Petition to commission new study into re-opening Matlock to Buxton

[Ash Bridge]

It's razed!

To raise is to go up, to raze is to go down.

That's your spelling lesson for today folks!

Oops, so it is

 

[Kettledrum]

Agreed it isn't down to Network Rail, Network Rail operates as a business if someone whether that be the government or a third party comes up with the silly amount of money NR will want you will find that NR will reinstate it

Like any other project NR will look to make a profit from the project

In terms of whether it will be cost effective the fact that there is only 6 buses on that route a day speaks volumes on demand for such a project to succeed, the fares for the line will be have to be competitive against the bus prices so that just leaves the ratio of a return on the investment

You look at other parts of the country like Kings Lynn to Hunstanton, Stagecoach send three buses an hour to Sunny Hunny, First Group send 2 buses an hour to Swaffham, Stagecoach also send 3 buses an hour to Spalding all services all year round and still there is no chance of these lines being reinstated, so with Buxton's 6 buses a day me thinks its a dead duck ??????

....but how many buses go from Oxford to Bedford via Bletchley - which is now being opened as the East-West rail link and electrified?

The factors that need to be considered must be more than looking at current bus patronage, including:
- The economic benefits of opening up that part of Derbyshire for tourism.
- The significant benefits to freight from the more direct routes from the quarries. It could also be linked into the electric spine plans and electrified.
- The economic benefits of more commuting into central Manchester and into Derby and Nottingham.

The previous study found that the engineering aspects of re-instatement were feasible, but didn't appear to look hard enough to identify enough passenger or freight flows to make it worthwhile - and there have been huge changes in rail policy and passngers since then.
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What Derby terminating services? They regular hourly one from London was extended through to Sheffield a couple of years ago. So a through London train would need another path out of St Pancras, not to mention platform capacity there.

I thought, there were some Derby terminating services, but mainly to get the units back to Derby for maintenance overnight etc.

The paths out of St Pancras will have to be re-thought in the future with HS2 and electrification effecting them, so it's not impossible.

 

[RichmondCommu]

I though, there were some Derby terminating services, but mainly to get the units back to Derby for maintenance overnight etc.

The paths out of St Pancras will have to be re-thought in the future with HS2 and electrification effecting them, so it's not impossible.

Indeed some of the late evening services do terminate at Derby for I'm guessing that very reason. However that wouldn't help with finding room for additional through services from London up to Bakewell and beyond as was suggested.

 

[oddiesjack]

It would be perfectly possible to have a curve into the current station, in fact a hundred years ago their was just such a curve. The orignal curve linked the existing station to the ladmanlow line, but the principle would be same. Google earth shows the rignal start of the curve still exists in the form of wall curving off the viaduct approach towards the existing station

The issue would be the severity of the curve, as the sKew of the bridge would be restricted by the line pasing through the viaduct before crossing the new peak rail bridge.

The site is actually quite flat, so don't see any issues with levels.

In fact, the opposite is true, the very curved line from the Midland Route up into "Donaroo" sidings (currently Buxton Headshunt) is quite a steep climb, plus the original route into the Midland Station went under the Ashbourne branch from the LNWR station means that it is virtually impossible to run directly from Ashwood Dale into Buxton LNWR.

As others have said, the original route into the Midland terminus has been lost to Aldi, its carpark, and the town-centre bypass. The platform that Peak Rail built is a couple of hundred yards short of the original platform.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If the National Parks are going to stand in the way of reopening important railway routes, they should have their responsibility for them removed.

Do I also take it from this statement that you would also relax any restrictions on quarrying that exist in areas inside a National Park on the grounds of the value to the nation of the stone that can be abstracted?
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Chaps it all comes down to how strong the market is from the rest of Derbyshire to Buxton. Given that all of Buxton's commercial links are with Greater Manchester is that honestly going to change if you reinstate the junction from Millersdale?

How many of the forum membership feel that Buxton is already well catered for by bus services from a goodly number of other settlements, for those who do not wish to travel there by car.

