Bear in mind that I gave the Drax flow as an example and not the sum total of the problem. The description of the problem is a severe shortage of freight paths across the Pennines which is, for example, limiting the prospects for the port development at 'Liverpool 2'.
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Given the Shapps announcement, which lines would you propose for reopening?
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Transpennine freight is mostly Drax though, and other than that the rest is mostly waste that probably doesn't need to get anywhere particularly quickly. The distances involved are too short for any significant container traffic to go by rail from Liverpool to Yorkshire - after a few years of trying now Liverpool looks to be currently producing only about three intermodal trains a week to anywhere, none across the Pennines.
I do wonder there's scope in some Beeching reinstatements, such as redoubling of lines (even if it's just a loop or two) which were made to single tracks.
Whilst not as exciting as an actual reopening it could facilitate increases in frequencies and/or different calling patterns which could get you more passengers into the railways for less money but still be very beneficial to those areas it impacts on.
Whilst not as exciting as an actual reopening it could facilitate increases in frequencies and/or different calling patterns which could get you more passengers into the railways for less money but still be very beneficial to those areas it impacts on.
devonexpress
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Given that the holding company of Dartmoor Railway has gone into administration i'd like Shapps to give the cash to buy the line and hurry up reinstating a daily train service to Okehampton.
grumpyoldman01
Member
The inclusion of lines such as Leicester-Burton and extending Birmingham Cross-City to serve Alrewas illustrate well just how complex re-openings of branches closed during the Beeching era can be.
Extension of the Cross-City service north east from Lichfield Trent Valley through a reopened station at Alrewas (to serve the National Memorial Arboretum) and then on via Burton to Derby is, on the face of it, a no brainer; there is a substantial commuter flow into Derby from places like Sutton Coldfield, and this has to be by car along the A38. When I was at work, I knew of quite a few people employed at Bombardier who made this daily commute, and I understand from friends and acquaintances who worked at Rolls Royce that there was a similar situation there; the Bombardier works is about 15 minutes walk from Derby Midland station, and the main Rolls Royce civil aerospace facility is a similar walk from Peartree station (which could be served by extended Cross-City services}.
If, say, two Cross City trains each hour were extended north east from Lichfield to Derby, Wichnor Junction could probably cope ok with the conflicting movements of two trains heading towards Birmingham crossing four XC services heading towards Derby; but when Burton is reached, if the Ivanhoe line project is taken forward one train off the Leicester line would have to cross over six heading to towards Wichnor. Then at North Staffs Junction, one heading towards Crewe from Derby would have to cross over the paths of seven heading towards Derby, whereas there are only four at present. Then what happens when you get to Derby?
After December 2020, the number of trains reversing at Derby each hour will increase from four to six; could a Leicester - Burton - Derby service still be accommodated in the north end of either platform 3 or 4? But I guess it would be difficult to terminate the two extended Cross City trains in any of platforms 1 - 4; possibly, therefore, a new platform 0 would have to be constructed - this could probably be done quite easily at the London Road Junction end of platform 1, where part of an abandoned goods or parcels platform currently stands.
Then the following December, the terminating service from Norwich will have to be accommodated; this might be possible in the northern end of either platforms 3 or 4, but if that does happen, could the Leicester - Burton - Derby still be accommodated? Would, therefore, platform 7 have to be bought into use for regular passenger train services?
Matlock - Buxton/Chinley has also been suggested; I guess extending the Nottingham - Matlock through to Buxton would be "easy" and could be done without taking any paths on lines already open; but could the Norwich - Derby service be extended through the Peak District to Manchester? Would it go via Buxton or Chinley? And if via Chinley, would it then have to go via New Mills because of congestion at Stockport? How much of a negative impact would going via New Mills have upon revenue because Stockport has been missed? And could the junction at Ambergate cope with two trains from the Matlock direction crossing over four going north towards Chesterfield? Would it be necessary to construct a new loop on the Matlock branch between Matlock and Whatstandwell to provide added flexibility whenever there are perturbations on the MML or congestion in the Manchester area?
