. Sure - you wouldn't create Battersby Junction from scratch these days, but such anomalies are rare even on the existing network.

 

[zwk500]

You would also not need / want some of the “concessions” which were bought with that reduction to 25mph. 50mph for a reasonably short branch is probably sufficient - is there a rough “rule of thumb” for what each extra 10mph adds to cost?

There probably isn't a rule of thumb for cost because it'll depend on so many factors.

Most railways even in the olden days tried to get as directly as possible.

Directly to where though? Plenty of villages were left miles from the railway line in pursuit of connecting to a mine or getting out of the way of the local Lord.
And then there's the question of the town not being the same as it were 150 years ago. If the town has grown away from the railway there's no point building it to the wrong side of town.
There will be some places where the old railway is still a sensible alignment to use (e.g. Newbiggin-on-Sea) but plenty where it isn't (Lewes-Uckfield)