Reopenings - the positive narrative the railway industry needs !

Could shouting about the combined reopenings in the UK be a bad news story? It could easily be seen as a 'since 2000 we've spent billions of pounds reopening half a dozen loss-making lines to places you've never heard of' story.

For my mind a much better good news story would be to compare the massive capacity and frequency upgrades that have happened across the network since then. I live in the south west, and whilst Okehampton has made no difference to my life, the frequency upgrades elsewhere on the network have made it vastly more useful.

Or, as others have said, the megaproject type of new and upgraded lines such as Elizabeth Line, Edinburgh - Glasgow, Transpenine, Thameslink, overground etc.

GRALISTAIR said:

I have to agree. The Elizabeth Line is a magnificent piece of infrastructure and now that it is there I could not imagine it not being there. It makes London and South East even more attractive but that creates a vicious cycle. We need a Northern or elsewhere success story.

I will add Scotland as a whole has been a success story for railways.

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The Transpennine Route Upgrade is happening, and whilst it'll take time to be fully completed, there's much to be said about how month after month work is getting done on time and on budget and how NR can deliver significant projects if given the time and resources required without political interference.

Gloster said:

But, with the partial exception of the Elizabeth Line, all these reopenings are effectively local news. If somebody in Norwich reads about the reopening of the Okehampton line, they are unlikely to get beyond the first sentence before they move on to something else and forget about it entirely. The same for someone in Salisbury for the line to Blyth, and so on. Only something that covers a large area is going to get a lot of attention.

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Whilst each one is local news if there's enough of them they can create enough interest that people may think that it's worth looking again at how useful the railway is to them.

Although not as exciting as a new line and enhancement to the railways which increases capacity (especially if there's new services) is good.

For example, no one's likely to be excited by new signals, but if they can deliver a new hourly service then that's just as useful as a reopening.

It maybe that the NR/TOC's need to find useful journalists to whom they could provide examples so in the news story they could say "whist these signals may not change things straight away taking with industry insiders they've said that if a business case can be made these new signals could facilitate additional train services which could include [place A to place B]."

You'd then get people writing to their MP asking for the "new" service to be delivered, which (even if the numbers are low) might shift them to being a bit more pro rail.

brad465 said:

The Trans-Pennine upgrade would be blockbuster, given the many northern cities it is connecting. However, the nature of the job means it's a slow burner of incremental improvements, so unless there is a big bang increase in new services and one massive journey time reduction both implemented in the same timetable change, this won't really gain much publicity.

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Indeed, although even a small change (even if that's 2 more trains on a Sunday) will deliver something positive to say has been delivered and space to highlight some of the improvements due in the next few months.

Nicholas Lewis said:

or the money HS2 has taken we could have built S Bahn equivalents across at least 3 or 4 of our major Northern cities which would have had the same impact on the local economies that the Elizabeth line has had and then generated the growth to drive a higher speed interconnecting network

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Whilst the north requires more investment, it's not the case out should be HS2 or Northern investment.

That's because not all borrowing is equal.

Borrowing against future growth (like building HS2 and Northern Investment) is like taking out a mortgage to buy a home which paid off from future income.

As such whist there's a limit, it's not such a hard limit as if the spending was on day to day stuff.

As a comparison, spending on things like pensions, education, heath, etc is like spending on a credit card. Where there's a need to ensure that to keep that borrowing to a minimum as it's unlikely to generate future income.

The Ham said:

The Transpennine Route Upgrade is happening, and whilst it'll take time to be fully completed, there's much to be said about how month after month work is getting done on time and on budget and how NR can deliver significant projects if given the time and resources required without political interference.

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They do have a rather generous budget of 11B and plenty of time to deliver it as a result of previous NR big project debacles so its doesnt represent long run affordability. I also worry that too many of the projects NR promotes now don't turn into improved journey times but are used to build in even more resilience to timetables.

The Ham said:

Whilst each one is local news if there's enough of them they can create enough interest that people may think that it's worth looking again at how useful the railway is to them.

Although not as exciting as a new line and enhancement to the railways which increases capacity (especially if there's new services) is good.

