Cornwall Metro funding approved

[snowball]

Where? The A30 bridge over the Newquay line appears to be long enough to allow the route to be reopened. Although whether the abutments etc actually allow it is a different matter

I examined that bridge once while on holiday in Cornwall in 1995. I'm sure it's not an obstacle to reopening the line. It's a most unusually shaped bridge with a longer span under one carriageway of the A30 than the other, so it can accommodate both the tightly curved present line and the straighter former line, were it to be reopened. If you look carefully you can see the bridge joints in Google satellite view.

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Soon afterwards, when the Innis Downs to Indian Queens section of the A30 was being planned, there was talk of rerouting the railway along the closed line, to enable the present line to be used for the road, avoiding the need for a new alignment across Goss Moor. But it took so long for the railway to decide anything that the road people chose a different alignment to the north.

 

[nanstallon]

The scheme will degenerate into the usual Cornwall Council farce. Already there are problems in finding maintainers for mechanical signalling interlocking not to mention spare parts and the revenue costs of staffing the signalboxes. As usual the Councillors have been lured into a daft plan by consultants who get paid the same whatever the outcome. Network Rail are happy to play along with it as they get a bigger train set. As usual the taxpayers will be left to pick up the pieces. There is an excellent bus service within the county and the fare is £2. If you want to travel from Newquay to Truro you get on a bus , not a train that grinds across the county over a ramshackle railway line before heading for Truro and takes twice as long. Was the wrong line closed? The fact of the matter is there was no freight and passengers could be counted on the fingers of one hand on many trains. It was closed by BR before Beeching came along. Par to Newquay had mineral traffic and the summer through services. Even then the passenger service was on the hit list and Newquay Town Council wanted to close the station and cut the line back to a new station on the Par side of Trenance viaduct. What they thought of the railway is best exemplified by the hideous approach to Newquay station.

A phoenix arising from the ashes? In the eyes of those in the ivory tower of county hall perhaps.

My bold print.

The Newquay branch was not listed for closure in the Beeching Report in 1963. I remember the town council welcoming the Beeching Report, possibly because many rival holiday resorts (e.g. St. Ives, Bude and Ilfracombe) were set to lose their lines.

 

[irish_rail]

AS it won't go to Newquay Airport, a shuttle bus from St Columb Road might make it of value to more of Cornwall

100 percent this is needed, though I guess Quintrell Downs would be more likely? From Newquay you can fly to New York (via Dublin or Belfast with Aer Lingus) not to mention Ryanair to Europe and Eastern Airways to Scotland , and yet at present Newquay Airport is not reachable on public transport from the rail system. Utter madness in my opinion.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

A pity they couldn’t have put a bit more imagination in and reopened the line form St Dennis Junction to Burngullow Junction with stations at St Dennis and Foxhole. Trains could run on to St Austell and then either continue up country (with a station at Holmbush?) or reverse at St Austell for Truro and beyond. It would be a bit more expensive, but I reckon it would be a far more useful improvement than the present one.

That would though also presumably mean closing Luxulyan, Bugle, and Roche stations?

 

[nanstallon]

That would though also presumably mean closing Luxulyan, Bugle, and Roche stations?

Whenever I've travelled over the Newquay branch on a Sprinter which stops at intermediate stations by request, we have usually stopped for business at all of these. The IET trains don't, AFAIK, stop at them, even on request.

 

[The exile]

Whenever I've travelled over the Newquay branch on a Sprinter which stops at intermediate stations by request, we have usually stopped for business at all of these. The IET trains don't, AFAIK, stop at them, even on request.

That is correct - they don’t. For several (many?) years they had as good as no service on a Saturday due to the number of long distance trains going up the branch.

 

[duffield]

I agree with the comments above. Newquay to Falmouth and vice versa is fine if everything runs smoothly and on time on the main lines and branch lines.

When it invariably doesn’t, the service will fall apart with services terminating / starting short and traincrew in the wrong places for later workings.

Bus journey between Falmouth and Newquay takes around 2 hours and 15 minutes so will be interesting to see how the end to end times compare for the train.

