Petition to create Great Central alternative for HS2

[synthnut]

Here we go again! The old Great Central alternative.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petiti..._YsxZ2cGTGdyKCTBBPiohFCZu3Ia9EZo7tz96-wi0jyrY

The Great Central Railway was closed in the 1960s and has the capacity to take high speed trains. It survives almost totally intact and would serve the same purpose as HS2 at a fraction of the cost.

‘ Re-opening The Great Central Railway fulfils all the main objectives of HS2 without the excruciating cost, the environmental objections and absurdities of the latter project.‘ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/there-is-a-far-better-option-than-hs2-and-it-already-exists/

Who brought this one up again, was a petition back in 2008 if I remember correctly!

 

[yorkie]

Someone called Julie Shackson, according to the link you provided.

What a bizarre petition; I don't think that individual is very knowledgable, to put it mildly.

Note that by linking to it here, you are providing even more publicity to it.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm not sure I'd put much credence to it. Aside from that the petition is totally ludicrous, and so devoid of any awareness of the facts of HS2 that there is no way anyone in the Government is going to take any notice of it, 38 Degrees are always doing (often, very uninformed) petitions on everything under the sun. Occasionally they stumble on something sensible, but mostly they seem to me to be little more than a big clickbait site pretending to be social justice campaigners. (Well, to be fair, they probably do really believe they are social justice campaigners, and just haven't realised that what they do amounts to little more than inane clickbait )

 

[Polarbear]

I expect those that signed one of the (many) stop HS2 petitions will sign it. Not that will achieve anything.

It’s also amazing how gullible some people are too. The GC has been closed for over 50 years; much of it has been obliterated, so hardly able to be reopened easily. Yet people accept this guff without question!

Sigh...

 

[squizzler]

Surely it will be several years before HS2 is saturated enough to need a relief line?

 

[duffield]

Reopening the GCR as such has been thoroughly debunked as in any way viable many times.

However, I wonder if specifically the Rugby to Leicester section (obviously not routing into the former station sites at each end, but instead with chords constructed so it would link the existing Rugby and Leicester stations) would be useful as a local line, or part of a cross-country type route?
Not suggesting that it's likely to happen or a high priority or worth the construction budget, but I'm wondering whether *if* it existed today in the form I've suggested (linked in to existing lines/stations) it would be well used and even nominally profitable in terms of running costs?

How many people commute between Rugby and Leicester? Are there are country-country type services that would make sense via this route?

 

[Glenn1969]

I think this is an anti HS2 petition trying to suggest a cheaper alternative, not a possible relief line

 

[duffield]

I think this is an anti HS2 petition trying to suggest a cheaper alternative, not a possible relief line

Yes, there's a lot of this about, suggest various 'alternatives' to HS2 Phase 1 which actually mean the whole thing comes to a grinding halt and most probably ends up not being built at all. But I *think* for phase1 (and probably 2a to Crewe) it's now 90%+ likely it will be built, on pretty much the exact planned current route. The main achievement of anyone trying to stop phase 1 now via legal methods will be to clog up the courts and rack up legal expenses for themselves and the taxpayer.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Reopening the GCR as such has been thoroughly debunked as in any way viable many times.

However, I wonder if specifically the Rugby to Leicester section (obviously not routing into the former station sites at each end, but instead with chords constructed so it would link the existing Rugby and Leicester stations) would be useful as a local line, or part of a cross-country type route?
Not suggesting that it's likely to happen or a high priority or worth the construction budget, but I'm wondering whether *if* it existed today in the form I've suggested (linked in to existing lines/stations) it would be well used and even nominally profitable in terms of running costs?

How many people commute between Rugby and Leicester? Are there are country-country type services that would make sense via this route?

I don't think there's any significant doubt that if it had never closed, it would have a regular, well-used service today. But as I think from your post you realise, that's not the same thing as it being worth spending hundreds of millions rebuilding it from scratch. Without wanting to go too far off topic, I'm pretty sure that if providing a direct (MK/Northampton?)-Rugby-Leicester service ever became a priority, a much cheaper way (albeit still difficult and expensive) to achieve it would be to build a grade-separated South-to-East chord South of Nuneaton, so you could run Rugby-Hinckley-Leicester.