For example, no one's likely to be excited by new signals, but if they can deliver a new hourly service then that's just as useful as a reopening.

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Good point although a lot of what NR does now is largely like for like renewals with all too often a missed opportunity to say increase a crossovers speed by 5mph because that would turn it into an enhancement. Mind you they often add new turnback opportunities with resignalling schemes but then never use them.

The Ham said:

Whilst the north requires more investment, it's not the case out should be HS2 or Northern investment.

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It is though no govt since nationalisation has ever given the railways the money they need. They came close with the modernisation plan but that rapidly imploded with the planned electrification schemes being scaled back within a couple of years as the BTC proved themselves inept at delivering. BR then standing on its own two feet capitalised nicely on the Euston-NW electrification and went on to do the same with Weaver Jcn-Motherwell, Intercity 125 and ECML electrification. OK all mega projects with big geographic impacts but doesn't mean the same approach cant be taken more regionally/locally today and this has been pretty effective with Oakhampton and Northumberland line and the local population has responded accordingly.

Nicholas Lewis said:

I sorely remember how run down and unapproachable the NLL & ELL were in the 1980s yet a decent upgrading costing 100's millions not 10's billions were transformative. Same should have been done across our Northern cities

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several billion when you add it all up

ox_chap said:

And suppose further it became a testbed for battery-electric trains (charging at both ends) - and if the technology was designed in the UK. Might recover the reopening costs through exporting such technology…

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The technology exists already. We could export it already.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Jun 2026 ==

Perhaps the important point here is that the opening / reopening that have been completed are generally successful because they have been studied and modelled and forecast to be successful - and worth committing taxpayers‘ money to, ie value for money.

Many of the ‘old chestnut’ proposals - which to be fair we havent seen much of on these pages - have been studied and modelled and forecast not to be value for money. And are therefore not done.

marshlinker said:

The primary reason why its unaffordable even in its basic form is the ORR ban on new level crossings.

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Then this is the problem. Loosen the rules.

BayPaul said:

For my mind a much better good news story would be to compare the massive capacity and frequency upgrades that have happened across the network since then. I live in the south west, and whilst Okehampton has made no difference to my life, the frequency upgrades elsewhere on the network have made it vastly more useful.

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The frequency and reliability upgrades on the most popular route, to London, may even outweigh the reopenings. Rebuilding Reading and moving some trains downstairs in Paddingon did affect more people in a minor way, while reopening Okehampton affects fewer people in a major way. Can non-local improvements be advertised in the local context? Or is that bad because it's pointing at projects where the primary benefits are in London?

BayPaul said:

Could shouting about the combined reopenings in the UK be a bad news story? It could easily be seen as a 'since 2000 we've spent billions of pounds reopening half a dozen loss-making lines to places you've never heard of' story.

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If you adopt the attitude that spending money on local projects is bad, sure.

It's not all about frequency increases on profitable lines. It's about allowing more of the population access to the railway. Do the people who live in Okehampton or Galashiels who now have better public transport options, particularly if travelling longer-distance, not matter? Do the tourists who will now find it easier to visit North Dartmoor or the Borders and spend money in the local economy not matter?

Put it this way, someone travelling from Okehampton to London or v.v. will have benefited more from their local train beng re-introduced than they will from increasing the frequency of the connecting Exeter-London service from the traditional 1tph to 3tp2h. Previously they would have had to have done a multi-modal bus/train journey, which would likely have been slower and probably more expensive.

Please let's not go down the route of seeing by-all-accounts successful re-openings as a waste of money. Way too much of that attitude in society today, and due to the knock-on effect of job losses and public service cuts, it helps no-one.

Sonic1234 said:

Then this is the problem. Loosen the rules.

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Indeed and im going off thread but ORR are inward looking when it comes to the railway and seeking a zero risk outcome. If they looked it holistically as Office of Road & Rail they would then value the reduction in road accidents from modal transfer vs the risk of LXing incidents.

Sonic1234 said:

Then this is the problem. Loosen the rules.