 

[Greybeard33]

What Derby terminating services? They regular hourly one from London was extended through to Sheffield a couple of years ago. So a through London train would need another path out of St Pancras, not to mention platform capacity there.

There is talk of another fast train on the Hope Valley each hour once Northern Hub capacity works are complete. This could possibly run from Manchester or Liverpool to Derby or somewhere beyond via the Dore South Curve. Sending it via Bakewell instead would speed it up a bit, but only if it was limited stop (say Bakewell and Matlock). Opening the other stations would need an extension of the Matlock stopping service, which could perhaps go to Buxton instead of Manchester.

Of the former stations on the route only Bakewell serves more than a village, and the station is half a mile from the centre up a steep hill. The buses run down the main street.

Indeed, a reinstated St Pancras to Manchester service would also have to compete for scarce paths into Manchester Piccadilly, via either Stockport or Ashburys.

It should not be forgotten that the pre-Beeching Midland Main Line route into Manchester was via the Manchester South District line (now a Metrolink tramway) to Manchester Central station (now a conference centre).

 

[caryh]

In fact, the opposite is true, the very curved line from the Midland Route up into "Donaroo" sidings (currently Buxton Headshunt) is quite a steep climb, plus the original route into the Midland Station went under the Ashbourne branch from the LNWR station means that it is virtually impossible to run directly from Ashwood Dale into Buxton LNWR.

As others have said, the original route into the Midland terminus has been lost to Aldi, its carpark, and the town-centre bypass. The platform that Peak Rail built is a couple of hundred yards short of the original platform.

I know it went under that's why I said the skew would be the issue. I was just pointing out a curve once exist into the station from the southerly direction.

The peak rail platform is not substantially lower than the current station platform, but the line could not be restored using the existing Peak Rail bridge as it would be impossible to curve the line enough after the Peak Rail bridge to enter the current station. It would require the line to curve from immediately after passing under the Ashbourne line, and a new bridge on a far greater skew over charles street. This would be awkward as it would cut off the path though the old mineral water water site that everyone in Buxton spent so long trying to get reopened.

I'm not an engineer, so don't know about the radii involved, I was just saying it would probably be possible.

It certainly wouldnt be a fast approach though.

A good picture to show the levels involved is

Buxton Midland 1992 by Ex BR Signalman1

 

[yorksrob]

As others have said, the original route into the Midland terminus has been lost to Aldi, its carpark, and the town-centre bypass. The platform that Peak Rail built is a couple of hundred yards short of the original platform.

Aldi is clearly to the East of the formation, as is it's entrance, so whatever car parking has encroached is a non-issue.
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Do I also take it from this statement that you would also relax any restrictions on quarrying that exist in areas inside a National Park on the grounds of the value to the nation of the stone that can be abstracted?
--

No, because that would effectively be new development. There's a world of difference between digging a new hole and using infrastructure that has been part of the landscape for over a century.

 

[Mark62]

The Derby to Manchester Trans Peak service serving Matlock, Bakewell, Buxton, Stockport appears to operate an hourly service in both directions.

There are only four through bus services a day from Derby to Manchester. The current transpeak services are tendered routes and subsided by the county council. Timekeeping is horrendous and the fares astronomical. It takes over three hours on the bus from Derby to Manchester. The A6 is a shocking route that is prone to severe congestion in the summer between Cromford and Matlock. A through rail service makes sense but not via Buxton. The original mainline went through millers dale and Chinley I believe. This is the direct route between Derby and Manchester that needs reopening.

 

[RichmondCommu]

There are only four through bus services a day from Derby to Manchester. The current transpeak services are tendered routes and subsided by the county council. Timekeeping is horrendous and the fares astronomical. It takes over three hours on the bus from Derby to Manchester. The A6 is a shocking route that is prone to severe congestion in the summer between Cromford and Matlock. A through rail service makes sense but not via Buxton. The original mainline went through millers dale and Chinley I believe. This is the direct route between Derby and Manchester that needs reopening.