These all add costs and need to be taken into account when considering re-openings; nice soundbite from Grant Shapps, but potentially very difficult - and expensive.
Extension of the Cross-City service north east from Lichfield Trent Valley through a reopened station at Alrewas (to serve the National Memorial Arboretum) and then on via Burton to Derby is, on the face of it, a no brainer; there is a substantial commuter flow into Derby from places like Sutton Coldfield, and this has to be by car along the A38. When I was at work, I knew of quite a few people employed at Bombardier who made this daily commute, and I understand from friends and acquaintances who worked at Rolls Royce that there was a similar situation there; the Bombardier works is about 15 minutes walk from Derby Midland station, and the main Rolls Royce civil aerospace facility is a similar walk from Peartree station (which could be served by extended Cross-City services}.
If, say, two Cross City trains each hour were extended north east from Lichfield to Derby, Wichnor Junction could probably cope ok with the conflicting movements of two trains heading towards Birmingham crossing four XC services heading towards Derby; but when Burton is reached, if the Ivanhoe line project is taken forward one train off the Leicester line would have to cross over six heading to towards Wichnor. Then at North Staffs Junction, one heading towards Crewe from Derby would have to cross over the paths of seven heading towards Derby, whereas there are only four at present. Then what happens when you get to Derby?
After December 2020, the number of trains reversing at Derby each hour will increase from four to six; could a Leicester - Burton - Derby service still be accommodated in the north end of either platform 3 or 4? But I guess it would be difficult to terminate the two extended Cross City trains in any of platforms 1 - 4; possibly, therefore, a new platform 0 would have to be constructed - this could probably be done quite easily at the London Road Junction end of platform 1, where part of an abandoned goods or parcels platform currently stands.
Then the following December, the terminating service from Norwich will have to be accommodated; this might be possible in the northern end of either platforms 3 or 4, but if that does happen, could the Leicester - Burton - Derby still be accommodated? Would, therefore, platform 7 have to be bought into use for regular passenger train services?
Matlock - Buxton/Chinley has also been suggested; I guess extending the Nottingham - Matlock through to Buxton would be "easy" and could be done without taking any paths on lines already open; but could the Norwich - Derby service be extended through the Peak District to Manchester? Would it go via Buxton or Chinley? And if via Chinley, would it then have to go via New Mills because of congestion at Stockport? How much of a negative impact would going via New Mills have upon revenue because Stockport has been missed? And could the junction at Ambergate cope with two trains from the Matlock direction crossing over four going north towards Chesterfield? Would it be necessary to construct a new loop on the Matlock branch between Matlock and Whatstandwell to provide added flexibility whenever there are perturbations on the MML or congestion in the Manchester area?
These all add costs and need to be taken into account when considering re-openings; nice soundbite from Grant Shapps, but potentially very difficult - and expensive.
Without wanting to take the thread too far off topic this explains why reopenings were never a suitable alternitve to building HS2.
In terms of the Peak district main line, if you were running the stopper directly to Buxton, it would make sense to have a faster service from Nottingham run directly to Manchester via Peak Forest.
Admittedly that still begs the question as to how you get it into Manchester.
Perhaps get into Manchester via Stockport, diverting the existing Manchester Stockport Sheffield Nottingham service to this new route, then back-fill the gap in service provision to Sheffield by extending one of the Marple terminators along the Hope Valley. You are right to ask the question because there are effectively no available paths for access into Manchester from any direction and so existing paths must be reused for any new services.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
This would reduce Stockport-Sheffield to hourly, which might be enough, but Nottingham-Sheffield needs to stay as half-hourly so some extra service would be needed on that section. It would also break the link between Sheffield and Liverpool, although there seems to be some possibilty of that going anyway. The Manchester-Marple-Sheffield might have to be an extra to the existing, with limited stops to maintain journey time, and could possibly run via Victoria and on to Liverpool to plug that gap.
