Do you think Leeds - Wetherby - Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton will ever happen?

[EastisECML]

Do you think Leeds - Wetherby - Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton will ever happen? Would such a line be served by extending Leeds suburban trains to terminate at Northallerton?

I'm very interested to see if they can manage Newcastle - York - Leeds in 60 minutes. Using a highly scientific method of measuring the distance of the current line using the Google Maps measuring tool and adding cut offs from Chester Le Street - Carrville - Ferryhill - Darlington, Croft curve to south of Northallerton and extending the HS2 branch all of the way into York as well as a chord into Leeds the distance can be cut down to 162.87 km / 101.2 miles. That seems very achievable with only a stop at York and 225 km/h speeds, without cut offs, I can't imagine that is attainable?

Edit: Without a Durham cut off it's only 6 km extra. I'd just like to see the opportunity taken to leave space at Chester Le Street for more stopping trains there. Even if it's just a shuttle from Newcastle that calls at Team Valley.

 

[deltic08]

Do you think Leeds - Wetherby - Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton will ever happen? Would such a line be served by extending Leeds suburban trains to terminate at Northallerton?

We are continuing with the campaign but I doubt I will see it in my lifetime.
Immediately north of Cross Gates, 10,000 houses are being built. That would be a substantial town if built anywhere else instead of urban sprawl. This alone should be enough to connect to Leeds by rail and possibly Wetherby but the plan is to build across the trackbed and bus commuters into Leeds. Crazy. Leeds is already the second most air polluted city in the UK and this will just add to it.
Harrogate is so busy in the peaks it is nearly gridlocked. It takes over an hour to travel from Ripon and Wetherby by road. Train would take about 12 minutes.
A station is needed to the north of Harrogate with a large car park to ease congestion and that could be along the trackbed towards Ripon. A good place would be Nidd Bridge where the station is still extant.
A station is needed to the south also. This could be on the Wetherby trackbed next to the southern bypass at Follifoot.
A cross town shuttle between the two using a 153 would ease traffic in town but no one in authority has the nounce or vision to see this. They would rather fiddle around with traffic light sequencies and enlarging junctions and roundabouts with more lanes. It hasn't worked so far.
Reinstating via Wetherby and Ripon gives a second route from Leeds to the North. Trains would terminate at Middlesbrough and Darlington when quad tracking is extended to Darlington. There is a disused platform face at Northallerton for terminating trains from Ripon. The north bound platform was an island platform with two bays at the north end.
This could give Northern access from the south to Teesside that it doesn't have at the moment. The Darlington service could be operated by TPE.
65% of Ripon daily commuters travel to Leeds and Harrogate and 27% travel north to Northallerton, Darlington and Middlesbrough. Professionals think these numbers alone would support a reinstated line through Ripon.

 

[EastisECML]

You're sure four tracking is being extended to Darlington? If they divert Saltburn trains to the other side of Darlington station that'd leave a couple of bay platforms on the West side facing south for those Leeds services. I think planning rail services still hasn't evolved to the point it needs to be at where instead of reacting far too late to changes instead railway services are used to make those changes. Instead of waiting for big housing developments to clog up roads it would be better to build the railway with the housing developments. It's a good opportunity to get ahead of the problem rather than constantly be playing catch up.

 

[edwin_m]

You're sure four tracking is being extended to Darlington?

No such plan as far as I'm aware. They were talking about extra loops, not sure if that is even happening.

 

[deltic08]

No such plan as far as I'm aware. They were talking about extra loops, not sure if that is even happening.

I thought passing loops had been discounted because of slow entry and exit speeds particularly acceleration to 60 or 75mph onto a 125mph piece of railway. It uses less paths to just let the freight keep rolling to Darlington and not spend capital on loops.

 

[edwin_m]

I thought passing loops had been discounted because of slow entry and exit speeds particularly acceleration to 60 or 75mph onto a 125mph piece of railway. It uses less paths to just let the freight keep rolling to Darlington and not spend capital on loops.

You may well be correct, I think doubts were being expressed at the time I was involved in a related project.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Do you think Leeds - Wetherby - Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton will ever happen? Would such a line be served by extending Leeds suburban trains to terminate at Northallerton?

I'm very interested to see if they can manage Newcastle - York - Leeds in 60 minutes. Using a highly scientific method of measuring the distance of the current line using the Google Maps measuring tool and adding cut offs from Chester Le Street - Carrville - Ferryhill - Darlington, Croft curve to south of Northallerton and extending the HS2 branch all of the way into York as well as a chord into Leeds the distance can be cut down to 162.87 km / 101.2 miles. That seems very achievable with only a stop at York and 225 km/h speeds, without cut offs, I can't imagine that is attainable?