Yes that's right. You can follow the route on foot / using a bicycle from Bakewell to Blackwell Mill. Blackwell Mill is where the remaining freight only line runs from Great Rocks Junction to Buxton.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It's razed!

To raise is to go up, to raze is to go down.

This advice will be greatly appreciated by those using self-raising flour who have had baking and culinary disasters in the past...

 

[Blamethrower]

Do I also take it from this statement that you would also relax any restrictions on quarrying that exist in areas inside a National Park on the grounds of the value to the nation of the stone that can be abstracted?

Rules for quarrying inside national parks have always been relaxed. They just change the boundary of the national park. Like near Buxton, or the most obvious, Blaenau Ffestiniog

 

[tocguard]

Rules for quarrying inside national parks have always been relaxed. They just change the boundary of the national park. Like near Buxton, or the most obvious, Blaenau Ffestiniog

This is a different issue but people do need to realise that quarrying is, and has, for a very long time been part of the countryside. They have provided homes for many people, ironically those that usually move to an area next to a quarry complain and want it closed, somehow forgetting that their house would not have been built without the stone being extracted from that very quarry. They provide jobs for many people and it is a traditional activity in the countryside whereby other peoples livelihoods and then other industries rely on local quarries staying open. Gone are the days where when a quarry comes to the end of its life, it's just left. Nowadays once disused they are used as areas to build houses and businesses, even enhance the environment by transforming them into nature reserves. Many are even levelled off and you would never know. People need to stop protesting against things like this and reinstating the railway as both have more benefits to the local economy and communities than without.

 

[johnnychips]

https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/images/derby-mancester-rail_main_report_full_tcm44-21359.pdf

I don't know if this has been posted before, but I haven't read back through all the thread. It is a study released in 2004. It concluded that the best option would be an hourly service to Buxton, but the benefit: cost ratio would only be favourable in 2025. As for my precious Monsal Trail, they conclude it would be impossible to coexist with trains but suggest a new one be built along the lines of existing paths but would not be totally segregated from roads. I've just skim-read 85 pages in half an hour so forgive any inaccuracies.

 

[dewsnapsliding]

Indeed, a reinstated St Pancras to Manchester service would also have to compete for scarce paths into Manchester Piccadilly, via either Stockport or Ashburys.

I don't know how many paths are used/available out of Ashburys but can't believe it is "full"?

Reinstatement of 4 track Ashburys to Guide Bridge/Hyde North junction would also be both possible and give extra capacity for looping/overtaking.

Alternatively, Ashburys to Victoria via current freight only line is one possibility, or a short reinstatement of the chord from Guide Bridge to Ashton moss chord which is mulled over every now and again.

We can hope!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don't know how many paths are used/available out of Ashburys but can't believe it is "full"? Reinstatement of 4 track Ashburys to Guide Bridge/Hyde North junction would also be both possible and give extra capacity for looping/overtaking.

Alternatively, Ashburys to Victoria via current freight only line is one possibility, or a short reinstatement of the chord from Guide Bridge to Ashton moss chord which is mulled over every now and again.

We can hope!

Are there not to be soon some new high-frequency services of a semi-fast nature between Manchester Piccadilly and Leeds that will require paths along the Ardwick to Guide Bridge section of this route before they take the line bifurcation towards Stalybridge?

 

[dewsnapsliding]

Are there not to be soon some new high-frequency services of a semi-fast nature between Manchester Piccadilly and Leeds that will require paths along the Ardwick to Guide Bridge section of this route before they take the line bifurcation towards Stalybridge?

I think the reinstatement of the 4 track to Guide Bridge was ruled out Paul, but the one thing it might have achieved was the ability for all trains to call at both Faifield and Gorton! Madness that they don't (unless in my naivety it is down to calls constrained by time/unit allocations)?

I think some rebuilding of access at Gorton would be required as the cheap 80s solution of slewing a path across the closed lines to access the existing platforms was "used".