 

[Journeyman]

How long before someone throws Woodhead in for good measure?

 

[d9009alycidon]

Would be a real kick in the teeth for all the folk that have donated money to the "Reunification" project to see it compulsorary purchased. Do these campaigners not know that a fair chunk of the route has an operating heritage railway already there

 

[swt_passenger]

Would be a real kick in the teeth for all the folk that have donated money to the "Reunification" project to see it compulsorary purchased. Do these campaigners not know that a fair chunk of the route has an operating heritage railway already there

They don’t seem to have a clue that the former GC goes to a completely different area of the country. I never quite saw how they can provide more capacity to Birmingham and the NW by heading off to Leicester and Nottingham. But then like minded people have proposed it in these forums many times, despite fairly overwhelming criticism...

 

[MarlowDonkey]

I never quite saw how they can provide more capacity to Birmingham

From Ruislip to somewhere near Banbury, it was the Great Central & Great Western Joint railway. That never closed, even if British Rail singled parts of it and reduce it to one train every two hours along part of the route. It came back to life with the Chiltern franchise and has been redoubled and made suitable for 100 mph running. Perhaps more capacity could be squeezed out by reinstating the quadruple track sections through many of the stations.

 

[swt_passenger]

From Ruislip to somewhere near Banbury, it was the Great Central & Great Western Joint railway. That never closed, even if British Rail singled parts of it and reduce it to one train every two hours along part of the route. It came back to life with the Chiltern franchise and has been redoubled and made suitable for 100 mph running. Perhaps more capacity could be squeezed out by reinstating the quadruple track sections through many of the stations.

That’s not the section the “reopen the GC” enthusiasts ever talk about though. That would have to come under the heading “Daft Alternative 2”, there’s plenty other threads destroying that fantasy as well...

 

[adamedwards]

Can we petition to reopen Watling Street as a high speed alternative to the M1? Roman roads were dead straight so has to work very easily.

 

[PeterC]

That’s not the section the “reopen the GC” enthusiasts ever talk about though. That would have to come under the heading “Daft Alternative 2”, there’s plenty other threads destroying that fantasy as well...

Just extend the Metropolitan Line to Nottingham, problem solved.

 

[DelW]

However, I wonder if specifically the Rugby to Leicester section (obviously not routing into the former station sites at each end, but instead with chords constructed so it would link the existing Rugby and Leicester stations) would be useful as a local line, or part of a cross-country type route?
Not suggesting that it's likely to happen or a high priority or worth the construction budget, but I'm wondering whether *if* it existed today in the form I've suggested (linked in to existing lines/stations) it would be well used and even nominally profitable in terms of running costs?

How many people commute between Rugby and Leicester? Are there are country-country type services that would make sense via this route?

Wouldn't it have been easier just to retain the parallel Midland route, which already connected to the lines that survive now, without having to build any new chords?

 

[InTheEastMids]

Wouldn't it have been easier just to retain the parallel Midland route, which already connected to the lines that survive now, without having to build any new chords?

Harborough-Northampton is prob a more likely reopening candidate (West Northants are looking at this)

Leicester-rugby would require a new railway probably from Kilby Bridge and around Countesthorpe. Although one possibility it does create could be a multimodal terminal at / near Magna Park

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Wouldn't it have been easier just to retain the parallel Midland route, which already connected to the lines that survive now, without having to build any new chords?

It would have been easier to have kept open the old Midland route between Rugby and Leicester, but it was closed. In another thread, a "local" posted that part of route has now been built over. Alas!

 

[duffield]

Wouldn't it have been easier just to retain the parallel Midland route, which already connected to the lines that survive now, without having to build any new chords?

Must admit that I didn't realise there was a parallel (to the GCR) Midland route from Rugby to Leicester...when did that close?

 

[DelW]

Must admit that I didn't realise there was a parallel (to the GCR) Midland route from Rugby to Leicester...when did that close?

According to C J Wignall's gazetteer, the stations closed in 1962, though might have stayed open longer for freight?

 

[joebassman]

Didn't chiltern want to reopen it at one point as far as rugby and eventually onto Leicester (according to wikipedia) but it was rejected in parliament as the mps felt that there was too much of a risk that the government would have to take over the cost?