Edit: Without a Durham cut off it's only 6 km extra. I'd just like to see the opportunity taken to leave space at Chester Le Street for more stopping trains there. Even if it's just a shuttle from Newcastle that calls at Team Valley.

Surely this is about two completely separate ideas. First is re-opening Leeds-Wetherby-Harrogate and Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton. Second is the merits of providing a faster route between Leeds and Newcastle which doesn't necessarily have to serve York, or anywhere else en-route.

As far as re-opening is concerned I would strongly suggest bringing up the very useful Rail Map online site http://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php alongside the "satellite" view of your preferred general mapping site to confirm to what extent an old route is still potentially available for re-use as a railway, ie any significant bridges or earthworks missing, buildings on the formation, etc. In the case of Leeds-Wetherby-Harrogate the route is obstructed by buildings in multiple locations which adds £millions to the capital cost assuming there is public support for such necessary dislocations. Harrogate-Ripon is just about clear until the edge of Ripon but not through Ripon itself, and beyond that passes through largely empty countryside so revenue would depend almost entirely on that arising from the economic needs of Ripon alone (population 17,000).

For a fast route between Leeds and Newcastle, if such a thing is genuinely needed, then frankly it probably makes more sense to extend HS2, which can be accessible from Leeds, all the way to Newcastle with a spur off towards Teesside.

As far as the development of 10,000 homes in Cross Gates is concerned much of this will be on the site of the former tank factory and could be usefully served by the Mk2 version of Leeds East Parkway just to the west of the M1 bridge; no new route required!

 

[B&I]

We are continuing with the campaign but I doubt I will see it in my lifetime.
Immediately north of Cross Gates, 10,000 houses are being built. That would be a substantial town if built anywhere else instead of urban sprawl. This alone should be enough to connect to Leeds by rail and possibly Wetherby but the plan is to build across the trackbed and bus commuters into Leeds. Crazy. Leeds is already the second most air polluted city in the UK and this will just add to it.
Harrogate is so busy in the peaks it is nearly gridlocked. It takes over an hour to travel from Ripon and Wetherby by road. Train would take about 12 minutes.
A station is needed to the north of Harrogate with a large car park to ease congestion and that could be along the trackbed towards Ripon. A good place would be Nidd Bridge where the station is still extant.
A station is needed to the south also. This could be on the Wetherby trackbed next to the southern bypass at Follifoot.
A cross town shuttle between the two using a 153 would ease traffic in town but no one in authority has the nounce or vision to see this. They would rather fiddle around with traffic light sequencies and enlarging junctions and roundabouts with more lanes. It hasn't worked so far.
Reinstating via Wetherby and Ripon gives a second route from Leeds to the North. Trains would terminate at Middlesbrough and Darlington when quad tracking is extended to Darlington. There is a disused platform face at Northallerton for terminating trains from Ripon. The north bound platform was an island platform with two bays at the north end.
This could give Northern access from the south to Teesside that it doesn't have at the moment. The Darlington service could be operated by TPE.
65% of Ripon daily commuters travel to Leeds and Harrogate and 27% travel north to Northallerton, Darlington and Middlesbrough. Professionals think these numbers alone would support a reinstated line through Ripon.

It never ceases to amaze me how many English local authorities still think it's 1958 in transport planning terms

 

[Bevan Price]

Sadly, I doubt that Leeds - Wetherby - Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton will ever reopen, despite its closure being a regrettable bad decision in the 1960s. The line was allowed to die from neglect & poor services that prevented it from ever attracting enough passengers to make it profitable. Restoring the route would be very costly, and I doubt that either Wetherby or Ripon are large enough to generate sufficient passengers to justify the cost of property removal & line reinstatement.

Leeds to Wetherby alone might just be feasible, if the local WY transport people were interested, but I suspect they might prefer a misguided busway, or even trams, rather than a "real" railway.

 

[sprinterguy]

I would never say never to a Harrogate - Ripon reopening. That would seem a fairly straightforward and logical project, even if the station at Ripon had to be an edge of town site.

Anything beyond that, however, in my view is pie-in-the-sky thinking. The trackbed towards Northallerton has been quite effectively severed by the A1 improvement works, for one thing.