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Indeed, we've lived with level crossings for years. If they were that dangerous, we'd be closing all the existing ones. Introducing a few on a short section of line between Lewes and Uckfield isn't going to make any meaningful difference.

That said, I do take the point above about the approach to Lewes being wrong. For this service to be successful, it would need to go directly to Brighton.

marshlinker said:

The primary reason why its unaffordable even in its basic form is the ORR ban on new level crossings.

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Not so. It’s barey noise in the total cost. The reason it’s unaffordable is that the benefit it would provide does not come anywhere near the costs of building the new line.

nw1 said:

Indeed, we've lived with level crossings for years. If they were that dangerous, we'd be closing all the existing ones. Introducing a few on a short section of line between Lewes and Uckfield isn't going to make any meaningful difference.

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Generally speaking, in whole life cost terms, when buidligna new railway it is cheaper to build a bridge than a level crossing.

Also, for the avoidance of doubt it is not the ORRs rules. It is the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Finally, we are closing existing crossings, progressively. There‘s about 1000 fewer of them than there were 30 years ago.

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There's been a reasonable amount of positive (local, I assume) coverage of the new Oxford to Bristol service, which was delivered with no new infrastructure. Obviously those opportunities don't exist everywhere, but where they do then more noise could be made on a local/regional level.

nw1 said:

Please let's not go down the route of seeing by-all-accounts successful re-openings as a waste of money. Way too much of that attitude in society today, and due to the knock-on effect of job losses and public service cuts, it helps no-one.

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It isn't necessarily that we see these reopenings as a waste of money, but more the question of whether it's sensible making a big song and dance in the public eye about having spent hundreds of millions of pounds to reopen a few branch lines to Nowheresville, Little Piddling and Dunny-on-the-Wold. Much of the media is vehemently anti-rail and anti-public-spending, and there's a risk that the more noise the government makes about it, the more it will turn off people who haven't seen their branch line reopen, or haven't seen any improvements to their rail service, and will think that these links to obscure places they've never heard of are not a good use of their taxes. Maybe we're better off just getting on and doing the job, trumpeting achievements to people who will see them as achievements but not giving the fossil fuel lobby any more ammunition than we need to!

Bald Rick said:

Not so. It’s barey noise in the total cost. The reason it’s unaffordable is that the benefit it would provide does not come anywhere near the costs of building the new line.




Generally speaking, in whole life cost terms, when buidligna new railway it is cheaper to build a bridge than a level crossing.

Also, for the avoidance of doubt it is not the ORRs rules. It is the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Finally, we are closing existing crossings, progressively. There‘s about 1000 fewer of them than there were 30 years ago.

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I'm not actually an advocate of Lewes to Uckfield re-opening but in my opinion the 2008 network rail report is at best a gold plated estimate if not a solid Gold 22ct one.
Have any of the successful re-openings since actually required or incorporated these features which were incorporated in to the 'basic' costs of the Uckfield scheme?
1) 90 mph line limit throughout.
2) New Dual Track formation throughout (mostly only single track actually to be laid)
3) Full Double track junction laid at southern main line junction with 1000yd long "loop" on the branch. (not required for the proposed timetable)
4) New station at Northern end with 2 x 12 coach platforms and new 1000yd loop (not actually required for proposed timetable)
5) Replacement of all previous level crossings with double formation overbridges.
6) Provision of footbridges for all public rights of way.

As regards the level crossings being a health and safety requirement can you explain how the Alloa reinstatement which was the same timescale as the Uckfield report allowed the re-opening of a level crossing (and overhead electrification) on a public road to a major logistics hub with many hgv movements per day but Anchor Lane, Barcombe which was a very narrow dead end country lane leading to a pub and the river required a full double track overbridge? Yes the track had been removed on the Alloa line stretch concerned.

It doesn't really surprise me that the CBR of the Uckfield re-opening sucked.

Egg Centric said:

It does worry me a bit that modern traction is becoming so efficient and lacking as much soul.

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This is fine by me, given the sheer mess of politics involved in the procurement and funding of new build rolling stock.

Egg Centric said:

Fine for the current generation of EMUs but they may paradoxically be their descendants' undoing.

