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It’s always amusing how often the phrase “loss-making branch line” crops up, especially when people refer to the supposed “basket case” that Okehampton was meant to be (and no, let’s not reopen the debate about whether Okehampton was a ‘proper’ reopening). The reality is that ground...

Subsidence on the Cudworth route was rectified with significant investment but closed shortly after to reduce InterCity sector costs.

It was one of several closures driven by accountants aiming to make InterCity profitable as costs for the route were allocated to that sector. The subsidence excuse was convenient and had been resolved recently through an investment programme involving some resignalling. Today the route would...

I agree there will be trips to/from Okehampton that were previously to/from Tiverton Parkway (and Exeter too). However, given that Tiverton Parkway usage is 33% above its pre-Covid (and Okehampton reopening) peak, any significant abstraction would be difficult to prove.

I hope so! Passengers struggled to board a packed 2-car 150 departing Marsh Barton at 1105 today.

No.

? 1764450360 Or how inefficient in terms of capacity and journey time roads are in urban areas.

And Vehicle Excise Durty is £8bn per year. Good maths, yes the average would be about £50m per mile - it’s the current industry benchmark. 1764445542 Correct but that doesn’t change the facts as stated. 1764445544 Correct but that doesn’t change the facts as stated.

For those who consistently argue against rail investment on these forums, it’s worth noting that it would take approximately 100 years of fuel duty and vehicle excise receipts to pay back the cost of building the UK’s classified road network from scratch, without any contribution to maintenance...

Only 70 spaces at Okehampton—a new station will open next year to service this market—but the lack of spaces at the existing station has not stopped the reopening being an overwhelming success. Many customers do not have access to a car and walk to the station. One remark about the location of...

You could say that location or contours aren’t that great for Okehampton.

I’m not sure there’s any operation on the whole network that would return a profit if all NR costs were appropriately allocated. There were very few ‘profitable’ operations even before the direct NR grants were introduced and most of those were only because the track access charge for a mile...

It’s a public service (like NHS, schools, police, MoJ) and won’t directly recover the capital cost. Neither is it the basket case many predicted.

There‘s a DfT report in the public domain, written by Systra I recall. Operating costs are covered which is better than many people anticipated.

Sounds just like the Okehampton ‘subsidy’ predictions that haven’t materialised. As for journey times, it would be considerably quicker than the current peak-time bus service (see earlier posts) and probably 10-20 mins faster than an Express bus if introduced. 1763495634 Yes, takes far too...

£11bn (38% of GDP) in 1963 and £1.3trn in 2024 (44%). Prices have increased by 20.5 times over the same period and (after adjusting for inflation) the economy is c 4.6 times the size in 1963 today. The population has also increased by c 30%. 1763494173 Indeed, the DCO for Portishead was...

Welfare spending was 19% of total government spending in 1960 rising steadily to 34% in 2015. From 2020 (post-pandemic) it’s c 25% - not a welfare cash reduction but a reflection of the increased total spending.

I was referring to the distance. I’m sure everyone appreciates that no two reinstatements will be the exactly same.

Govt funding of the railway is 0.93% of total government spending today and was 1.3% in 1963. Good value I’d say considering the tax receipts from railway operations, never mind other economic activity (and tax receipts) enabled by the railway.

The 3 miles Pill to Portishead is hardly existing infrastructure. Not materially different than the 5 miles from Bere Alston to Tavistock in fact.