I'd expect the end to end times for a through service to be not much better than 1hr45m based on the current timings for the individual legs, unless there are some notable infrastructure improvements and/or a number of stations are skipped.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'd expect the end to end times for a through service to be not much better than 1hr45m based on the current timings for the individual legs, unless there are some notable infrastructure improvements and/or a number of stations are skipped.

I think it's fairly obvious that once Cornwall Metro is complete and bedded in, the next stage needs to be campaigning for linespeed improvements between Par and Newquay. It's absurd that, even for the non-stop London trains, it takes about an hour to go just 20 miles. There are admittedly lots of very curvy bits on the line where I'd guess linespeed is limited by curvature, but there are also some long straightish sections where there seems no reason in principle why the alignment shouldn't be suitable for higher speeds.

But that's for the future. First things first - let's get the Metro completed.

 

[sh24]

100 percent this is needed, though I guess Quintrell Downs would be more likely? From Newquay you can fly to New York (via Dublin or Belfast with Aer Lingus) not to mention Ryanair to Europe and Eastern Airways to Scotland , and yet at present Newquay Airport is not reachable on public transport from the rail system. Utter madness in my opinion.

I actually tried London to Gatwick, fly to Newquay Airport, cab to St Columb Road, then train to Par and onwards to Plymouth. It was one long, slow journey... Not sure there would be many takers for a bus shuttle.

 

[Requeststop]

I actually tried London to Gatwick, fly to Newquay Airport, cab to St Columb Road, then train to Par and onwards to Plymouth. It was one long, slow journey... Not sure there would be many takers for a bus shuttle.

There are moves to re-open Plymouth Airport, but the way things move down in the far South West, it'll be another five years or more before it'll happen.
I really wonder if the Metro will actually come off and if it does if it'll be a success. As others have said, times on Par-Newquay are dreadfully slow and a lot of improvement other than a station platform at Newquay and a passing loop is really required. Personally when travelling from Truro to Newquay, I take the Bus, U1 or U1A. It goes all over the place but it's more regular and if your timing is correct much faster. even in winter.

 

[nanstallon]

There are moves to re-open Plymouth Airport, but the way things move down in the far South West, it'll be another five years or more before it'll happen.
I really wonder if the Metro will actually come off and if it does if it'll be a success. As others have said, times on Par-Newquay are dreadfully slow and a lot of improvement other than a station platform at Newquay and a passing loop is really required. Personally when travelling from Truro to Newquay, I take the Bus, U1 or U1A. It goes all over the place but it's more regular and if your timing is correct much faster. even in winter.

Although I am a Metro-sceptic, it should be noted that the Truro to Newquay bus is at the mercy of summer traffic, which around Newquay is a serious problem. Worse than that, the U1/U1A service is Newquay-Truro-Falmouth, which makes the bus service to Falmouth unreliable in summer. This makes rail reasonably competitive in practice, despite its zig-zag route, for the Falmouth to Newquay traffic, such as it is. My own feeling is that the Newquay branch improvements need doing as soon as possible, and with a modern footbridge and lift at Par, it may work better than having a through service which would be prone to getting held up by main line delays and would then discabooberate the Falmouth branch timetable.

 

[Requeststop]

I did say, that the bus does go all around the houses to get from Truro to Newquay, but it's better than taking the train.
Timing, especially connecting at Par from the West to the 2-hourly service is a lottery and there have been a number of times travelling West when I've heard announcements that they may not be able to connect at Par and passengers for Newquay to travel on to St Austell to connect to the bus service or replacement bus or even taxi.
It's the two hourly branch line service and the trouble of having the knowledge of connection times at Par, which is so off-putting to potential passengers. Who wants to arrive at Par only to find a 90 minute waiting time for the connection to Newquay. That's why the bus nowadays is preferable. It's why I hope the Metro service comes off for the improvement on the Par-Newquay branch.,

By the way, anyone know why this summer there is a Newquay -Penzance service once a day in both directions. Never come across this before in my 71 years on this planet.

