Buying back heritage lines

[CMS1]

Okehampton achieved 350k entries/exits in the last year, which for a reopening cost of £40m can only be considering a great success.

Are there other heritage lines, or parts of, that would provide a valuable transport link if they were 'bought back'? Obviously they might not offer as much a benefit as some completely new routes, but if they cost a tenth of a new line, they only need to have a tenth of the benefit to give the same benefit cost ratio.

There's probably not many, but one I've thought of a few times is the Mid Norfolk Railway from Wymondham to Dereham, and the MNR transferring to Dereham to County School. As a heritage railway the MNR has come a long way but still has quite a way to go, plus they are also slowly expanding north. If Wymondham to Dereham was bought back, it would give MNR funds to finish the Dereham-County School section, and give them a more managable heritage line with a lovely terminus at County School (esp. compared to Wymondham Abbey where's there's not really anything to do/see, not even running around unfortunately). Then Dereham could get a rail link to to Norwich for potentially a 'bargain' cost. Whilst there is already a reasonable road option, this was also the case with Okehampton.

 

[Class73Electro]

Watercress Line maybe, especially if it could be relinked to Winchester as a branch line.

 

[Ashley Hill]

The Paignton to Kingswear line would be ideal. It would relieve congestion on the areas busy roads and possibly open up year round business opportunities for Dartmouth.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

East Lancs - Castleton, Heywood, Bury & Rawtenstall. Tram- train operation has been mooted.

 

[mr_jrt]

My pet proposal is to restore East Grinstead to Haywards Heath, extending the service down to there, and possibly even extending it further down to the west coastway, Brighton, or Eastbourne. Would add some useful connectivity, and a handy diversionary route. There's a lot more you could bolt on to really take advantage of the capacity, but even on its own just to Haywards Heath I think it could be worthwhile.

 

[Travelmonkey]

Gloustershire and Warwickshire would surley fit. it plums into XC at the south and Honeyborne/Long marston to the north.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Paignton to Kingswear line would be ideal. It would relieve congestion on the areas busy roads and possibly open up year round business opportunities for Dartmouth.

Around there Minehead is another example of one that should come back as a proper railway.

 

[Halish Railway]

East Lancs - Castleton, Heywood, Bury & Rawtenstall. Tram- train operation has been mooted.

To me this is the only one that seems likely, although I’d like to see a Rawtenstall to Manchester Victoria via Haywood heavy rail service.

 

[brad465]

The Paignton to Kingswear line would be ideal. It would relieve congestion on the areas busy roads and possibly open up year round business opportunities for Dartmouth.

This would be my number one on this subject, especially if the company running it either went under or decided to sell it. It's very easily connected to the mainline and as alluded to serves a reasonably well visited and populated area. If the line can retain railtour links that would provide some extra justifying income and use. That said, when it comes to intermediate stations, at best only Churston would be served, for the benefit of its halfway passing loop and possible linkage to Brixham, but even then there's the costly accessibility infrastructure that I presume would be legally required if NR took it over (unless you can get away with entrances on both sides).

Around there Minehead is another example of one that should come back as a proper railway.

As far as Bishops Lydeard is something the council have tried unsuccessfully so far to get upgraded, but would be beneficial for serving new housing in both this town and Norton Fitzwarren, plus potentially be a P&R station. All the way through to Minehead would be much harder to justify and would certainly involve several stations closing. Watchet and Williton might survive in this hypothesis; the former being the largest intermediate settlement, while the latter is next-largest and has a passing loop of potential value.


Another I'd consider is the East Somerset Railway to Shepton Mallet: thanks to Merehead Quarry and the heritage line combined, permanent way already exists from East Somerset junction to just to the east of the town, which is reasonably sized, and would make Wells much closer to a railway (as nice as reopening the line that far is, Shepton Mallet itself is far too built up to cross it). To serve it I'd extend Westbury/Frome local terminators to serve this area.

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

Watercress Line maybe, especially if it could be relinked to Winchester as a branch line.

The problems with this are that the M3 is now in the way of any Winchester reinstatement, while the rest of the line is very rural.

 

[CMS1]

To me this is the only one that seems likely, although I’d like to see a Rawtenstall to Manchester Victoria via Haywood heavy rail service.

For lines like this where the ELR probably haven't got anywhere obvious to 'move' to, could there be an agreement where the TOC ran services from say 6-10 AM, heritage services 10am-3pm, TOC 3pm onwards. From the TOC's perspective, its probably the middle of day services where they lose the most money. There could be an arrangement where the heritage co maintain the stations, but network rail maintain the track with no track access charges for the heritage co. Most heritage lines only run at weekends and weekdays during school holidays so would only apply on these days.

 

[Envoy]

Gloucester Warwickshire Railway: Link Cheltenham with Stratford-upon-Avon.