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I'm not sure what you mean by an undoing of descendants.

D365 said:

I'm not sure what you mean by an undoing of descendants.

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Let me try to put it another way:

If we don't keep inspiring future generations of rail enthusiasts then we lose rails quiet allies in government, the civil service, etc.

So how do we be uninspiring? One of the best ways is efficient characterless homogeneous fleets.

A loss of institutional rail enthusiasm will lead to rail being considered solely on rational cost/benefit.

And this leads to something like Serpell.

And so the next order for EMUs is smaller. Less services to run. Because their ancestors were too good.

If I were in charge of HS2 procurement I would be specifying some sort of character to the trains. Doesn't really matter what - an interesting noise, unusual cabin concept, weird ride at certain resonant frequencies, whatever. But something to make people fall in love.

Via Uckfield might have helped a bit today! (Bridge problem at Purley closing Brighton mainline).

Well, this is unsurprisingly circling round to the problem that infrastructure in the UK costs far more to construct than it should. The UK is consistently one of the most expensive countries to build infrastructure in, it's clear that a large chunk of that is not due to immutable factors like geography but changeable ones like law and practices.

stevieinselby said:

It isn't necessarily that we see these reopenings as a waste of money, but more the question of whether it's sensible making a big song and dance in the public eye about having spent hundreds of millions of pounds to reopen a few branch lines to Nowheresville, Little Piddling and Dunny-on-the-Wold. Much of the media is vehemently anti-rail and anti-public-spending, and there's a risk that the more noise the government makes about it, the more it will turn off people who haven't seen their branch line reopen, or haven't seen any improvements to their rail service, and will think that these links to obscure places they've never heard of are not a good use of their taxes. Maybe we're better off just getting on and doing the job, trumpeting achievements to people who will see them as achievements but not giving the fossil fuel lobby any more ammunition than we need to!

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Personally I don't see a lot of people complaining about branch lines being reopened. I do see things like people complaining that the planning application and associated documents for reopening Portishead - building two stations and rehabilitating a few miles of extant alignment - comes to over 79,000 pages. "The way in which Britain reopens old lines and builds new lines is too slow and expensive" is a much more common view in my experience than "Britain focusses too much on reopening branch lines".

marshlinker said:

As regards the level crossings being a health and safety requirement can you explain how the Elgin reinstatement which was the same timescale as the Uckfield report allowed the re-opening of a level crossing (and overhead electrification) on a public road to a major logistics hub with many hgv movements per day but Anchor Lane, Barcombe which was a very narrow dead end country lane leading to a pub and the river required a full double track overbridge? Yes the track had been removed on the Elgin line stretch concerned.

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Can you clarify which Elgin you mean? I know that the loop at Elgin on the diesel through route between Inverness and Aberdeen was extended quite a few years ago but the crossing was already there and the line isn’t electrified.

Bald Rick said:

Finally, we are closing existing crossings, progressively. There‘s about 1000 fewer of them than there were 30 years ago.

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So some people rarely encounter them, and don't know how to approach them when they do.

Making the world a little less safe would encourage people to be aware of their surroundings and take some responsibility for themselves.

Dr Hoo said:

Can you clarify which Elgin you mean? I know that the loop at Elgin on the diesel through route between Inverness and Aberdeen was extended quite a few years ago but the crossing was already there and the line isn’t electrified.

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Sorry, brainstorm for Elgin read Alloa, I'll amend my previous post

Sonic1234 said:

So some people rarely encounter them, and don't know how to approach them when they do.

Making the world a little less safe would encourage people to be aware of their surroundings and take some responsibility for themselves.

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Giving people more opportunities to encounter a risk because otherwise they rarely encounter the risk is not in my opinion really in the spirit of live and let live or the as low as reasonably possible principles of the Health and Safety at Work Act. Risk is usually measured in terms of likelihood and impact and keeping likelihood high is just keeping the risk and number of incidents high.