You gave some good examples of lines that might be opened to provide network benefits. But with the Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton idea, my feeling is that this proposal would be better if was routed via Thirsk. This is partly because it is significantly shorter than going direct to Northallerton, the trackbed is relatively clear, there is room for a flyover near Thirsk and this provides a service between three of the major towns in North Yorkshire.
Re-opening Carmarthen - Aberystwyth would achieve a similar thing.
HSTEd
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You'd probably get the same benefits (beyond the parochial ones of avoiding crossing a line on a map), for less money, by spending it on tilting trains on the Heart of Wales line.
Other than the obvious fact that it would connect to existing lines at both ends, what 'network benefits' would Ripon-Northallerton/Thirsk provide? No especially large local demand, and what through services would use it?
Glenn1969
Established Member
ECML and XC could use it for normal services and diversions Leeds- Newcastle via Harrogate instead pf York. I wouldn't necessarily go via Thirsk though
Why would they choose to run a regular service via Harrogate (catching and being held up by the stoppers along the way?) over the faster route through the major interchange of York? It'd be a hell of a lot of money to spend just for diversions.
EastisECML
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Especially as much of the existing route is four tracked so if there is a problem with a couple of tracks there are still two left. But that said, I think that section is prone to flooding?
HSTEd
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I'm willing to entertain the idea that a lightweight reopening to Ripon might be worthwihle.
But a diversion route is hardly likely to be of much use and would cost substantially more to engineer.
A line to Ripon can be run almost as a very long siding with minimal signalling load apart from at the Harrogate end, a useful diversion route cannot.
But a diversion route is hardly likely to be of much use and would cost substantially more to engineer.
A line to Ripon can be run almost as a very long siding with minimal signalling load apart from at the Harrogate end, a useful diversion route cannot.
In addition, it's a shame that the lines to Bude, Ilfracombe/Lynton, South Brent - Kingsbridge, Barnstaple - Bideford were closed, as at least in the summer they'd do good tourist traffic. However, there has to be a relief line into Cornwall via one of two possible routes, Okehampton - Bere Alston or the Teign Valley route.
However, you are re-joining Exeter - Plymouth via another route. The existing infrastructure still in use will obviously need a massive upgrade for the 802 trains in particular.
Indeed, your also link Plymouth with a lot of Southern England without having to go via Westbury or Reading.
Is there any reason why the existing SWR service from Waterloo to Exeter couldn't extend to Plymouth now, via Newton Abbott, without having to build a new line between Okehampton and Bere Alston? Although the South Devon main line is busy, I don't think it's full, and such a route would be quicker and serve more useful places (Dawlish, Teignmouth, Newton A, easy connections to Torbay, Totnes and even Ivybridge are bigger than Okehampton). With EMR and TfW replacing 158s there is even suitable stock coming available, which I imagine was the reason that the extensions that used to run this way were dropped.
Note that I'm not necessarily saying that this should be done, just that if there was a big desire for direct trains from Salisbury, Basingstoke and Yeovil to Plymouth, there is probably a much easier and cheaper way to do it!
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The problem isn't the routing or capacity of the existing line along Dawlish sea wall, but its vulnerability to closure due to inclement weather.
The line along DSW was severely damaged by sea storms in 2014, leading to complete closure of the line for roughly 8 weeks, therefore cutting Cornwall completely off from the national railway network.
It was so bad that 'stranded' HSTs from the Laira TMD (Plymouth) had to be transported by road to the 'other side' in order to be able to continue service levels on the open parts of the line east of Exeter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Devon_Railway_sea_wall
Whilst it could be done there's a few problems.
Firstly GWR and XC already compare and so there's probably not much scope for extra capacity to be provided. Whilst this sounds like an argument against any extension, by going via Okehampton you'd only need a few people each train to justify the service as you'd pick up all the local traffic as well. Whilst via Dawlish you'd only get a share of it (even at 6 coaches this would likely be 1/5 of the capacity, so 1/5 of the share of ticket sales).
You'd also possibly run into the risk of difficulty with the reversing of units, this could be a problem at St Davids.