 

[The exile]

This would

Another I'd consider is the East Somerset Railway to Shepton Mallet: thanks to Merehead Quarry and the heritage line combined, permanent way already exists from East Somerset junction to just to the east of the town, which is reasonably sized, and would make Wells much closer to a railway (as nice as reopening the line that far is, Shepton Mallet itself is far too built up to cross it). To serve it I'd extend Westbury/Frome local terminators to serve this area.

The issue there is that the line heads off in the wrong direction for much of the likely demand. Getting to Bristol or Bath via Frome is a long way round.

 

[BayPaul]

The Paignton to Kingswear line would be ideal. It would relieve congestion on the areas busy roads and possibly open up year round business opportunities for Dartmouth.

I would respectfully disagree. I believe the line in its current form carries more tourists into Dartmouth than a national rail line ever would.

For me the ideal would be for a commuter DMU over the line in the morning and evening, but keep the Steam service during the day.

 

[SynthD]

When was Okehampton a heritage line? It was NR owned and operated, public summer services.

Gloucester Warwickshire Railway: Link Cheltenham with Stratford-upon-Avon.

That ends at Broadway, 16 miles from Cheltenham and 13 from Stratford. The major road in south Stratford is on the former line. Continuing as far as Honeybourne is an option.

 

[yorksrob]

If heritage lines are struggling generally, there is an argument that a controlled consolidation could be encouraged, with those most likely to be useful for day to day transport taken back into the network.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

When was Okehampton a heritage line? It was NR owned and operated, public summer services.

The Okehampton line is an example of NR buying it back - it was owned by Aggregate Industries for many years. The Dartmoor Rly leased part of it; GWR operated the Summer Sunday service.

 

[xotGD]

Weardale, with a through service to Darlo.

 

[Falcon1200]

Some interesting ideas, but surely any Heritage line would need huge sums spent to bring them up to modern standards, in terms of line speed, signalling, accessibility, for example, not to mention ongoing subsidy for none of them would ever cover their operating, maintenance and renewal costs.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As far as Bishops Lydeard is something the council have tried unsuccessfully so far to get upgraded, but would be beneficial for serving new housing in both this town and Norton Fitzwarren, plus potentially be a P&R station. All the way through to Minehead would be much harder to justify and would certainly involve several stations closing. Watchet and Williton might survive in this hypothesis; the former being the largest intermediate settlement, while the latter is next-largest and has a passing loop of potential value.

Minehead is a reasonably sized tourist destination as well as locals, though. OK, any line like this is going to eat subsidy, but it would seem to me that this would clearly be more viable than say Gunnislake or possibly even Looe. I think subsidy is a predicate of any idea in this thread.

As to the intermediates, is there actual value in having a preserved railway station in your hamlet? There probably isn't really. So they'd lose something they didn't really have.

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

Some interesting ideas, but surely any Heritage line would need huge sums spent to bring them up to modern standards, in terms of line speed, signalling, accessibility, for example, not to mention ongoing subsidy for none of them would ever cover their operating, maintenance and renewal costs.

Certainly subsidy is a given, but if you're just wanting a branch line do you really need to rebuild your single line to a two track 100mph railway a la East West Rail? You probably don't. You'd want a linespeed over 25mph. sure, but probably not over 60-70 or so which isn't hard to achieve?

 

[stuu]

Road access to West Somerset is absolutely appalling - there's a few sections of the road that aren't even two lanes wide. Minehead is about 25 miles from the nearest motorway junction but that takes easily an hour in a car. The bus takes around an hour and a half and is very much a distress purchase. A train should be able to do that in about half the time with a 60mph line speed. West Somerset's social mobility and deprivation levels are atrocious too, which is at least in part down to the lack of decent transport.

 

[quantinghome]

The Paignton to Kingswear line would be ideal. It would relieve congestion on the areas busy roads and possibly open up year round business opportunities for Dartmouth.

Isn't that essentially what it does now? It's the only preserved line which runs on a commercial basis which indicates it is already satisfying a transport need.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Isn't that essentially what it does now? It's the only preserved line which runs on a commercial basis which indicates it is already satisfying a transport need.

It doesn't fulfil a transport need, it fulfils a tourism experience need. A reopened mainline railway could of course still do that - the Jacobite is a good example. Preserved railways, whether commercial or charitable, do not sell transport*, they sell tourism experiences.

The transport need is fulfilled by buses and private cars.

* They are occasionally useful for transport, but not that often. Usually they are expensive and infrequent compared to the bus, and the more commercial operators have no interest in serving intermediate stations.

 

[BayPaul]

It doesn't fulfil a transport need, it fulfils a tourism experience need. A reopened mainline railway could of course still do that - the Jacobite is a good example. Preserved railways, whether commercial or charitable, do not sell transport*, they sell tourism experiences.

The transport need is fulfilled by buses and private cars.

