70014IronDuke said:
"Government support for the Ivanhoe Line's reinstatement through South Derbyshire"
Ha ha! I like the way the journo calls it the Ivanhoe Line as if it was always called that. Rather like the term "Varsity Line", I think both terms were only coined in the 1990s - nobody called them these names when they were open.
Just out of interest what were they called before or did they not have a "Name" and if they didn't why were they given the names that they were given?
2001olib said:
IMO the Ivanhoe line is ripe for light rail or tram train. Light enough to negate significant strengthenong work to be done to the alignment to
mitigate the mining subsidence in the area. But heavy enough to be able to run at decent speeds and to be a comfortable enough replacement for the Burton - Leicester bus.
yoyothehobo said:
The amount of works required to the earthworks alone makes this a non-starter.
I have seen occasional articles about the line over the years and while there has been problems with vandalism and theft, the line as far as I can gather is structurally sound both for freight (and subject to necessary upgrades) passenger?
Johnnie2Sheds said:
On topic: Chances of a reopening of the rest of it? Nil. AFAIR neither the city or county council wants it.
InTheEastMids said:
Certainly agree at this point. The various statements are all in the "supportive but non-commital" mode. To see any signs of optimism, I'd expect to see EMCA (which does not include Leicestershire), Leicester City and the new Leicestershire unitary authority to come together to form a partnership to effectively lobby for funding and drive things forward (the EWR local authorities did this from 1995 and yet, here we are!)
I don't know why it went missing but in post #193 I had a sentence saying: "That they are supportive but because the line goes through so many different local authorities each are worried that they might end up not only paying for their "bit" but somebody else's "bit" as well.
Farigiraf said:
How you make the most of the line is a tough question to answer though. On paper it's fairly straightforward (provided that a link to Leicester main station is funded): the line passes right through the middle of Coalville town centre and gets fairly close to central Ashby as well. Given how rare it is to be able to affordably build stations in urban centres, this
would be a great opportunity. The issue is that these large intermediate towns are low density, car dependent sprawling places, without very much tourism potential. Therefore without much potential inbound traffic to these towns, and everyone wanting to drive to the station anyway, chances are that a centrally located station (and the car park that would be demanded alongside it) would do more harm than good. This means that until declining Leicestershire towns experience some sort of cycle/bus renaissance, you'd probably positively affect more people's lives by going for out-of-town parkway stations with enormous car parks - though this obviously isn't particularly forward-thinking so it'd be fairly heart-wrenching to watch them go for this option while passing up on the rare opportunity to build a 21st century city centre station (that isn't tunneled).
Following the line on the National Library of Scotland side by side map shows that if you put the stations back exactly where they were originally the only ones that would have a car park are Coalville, possibly Bagworth & Ellistown and Meynell's gorse (using the Park and Ride) but instead of using this as a negative and saying about out of town stations. It should be seen as a positive.
As it would be the perfect catalyst to start a (walking) cycle/bus renaissance, because all the stations are either slap bang in the centre of where they would serve or are very close so most people would be within a reasonable walking/cycling distance of the station and the chances are that bus routes already run on the roads next to the station sites or very close so would only need a minor diversion.
Following the line on Google map's and looking at the sponsored pins there are lots of attractions:
www.snibstoncolliery.org.uk,
www.visitconkers.com,
www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/ashby-de-la-zouch-castle/ etc and while some are a fair distance from the possible station sites it shows that if the local authorities (provide dedicated foot /cycle paths if practical), tourist attractions (cycle racks, how to get here by train, and if necessary bus on their websites), and local bus companies (connections) worked together then there is a great potential for tourist's
Also the line runs slap bang through the centre of the national forest:
www.nationalforest.org/explore (scroll down for map). So connect each station with a network of foot/cycle paths through the forest and then at the weekends/school holidays offer a hop on/off pass for a cheap rate or for a small supplement, free entry to local tourist attraction's and it should make a decent amount of money.
Also work with Leicester city football club on a deal that if the fans travel by train they get a free burger and a soft drink then any fans travelling from the West would use the train so helping cut traffic congestion, it would also help clear crowds after a match because you would be splitting them to different station's rather than them all going to Leicester station.
The best, easiest quickest and crucially cheapest option would be build basic temporary stations on the original sites. After a year or so put a survey through everyone's door with in a certain radius and ask if they are happy with the stations where they are or if they wont them moved and give a couple of options.
Also ask local GPs if they are seeing less overweight patients because they are getting out of their cars and walking/cycling to the station, the councils to see if there is less traffic and pollution again because people are leaving their cars at home to walk/cycle/bus to the station and jobcentre's are they seeing less unemployed people because it is easier/possible to get to work particularly to all the "sheds" that are dotted next to the line (so spending money in one place but getting it back from not having to spend it in other places) then either keep them where they are and build properly or shift them to out of town and again build properly.
2001olib said:
IMO the Ivanhoe line is ripe for light rail or tram train. Light enough to negate significant strengthenong work to be done to the alignment to mitigate the mining subsidence in the area. But heavy enough to be able to run at decent speeds and to be a comfortable enough replacement for the Burton - Leicester bus.
HSTEd said:
I'd argue that the tram-train has demonstrated an ability to operate in interurban environments in Germany as part of extended S-Bahn networks. I doubt this line, as an example, would be a particularly high speed operation at the best of times, and 60mph/100km/h of off-the-shelf tram trains may easily match heavy rail timings on it.
Beyond that, I'm not sure we should decide against such solutions on the basis that some indeterminate freight traffic may resume at some point in the indeterminate future.
I have no problem with a light rail/tram track's being built on NON rail alignments but they should never be built on old rail alignments because if they are needed for heavy rail in the future then there will always be a battle about moving them and it would add massively to the overall cost if you had to demolish the light rail/tram line to rebuild heavy rail so potentially making re-opening the heavy rail line unviable.
Following the line there are numerous "sheds" dotted along the whole line and no doubt in future years they will mushroom so while it may save money now (light rail, trams etc) there is a good chance in the future that anything done would either need to be modified or ripped out and start again if freight wanted to start using the line again or worse freight would be told "No" and would say: "Fine, we will carry on running lorrys" which would be bad all round.