4 tracking this route would certainly permit more robust service redundancy, and as you say particularly in any new service pattern that sees express services taking the Stalybridge route from Guide Bridge.

However, our NW pet reinstatements digress somewhat!

 

[yorksrob]

https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/images/derby-mancester-rail_main_report_full_tcm44-21359.pdf

I don't know if this has been posted before, but I haven't read back through all the thread. It is a study released in 2004. It concluded that the best option would be an hourly service to Buxton, but the benefit: cost ratio would only be favourable in 2025. As for my precious Monsal Trail, they conclude it would be impossible to coexist with trains but suggest a new one be built along the lines of existing paths but would not be totally segregated from roads. I've just skim-read 85 pages in half an hour so forgive any inaccuracies.

By the time they've planned and built it, 2025 isn't that far off at all.

 

[johnnychips]

By the time they've planned and built it, 2025 isn't that far off at all.

I will try and read it properly. It's very well written, but of course things have changed between 2004 and 2014. In 2004 they thought they could get it done at the earliest by 2011 but concluded it would only be valid by 2025 and in profit by 2041. Sounds like HS2 - lots of assumptions about the future which could go wildly one way or the other!

What is interesting is that the authors considered the most effective solution was an hourly Buxton stopping service at 50 mph by effectively joining the Derby to Matlock to the Buxton-Manchester services, whereas most on this thread consider the Derby-Manchester expresses via Chinley more viable.

 

[RichmondCommu]

By the time they've planned and built it, 2025 isn't that far off at all.

That's true. However if we're struggling to pay for electrification projects I wonder how much money we have left over for re-openings, even if it is ten years away.

 

[Greybeard33]

I don't know how many paths are used/available out of Ashburys but can't believe it is "full"?

Reinstatement of 4 track Ashburys to Guide Bridge/Hyde North junction would also be both possible and give extra capacity for looping/overtaking.

Alternatively, Ashburys to Victoria via current freight only line is one possibility, or a short reinstatement of the chord from Guide Bridge to Ashton moss chord which is mulled over every now and again.

We can hope!

TfGM's Tram-train Strategy envisages up to 10tph to Marple via Bredbury:

It is recommended that Marple be developed as a potential Phase 1 of a
Greater Manchester tram-train strategy, comprising the best-performing
routes. For a six-minute headway service in which Marple services
operated alternately to Altrincham and Bury, it is estimated that
approximately 24 new tram-train vehicles would be needed, although
many other service patterns would be possible, and so vehicle
requirements at this stage are uncertain.

www.transportforgreatermanchestercommittee.gov.uk/tfgmc/download/downloads/id/4702/item_08_tram-train_strategy

This would restrict the scope for express passenger services on the Marple line, whether from the Hope Valley line or from the reopened MML, since all remaining heavy rail services would have to be routed via Hyde and Guide Bridge, and share the double track Goyt Valley viaduct with the tram-trains.

 

[dewsnapsliding]

TfGM's Tram-train Strategy envisages up to 10tph to Marple via Bredbury:

www.transportforgreatermanchestercommittee.gov.uk/tfgmc/download/downloads/id/4702/item_08_tram-train_strategy

This would restrict the scope for express passenger services on the Marple line, whether from the Hope Valley line or from the reopened MML, since all remaining heavy rail services would have to be routed via Hyde and Guide Bridge, and share the double track Goyt Valley viaduct with the tram-trains.

Personally I believe while trams are fine for urban mass transit, short spaced stops, if they stop heavy rail and inter-urban services being run/developed they shouldn't happen.

How long for tram from Ashton vs the train?

 

[edwin_m]

Personally I believe while trams are fine for urban mass transit, short spaced stops, if they stop heavy rail and inter-urban services being run/developed they shouldn't happen.

Maybe so, but the alternative use proposed here involves a reopening for which the word hypothetical probably implies an unwarranted degree of certainty.

Some of the stops on the Marple line have the same sort of spacings as those on the Altrincham line and tram-train has the potential to provide a much improved service comparable to that on the Metrolink routes. While it will use some capacity on the Bredbury route (where alternative routes are available) it frees some up in Piccadilly station thus creating some other opportunities.