 

[daodao]

I would never say never to a Harrogate - Ripon reopening. That would seem a fairly straightforward and logical project, even if the station at Ripon had to be an edge of town site.

Anything beyond that, however, in my view is pie-in-the-sky thinking. The trackbed towards Northallerton has been quite effectively severed by the A1 improvement works, for one thing.

The frequent bus service between Harrogate and Ripon indicates significant public transport demand. Trains from Leeds to Harrogate could extend alternately to York or Ripon. A single track with a dynamic loop would suffice. Anything more is for the crayonistas.

 

[tbtc]

I would never say never to a Harrogate - Ripon reopening. That would seem a fairly straightforward and logical project, even if the station at Ripon had to be an edge of town site.

Anything beyond that, however, in my view is pie-in-the-sky thinking. The trackbed towards Northallerton has been quite effectively severed by the A1 improvement works, for one thing.

The frequent bus service between Harrogate and Ripon indicates significant public transport demand. Trains from Leeds to Harrogate could extend alternately to York or Ripon. A single track with a dynamic loop would suffice. Anything more is for the crayonistas.

I agree with both of the above points.

A ten mile siding north of Harrogate to the outskirts of Ripon could be feasible, mainly single track, would never need more than two trains per hour (i.e. if Leeds - Harrogate is four/hour then two to Knaresborough/York and two to Ripon).

It's not a top priority in the grand scheme of things (there are much more important projects elsewhere), but a simple scheme (engineered for relatively low speeds) might work. I generally look to commercial bus services as a litmus test of whether a railway scheme might be popular (and Ripon - Harrogate/ Leeds certainly ticks that box).

Trouble is, it gets over-egged by enthusiasts as part of some mega-project (with mega-cost) for the sake of high speed Leeds - Newcastle services (the fact that it'd be fewer route miles is fairly irrelevant given the low speed of the existing line from Leeds to Harrogate and the fact that you'd be missing the huge market of York).

Seems the way though - e.g. people can't suggest a simple Tavistock - Bere Alston branch, it has to be a super-duper scheme tying as many loose ends together (yay - Waterloo to Okehampton) which ends up spoiling a simple business case.

 

[Western Lord]

I would never say never to a Harrogate - Ripon reopening. That would seem a fairly straightforward and logical project, even if the station at Ripon had to be an edge of town site.

Anything beyond that, however, in my view is pie-in-the-sky thinking. The trackbed towards Northallerton has been quite effectively severed by the A1 improvement works, for one thing.

The station at Ripon always was on an edge of town site, very inconvenient for the town centre and so not surprising that it closed during a period when car ownership was booming.

 

[Killingworth]

However park and ride, parkway, stations are the way to go. To be successful they need a popular destination to go to, a fairly frequent service and enough users prepared to pay the fares demanded.

Ripon and Leeds seem to be well suited, there's wealth in the Ripon area to pay fares, and space to build a modern station (subject to planning). To make a business case stand up you'd need a lot more of those car dependent citizens to move to rail, and for that you'd need a quick and frequent service. Frequent trains used by a few or infrequent trains used by even fewer I fear.

Love to be proved wrong though, especially if the link through to Northallerton were possible. There are a lot more possible rail projects that need doing before this, with much stronger business cases. Of course there may be a local entrepreneur with masses of stone, bio-mass, coal, containers to shift who'd help justify the project.

 

[bluenoxid]

Wetherby

As far as I understand, all three trackbeds approaching Wetherby have seen construction on them. The proposals to put further housing on the most direct route to Leeds is even more shortsighted. Even the most pro-rail people would recognise the benefits that a rubber wheeled vehicle running on the corridor would bring.

Personally I think a new corridor roughly parallel to the A1 from the Leeds-Selby line is probably a likely option for rail to come back to Wetherby. Local road infrastructure doesn’t require as much work for any housing developments that would be expected to support it.

Ripon

Wouldn’t deny that a single track line has potential but it needs to be compared with say a direct road link to J49 of the A1M or a North Harrogate bypass or concreting it in appropriate places to speed up the buses.

The 36 is every 20 minutes or so between Harrogate and Ripon (the frequency increases towards Leeds).