* They are occasionally useful for transport, but not that often. Usually they are expensive and infrequent compared to the bus, and the more commercial operators have no interest in serving intermediate stations.

It very much fulfils a tourism transport need. In the summer it brings thousands of tourists into Dartmouth every day, who would otherwise require parking. Unlike most heritage railways there is minimal experience on site other than the train ride itself, pretty much all the passengers head into Dartmouth for the day.

It might be pretty, expensive, and not used by commuters but it is still definitely transport, and I genuinely believe that it carries more passengers than an equivalent national rail service would - it frequently packs out 7 carriage trains every 40 minutes.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

This has kind of happened with Barry Tourist Railway, with it being taken over and used for stock storage for the National Network

I know there have been proposals for Stoke to Leek (part mothballed line, part Churnet Valley) to run as a National Rail service.
You could keep the heritage railway on the Froghall-Ipstones section if you could work out a way of shared running around Leekbrook Junction.

There keep being rumblings about reopening Aberystwyth to Carmarthen, which presumably would require the buy-back of the Gwili railway, though I don't see that happening any time soon.
Similarly Bangor-Caernarfon-Afonwen, which would require purchase/joint running of the Welsh Highland between Caernarfon and Dinas.

Gobowen-Oswestry might be viable as a National Rail line (if you could sort out the pesky level crossings), but you could probably keep the heritage railway south of Oswestry.

There was talk a long while back of running National Rail services over the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway, extended to a new M40 Parkway station. However, I can't see that happening now, with Haddenham & Thame Parkway now serving that market and offering a much better service option.

 

[35B]

Around there Minehead is another example of one that should come back as a proper railway.

Which would be a great way to undermine the viability of the line, by adding a marginal "public service" railway to the network while removing a significant contributor to the local tourist economy.

The railway has been optimised for the 25mph restrictions for heritage railways, and any acceleration would introduce the issues of "big railway" equipment to the heritage fleet. Meanwhile, the 28 bus provides a service to Taunton that is at a reasonable pace, and delivers people to a more central location.

Whether a "tourist railway" is or isn't a good thing is frankly a distraction - what matters is that the net value of the railway is far greater now than it would be as part of the national network

 

[Bletchleyite]

The railway has been optimised for the 25mph restrictions for heritage railways, and any acceleration would introduce the issues of "big railway" equipment to the heritage fleet. Meanwhile, the 28 bus provides a service to Taunton that is at a reasonable pace

It takes an hour and a half. I used it last month. It was pretty grim to be honest, and that's with brand new electric vehicles.

, and delivers people to a more central location.

The station is at the end of the high street.

Without question I'd have used the train were it an option.

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

Whether a "tourist railway" is or isn't a good thing is frankly a distraction - what matters is that the net value of the railway is far greater now than it would be as part of the national network

How do you feel about Okehampton, which seems in a way a bit similar?

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Keighley and Worth Valley is often mentioned as suitable for commuter train use but then detailed studies find that it isn't such a good case after all. Pointing in the wrong direction at Keighley doesn't help.

Certainly the world has moved on from the days of Beeching cuts and, some at least, now accept that some lines should never have been closed.

Through trains at key times (eg to holiday destinations such a Minehead) rather than an outright takeover seems a suitable intermediate position. But should a heritage line in a suitable location fail then it should certainly be considered.

Converse to the argument, should Grosmont to Whitby be sold to the NYMR with a token service provided by GBR for scholars with connections at Grosmont at other times?

 

[simonw]

Keighley and Worth Valley is often mentioned as suitable for commuter train use but then detailed studies find that it isn't such a good case after all. Pointing in the wrong direction at Keighley doesn't help.

Certainly the world has moved on from the days of Beeching cuts and, some at least, now accept that some lines should never have been closed.

Through trains at key times (eg to holiday destinations such a Minehead) rather than an outright takeover seems a suitable intermediate position. But should a heritage line in a suitable location fail then it should certainly be considered.

Converse to the argument, should Grosmont to Whitby be sold to the NYMR with a token service provided by GBR for scholars with connections at Grosmont at other times?

Given the financial position of the nymr, that is not a flyer.

 

[The exile]

As to the intermediates, is there actual value in having a preserved railway station in your hamlet? There probably isn't really. So they'd lose something they didn't really have.
[automerge

For some intermediates (particularly those that themselves have heritage attractions) there probably is. I imagine Dunster probably picks up a bit of trade from days out by train.[/automerge]

Apologies - somehow my reply is appearing as if it’s a quote. Don’t know what happened there.

 

[MatthewHutton]

It takes an hour and a half. I used it last month. It was pretty grim to be honest, and that's with brand new electric vehicles.

It’s a pretty slow road even in a car.

I think there is still a big challenge in general for the south west to increase tourist passenger numbers for the railway stations that already exist.