With the new timetable in not sure that it's needed now, but with the increase via Dawlish in a few years time there could be a need for more capacity to be provided. By offering a different route you're likely to attract more people than just replicating the existing route.
joebassman
Member
Pull their finger out and get onto reopening the link to haverhill and extending to sudbury to allow direct services between Colchester and cambridge. I never could understand why they closed haverhill as it's a london over spill town and was obviously going to continue to expand.
Braintree to bishop's stortford, allowing direct trains to run from east Anglia to Stansted. Virtually all this route is a rail trail though there's the issue of getting over the m11.
Maldon to whitam. Apart from in maldon and the industrial estate at whitam, the trackbed is still intact. A fairly large town with poor winding roads as access and not a great bus service. My dad used to work in maldon and the locals told him that when they shut that line hundreds lost their jobs as there was no other way to get to London (though that could have been an exaggeration) and the bus service has always been unreliable.
Braintree to bishop's stortford, allowing direct trains to run from east Anglia to Stansted. Virtually all this route is a rail trail though there's the issue of getting over the m11.
Maldon to whitam. Apart from in maldon and the industrial estate at whitam, the trackbed is still intact. A fairly large town with poor winding roads as access and not a great bus service. My dad used to work in maldon and the locals told him that when they shut that line hundreds lost their jobs as there was no other way to get to London (though that could have been an exaggeration) and the bus service has always been unreliable.
HSTEd
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I'm really not sure the answer to this is to open a second railway along a long disused alignment that avoids most of the major population centres in South Devon though.
Defending the line in place or construction a short cutoff are probably much better moves.
joebassman
Member
They did do a feasibility study into doing that and that was the exact conclusion that they came to
I'm not necessarily pointing out the network effects of routing via Thirsk. The reason for suggesting it is that the amount of new build railway is significantly less than direct to Northallerton (nearly 7 miles), there is much less building on the trackbed and that the route connects the three major towns of North Yorkshire.
There is little local demand on public transport because there isn't much public transport. There are 4/5 buses a day between the three places, the earliest bus leaving at 10-30 from Northallerton and taking about an hour. No service on Sundays or Bank Holidays.
I would expect a Middlesborough - Leeds service through Thirsk, Ripon and Harrogate would prove quite popular by opening up journeys which are quite difficult to make using public transport. A distance of around 28/29 miles I imagine being completed in about 40 minutes compared with an end-to-end journey time by rail through York of mainly 1-45 minutes with a few services quicker around 1 hour to 1-20 minutes.
The network benefit would be connecting these towns in much larger places around them and impacting services on other local lines for example a half hourly service at Yarm and quicker links from Harrogate to the north at Northallerton.
swt_passenger
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There is no rolling stock to do it. DFT decided that SWT’s stock was better used providing an hourly service to Exeter following the Axminster redoubling. I suspect adding capacity to those trains that currently split at Salisbury would be a much better priority if SWR were allowed more 158s. FGW had their service specification altered to cover the removal of SWT beyond Exeter.
Oh definitely, but as I said, there are plenty of 158s coming available fairly soon if there was a desperate desire for a direct train and rolling stock would be just as much of an issue via Okehampton.
swt_passenger
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I think we’re basically agreeing. But I doubt there’s a desperate demand for a through service. People have been proposing it for years, usually as an excuse to restore Waterloo to Okehampton, but to me it’s just clutching at straws...
I agree entirely! I think that the fact that it would be relatively simple to introduce a regular service from Exeter to Okehampton, given that it already runs on summer Sundays, and yet it hasn't been says an awful lot about the lack of pent up demand! Even as a diversionary route, I suspect that a bus from Tiverton to Newton A would be a faster way to get to Plymouth, as the road is much more direct. Connecting Tavistock might make sense, but the location of the station in Plymouth, plus the huge cost vs a major upgrade to the bus service seems to make it an easy decision not to do that either.
In the long term I would love to see a 125 or 140 mph Haldon base tunnel type solution to Dawlish, not only for the long distance services, but also to make rail much more competitive with road for commuting from Torbay into Exeter, but realistically the current solution of further upgrades along the coast is the most sensible
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