 

[sh24]

There are moves to re-open Plymouth Airport, but the way things move down in the far South West, it'll be another five years or more before it'll happen.
I really wonder if the Metro will actually come off and if it does if it'll be a success. As others have said, times on Par-Newquay are dreadfully slow and a lot of improvement other than a station platform at Newquay and a passing loop is really required. Personally when travelling from Truro to Newquay, I take the Bus, U1 or U1A. It goes all over the place but it's more regular and if your timing is correct much faster. even in winter.

I very much doubt PLY will ever re-open. There isn't the critical mass of business traffic, and the 3.25 hour train journey to London isn't such a hindrance. The runway is too short for a 737 or A320 so no LCC is going to fly there.

Back on topic - the Metro really isn't about Newquay-Falmouth journeys. It's about joining up a bunch of destinations so that people can go Roche-St Austell, or Par-Penryn on a predicatable timetable. As someone who remembers 4-5 trains a day on a bubble car, it's fantastic to see this level of proposed investment.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

By the way, anyone know why this summer there is a Newquay -Penzance service once a day in both directions. Never come across this before in my 71 years on this planet.

Operational reasons - current GWR stock shortage that the 175s are planned to fill.

 

[nanstallon]

I wonder whether the through Pz-Nqy service is a 'dry run' for a later through service all day. At present the two hourly service on the branch is a turn off. My previous championing of the rail service is based on there being an hourly service - the sooner, the better!

 

[RPI]

The Newquay to Penzance is a means to getting the unit out of the way whilst the Bristol-Newquay and return Newquay-Paddington runs during the summer, it has run in previous years as a Newquay to Penzance but used to run in the afternoon.

Back in around the mid to late 90's there was a direct Newquay to Falmouth service on a Sunday, this ran in the Summer six weeks only, if I recall there wasn't a corresponding back working.

 

[chris2]

Whilst not directly related to the metro question, I did myself sample the delights of Cornish rail and bus travel a few days ago. I was returning home from holiday with the family and we arrived at Newquay to find the train to Par cancelled, thereby throwing out all the subsequent legs of the journey (4 in total to get home). Despite no announcement or message on any of the boards, a bus mysteriously arrived to take us all to Par, and given that the alternative was a two hour wait for the next train, we boarded. The driver informed us he had to go to all the stations in between (despite him first confirming with the full load of passengers who got on at Newquay that no one was bound for anywhere other than Par). This we duly did, but neither dropped nor picked up anyone along the way, presumably because any potential passengers at the in-between stations had long since left with no idea a bus was eventually coming for them too. In the end, the bus took so excruciatingly long to visit every stop along the way (around 1hr45mins) we missed the next train at Par and ended up waiting another hour to board the very train we could have simply waited for at Newquay. In the end, we didn't manage to cross into Devon until about 4hrs after we originally arrived at Newquay station!

I for one would love the people of Cornwall to get a more frequent and more reliable service than currently on offer. And perhaps some more pragmatic policies around bus replacement services.

 

[John R]

I for one would love the people of Cornwall to get a more frequent and more reliable service than currently on offer.

To be fair, of the lines exclusively in Cornwall, the main line is 2 trains per hour, likewise the Falmouth and St Ives branches. The Looe branch is hourly (adequate imo), and only the Newquay branch is 2 hourly, but will increase to hourly next year.

So unless you think some of those lines need to be stepped up even more, I think in general the frequency is perfectly adequate given the populations they serve.

 

[irish_rail]

I actually tried London to Gatwick, fly to Newquay Airport, cab to St Columb Road, then train to Par and onwards to Plymouth. It was one long, slow journey... Not sure there would be many takers for a bus shuttle.

Agree that Newquay to London will never make sense by air, I'm talking about the countless other destinations served the the airport.

 

[nanstallon]

To be fair, of the lines exclusively in Cornwall, the main line is 2 trains per hour, likewise the Falmouth and St Ives branches. The Looe branch is hourly (adequate imo), and only the Newquay branch is 2 hourly, but will increase to hourly next year.

So unless you think some of those lines need to be stepped up even more, I think in general the frequency is perfectly adequate given the populations they serve.

Agreed; frequency is great once the Newquay branch goes to an hourly service. But they need to be reliable, too.