 

[Halifaxlad]

Once the Skipton to Colne is reopened, then should come the 5 mile Otley line between Burley in Wharfdale & Pool in Wharfdale. Schemes that would deliver benefits in their own right. Once this is done the justification for linking them up through Addingham either on a brand new line to Skipton or via the Embsay Railway Im sure they would let national rail trains midweek if they were allowed to run into Skipton and Ikley, would be greater to justify the cost and demolition required. As then you would have a new route between York & Preston bypassing Leeds, Bradford & Manchester. If you could get to that stage, then reopening the Weatherby Line could provide a more direct route to Drax than going via York. Single line is possibly all you would need with a few passing loops.

 

[Killingworth]

Once the Skipton to Colne is reopened, then should come the 5 mile Otley line between Burley in Wharfdale & Pool in Wharfdale. Schemes that would deliver benefits in their own right. Once this is done the justification for linking them up through Addingham either on a brand new line to Skipton or via the Embsay Railway Im sure they would let national rail trains midweek if they were allowed to run into Skipton and Ikley, would be greater to justify the cost and demolition required. As then you would have a new route between York & Preston bypassing Leeds, Bradford & Manchester. If you could get to that stage, then reopening the Weatherby Line could provide a more direct route to Drax than going via York. Single line is possibly all you would need with a few passing loops.

By the time all that happens Drax will have been replaced by geothermal energy, or some other as yet under appreciated energy source!

 

[Halifaxlad]

With regards to the line between Harrogate & Northallerton. I have recently read...

'The Northern Power House, One Agenda, One Economy, One North' report.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ile/427339/the-northern-powerhouse-tagged.pdf

On page 24 it refers to a line above Northallerton that states....

"Amongst the options to be considered for relieving the two-track section of the East Coast Main Line between Newcastle and Northallerton is a possible re-opening of the Leamside Line through County Durham and Washington."

Well even without this line, the line to Northallerton would provide a more direct route to Newcastle & Middlesborough from Manchester bypassing Leeds & York (subject to other disused sections of track being brought back into use and Bradford Cross Rail).

With that in mind I would say that the Northallerton Line and the Leamside Line will most certainly be brought back into use as part of NPR, that don't forget isn't just about Liverpool, Manchester & Leeds. We shall have to wait until the 6th December I suppose.

 

[markindurham]

Freight would route from Northallerton down the old Leeds Northern, through Yarm to Eaglescliffe, then up to Norton and on to Ferryhill via the Stillington branch. Then Ferryhill to Pelaw via the Leamside. That leaves the main line via Darlington and Durham clear for the passenger traffic and faster freight movements.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Harrogate to Ripon: perhaps.
Ripon to Northallerton: more chance of my cat being elected mayor of New York City.

 

[Bantamzen]

Harrogate to Ripon: perhaps.
Ripon to Northallerton: more chance of my cat being elected mayor of New York City.

Well there's a cat ruling the roost at Huddersfield station, so.....

But seriously, even though a Harrogate-Ripon reopening might not be challenging engineering-wise, budget-wise for a town of around 16-17K I really can't see it being very high priority. Goodness knows there are other more urgent schemes in the region struggling to get approval from the Minister, so whilst a good idea in principle, I don't think it'll see the light of day.

 

[Killingworth]

I would never say never to a Harrogate - Ripon reopening. That would seem a fairly straightforward and logical project, even if the station at Ripon had to be an edge of town site.

Anything beyond that, however, in my view is pie-in-the-sky thinking. The trackbed towards Northallerton has been quite effectively severed by the A1 improvement works, for one thing.

It's a lot more than the A1. Many level crossings and new road layouts would need to be considered. Look at an OS 1:25,000 map. Part of the Ripon bypass uses the line of the old railway. It would require HS2 levels of spending to restore a link north of Ripon, but linking to Thirsk might be as likely if that were on the cards

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Well there's a cat ruling the roost at Huddersfield station, so.....

But seriously, even though a Harrogate-Ripon reopening might not be challenging engineering-wise, budget-wise for a town of around 16-17K I really can't see it being very high priority. Goodness knows there are other more urgent schemes in the region struggling to get approval from the Minister, so whilst a good idea in principle, I don't think it'll see the light of day.

Nor do I, really... Though that section is more likely than anywhere beyond Ripon, and I could see it happening on a basic, one-train-in-steam principle if and when the political environment changes. We're looking at decades rather than years, mind.

 

[daodao]

Harrogate to Ripon: perhaps.
Ripon to Northallerton: more chance of my cat being elected mayor of New York City.

I agree.

The potential viability of rail re-openings can often be assessed by the frequency of parallel bus services. Bus 36 from Ripon to Harrogate runs every 20 minutes in the daytime, which would indicate significant public transport demand for this route.