Steering back to the discussion on this thread, Skipton to Colne is not a blockbuster opening. Anyone at Leeds/Bradford is getting on the existing hourly Northern Rail service to reach Burnley, Blackburn and Preston. Extending the existing Halifax terminator from Hull to Blackburn or Preston would lift the frequency to half hourly. It’s a lovely idea but once you start to really look at it, it becomes a bigger financial cost, with fewer benefits.

Rail needs to be demonstrated as the best option for specific jobs in a transport system. Long drawn out rail campaigns start with a disused railway line, then keep throwing problems at their solution. The successful schemes list out the problems, show the options and only progress rail if that is the genuine solution.

I appreciate that it will make me unpopular with some on here but I think that if you want to see rail network expansion progress, serious consideration should be put to pulling back the campaigns for schemes that just aren’t progressing such as Skipton to Colne and Lewes to Uckfield. They are making noise that reinforces that no rail network expansion schemes are ever going to be delivered. I think BRTA has inadvertently increased the negative discourse with what appears to me to be a refreshed correspondence campaign in the local press for lots of schemes, many of which are not going to move forwards. The press add this correspondence to their websites and social media, which receives a lot of responses querying how long these schemes have been talked about. I might have just had the ones with the most negative comments shown to me by the Facebook algorithm.

I was disappointed to see the BML2 X account negatively respond recently to someone who was pulling together support for a Greenway on the Lewes to Uckfield route. My worry is that with no use, the whole formation is at risk reducing any hope for any transport scheme if nobody is bought in.

marshlinker said:

Sorry, brainstorm for Elgin read Alloa, I'll amend my previous post

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That would still have been an existing LC on an open railway, wouldn't it? A very different proposal to a new railway with a new level crossing (stuff that closed and was ripped up several decades ago doesn't count).

Zomboid said:

That would still have been an existing LC on an open railway, wouldn't it? A very different proposal to a new railway with a new level crossing (stuff that closed and was ripped up several decades ago doesn't count).

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No, although the track remained on some sections it hadn't been continuous over the re-opened section for at least 20 years. In at least one case the level crossing had been bull dozed and tracks removed to improve HGV access. The passenger reopening was delayed by 9 months for the "new" level crossings to be bought up to standard.
The Alloa reopening cost Transport Scotland £65 million including a new Alloa Station for 21 kms. It included 6 new level crossings.
Network Rails Basic cost estimate for Lewes-Uckfield was £141m for 11kms, both these were in 2008.

Was it technically closed, or was it a Calvert to Bletchley situation where it was "open" but actually unusable?

Zomboid said:

Was it technically closed, or was it a Calvert to Bletchley situation where it was "open" but actually unusable?

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Mothballed, it wasn't technically closed.

Zomboid said:

Was it technically closed, or was it a Calvert to Bletchley situation where it was "open" but actually unusable?

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The latter

I do think there remains a level of affection for trains amongst the general public. The example I like to give is the ".... by train by Alice Roberts" series. These are primarily History/Archeology series but feature trains for particular reason other than people like trains. I imagine in practical terms although she is filmed travelling by trian is made also using vans to transport the camera equipment and crew's luggage.

Don't forget Airdrie to Bathgate and the Larkhall Branch in Scotland were true complete reopenings rather than upgraded freight–only or "mothballed" routes – the A–B line was closed by British Railways Sc.R. in 1956 to passengers and 1982 to freight, and the track lifted in the mid 1980s and converted to a cycle path – the cycle path had to be closed and re–routed to allow A–B reinstatement to proceed!

Zomboid said:

Was it technically closed, or was it a Calvert to Bletchley situation where it was "open" but actually unusable?

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Calvert to Bletchley had track stolen for some of its length, stretching the definition of open somewhat for a railway..

fishwomp said:

Calvert to Bletchley had track stolen for some of its length, stretching the definition of open somewhat for a railway..

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That's as may be, but in terms of Alloa, the line was "open", so restarting train services would not have created any new level crossings, therefore it was possible to use the old ones. (They chose not to do that for EWR aside from the Bicester one, where there had been actual services over it consistently anyhow).

But for Uckfield - Lewes, those would count as brand new level crossings and that's a different matter...