 

[SJDCornwall]

Does anybody know exactly where the loop will be located, I am presuming they will locate the Newquay end near where the old loop started to curve round to st Dennis junction and the Par end on the straight part where the line runs next to the old A30 road. how long is the loop planned to be, is it going to be a similar set up to the one at Tisbury on the Salisbury Exeter line or will it be a dynamic type loop?

 

[RPI]

Does anybody know exactly where the loop will be located, I am presuming they will locate the Newquay end near where the old loop started to curve round to st Dennis junction and the Par end on the straight part where the line runs next to the old A30 road. how long is the loop planned to be, is it going to be a similar set up to the one at Tisbury on the Salisbury Exeter line or will it be a dynamic type loop?

From what I gather it will be adequate to pass two ten car IET's

 

[Geep]

Where? The A30 bridge over the Newquay line appears to be long enough to allow the route to be reopened. Although whether the abutments etc actually allow it is a different matter

We on BR (Western) did quite a lot of work looking at the St Dennis to Goonbarrow route at the time. I do remember that there were a lot of problems with clearances on that line, and it would not have been an easy or inexpensive job. That said, it was possible, and had there been more money available (or political pressure) it might have gone ahead.
I seem to remember that it was also tied up with A30 improvements at St Dennis, but can't remember if that was also problematic.

 

[D Williams]

The dualling of the A30 over Goss Moor was the project. Initially the powers-that-be wanted to use the trackbed of the Par to Newquay line to minimise loss of habitat etc. There was talk of using the recovered track for the proposed relaying of the Boscarne Junction to Wenfordbridge railway for china clay traffic. However after spending several years of deliberation and no doubt thereby incurring the expense of what became unused investigations, there was a change of face and the new road was built over farmland to the North of the moor. Goss Moor is now a nature reserve and the Iron Bridge at the Bodmin end of the old road now has a relatively peaceful life after being regularly hit by HGVs despite lots of signs ( although one did come to grief a couple of weeks ago). Until the 1960's the line from Tregoss crossing signalbox to St Dennis Junction was double to cater for holiday trains so there is a suitably wide formation. The freight-only line from St Dennis Junction to Burngullow never had a passenger service although it was signalled with a crossing loop at Drinnick. There were many sidings to clay works and loading wharves and as there were several remaining at the time of the proposal these would have caused operational difficulties. It would have been an interesting development if it had gone ahead. Whether there was an intention to retain a passenger service for Roche, Bugle and Luxulyan from Par I never knew, also whether there was any thought given to intermediate stations on the new section as the line would have passed close to St Dennis, Foxhole and Nanpean. But, all water under the bridge now.

 

[Gloster]

The double-track from Tregoss Moor SB (292m 33ch) to St Dennis Junction (294m 21ch) was in use from August 1921 to January 1965. (Source: Cooke’s Diagrams, Section 11, First edition.)

There were plans in the mid-1980s to open stations at St Dennis, and in the Foxhole and Carpalla area.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The old line would have been retained only to Goonbarrow Jcn ( and Ponstmill which was still open) for china clay traffic. The Motorail siding at St. Austell would have been made accessible from the west to make a bay platform for the branch. A great pity it never happened as it would have been far more useful for local traffic.

St. Dennis Jcn SB remained open to the end of loco hauled trains - its loop was quite sharply curved - I assume the new loop is going to be somewhere on the straight former double track section?

 

[jamieh27]

So I saw some photos on Facebook today that they are starting work on Platform 2, they taken down the metal fence for work and done some work on the platform surface possibly ready for PA speakers and CIS for when they get installed.

 

[RPI]

Worked to Newquay today and plenty going on.

 

[jamieh27]

Worked to Newquay today and plenty going on.

Are they going to rebuild Platform 2, I suppose because its been out of use since maybe 1987 platform level and tactile paving have come a long way and also installation of CIS screens and PA System.

 

[RPI]

Are they going to rebuild Platform 2, I suppose because its been out of use since maybe 1987 platform level and tactile paving have come a long way and also installation of CIS screens and PA System.

Yes, I believe it's a totally new platform going in, to hold a four car unit