 

[Greybeard33]

How long for tram from Ashton vs the train?

That depends whereabouts in Manchester you are going, and what time you need to get there. Off peak, there is a 43 minute gap between trains from Ashton to Victoria. The tram takes longer, but is every 12 minutes and may get you closer to your destination.

Of course, like most of the other Metrolink lines, the Ashton line is intended primarily to serve the intermediate stops, which have no alternative rail service, rather than for end-to-end journeys.

The competing demands for local, inter-urban and freight services are difficult to reconcile on a congested railway. But, compared with the decline of the 1960s, that is a nice problem to have!

 

[RichmondCommu]

What is interesting is that the authors considered the most effective solution was an hourly Buxton stopping service at 50 mph by effectively joining the Derby to Matlock to the Buxton-Manchester services, whereas most on this thread consider the Derby-Manchester expresses via Chinley more viable.

I'm guessing here that the authors were interested in the benefits that might be reaped by people living in Derbyshire, as opposed at the benefits that might be enjoyed by those living further a field.

 

[yorksrob]

What is interesting is that the authors considered the most effective solution was an hourly Buxton stopping service at 50 mph by effectively joining the Derby to Matlock to the Buxton-Manchester services, whereas most on this thread consider the Derby-Manchester expresses via Chinley more viable.

You're quite right, and that is because as the local Council, their primary concern is local travel. They don't really have the remit to consider the route's value to the wider strategic network, just as Network Rail didn't really have any reason to consider local transport South of Buxton.

Unfortunately, this forum seems to be the only place capable of considering that both of these objectives could be served by the same railway.
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Maybe so, but the alternative use proposed here involves a reopening for which the word hypothetical probably implies an unwarranted degree of certainty.

Some of the stops on the Marple line have the same sort of spacings as those on the Altrincham line and tram-train has the potential to provide a much improved service comparable to that on the Metrolink routes. While it will use some capacity on the Bredbury route (where alternative routes are available) it frees some up in Piccadilly station thus creating some other opportunities.

Considering this proposal would screw up Hope Valley services, regardless of whether the line through Matlock reopened or not, it would be irresponsible in the extreme for the authorities to consider taking this proposal forward.

 

[CdBrux]

Considering this proposal would screw up Hope Valley services, regardless of whether the line through Matlock reopened or not, it would be irresponsible in the extreme for the authorities to consider taking this proposal forward.

How would it 'screw up' Hope Valley services?
Let's assume it makes them no worse, or an alternative is found that's as good, do you think a significant Metrolink (tram/train) related passenger increase from Marple must always be rejected in favour of anything on the Hope Valley?

 

[johnnychips]

This gets confusinger and confusinger, as it were. I thought I read somewhere that one way of increasing trains on the Hope Valley to Manchester corridor was to send an extra fast train to Victoria via Bredbury, building a passing loop at Grindleford. How would that sit with a Marple tram/train, let alone the HV stopper?

EDIT: that's an extra, fast train, not an extra-fast train!

 

[RichmondCommu]

This gets confusinger and confusinger, as it were. I thought I read somewhere that one way of increasing trains on the Hope Valley to Manchester corridor was to send an extra fast train to Victoria via Romily, building a passing loop at Grindleford. How would that sit with a Marple tram/train, let alone the HV stopper?

I'm pretty certain that the passing loop at Grindleford has been agreed and that planning permission has been sought.

 

[Ash Bridge]

This gets confusinger and confusinger, as it were. I thought I read somewhere that one way of increasing trains on the Hope Valley to Manchester corridor was to send an extra fast train to Victoria via Bredbury, building a passing loop at Grindleford. How would that sit with a Marple tram/train, let alone the HV stopper?

EDIT: that's an extra, fast train, not an extra-fast train!

Could they be thinking of routing the Hope Valley stoppers via Stockport if the tram-train service is introduced?