Re-open Great Central Railway petition

[A0]

Somebody has started a petition to reopen the GCR on the Downing Street website:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/greatcentralrlwy/

Closes on 9th July - only 130 or so have signed until now - let's see if we can get that a bit higher.

 

[ungreat]

There would have to be some serious diversions north of Rugby

 

[Mr Spock]

There was (is?) a company trying to reopen this line but constantly got nowhere so not sure what good this petition will do.

 

[Mojo]

Hmm, let me guess, I reckon the response will be...

The Government's priorities for the railway are set out in the White Paper - Delivering a Sustainable Railway. This is backed up by the High Level Output Specification - a statement of what the Government wishes to buy from the railway industry over the period 2009-2014.

Priorities for this period are to continue to improve safety, improve performance and increase capacity. In respect of the latter, the Government has stated that an additional 1300 new carriages would be added to the network. Some of these will be allocated to services in the area and the area will also benefit from the investment in the Inter City Express Project which will replace the diesel High Speed Trains. However, the White Paper also states that the 'Government does not envisage changes in the pattern or level of demand large enough in the HLOS period to justify developing or opening new regional lines'.

The Government, therefore, does not include the re-opening lines as a priority. However, local transport authorities can consider whether the re-opening of a line is the best way to meet regional and local transport objectives.

Heh! Wonder where I got that from...

 

[ah-media]

There would have to be some serious diversions north of Rugby

Just because they've removed the old girder bridge over the WCML .. and they built an industrial estate the north side of the WCML .. and a housing estate ...

Damn it man, don't give me problems, just solutions !

Very sad to see the bridge go .. Many many days as a child stood in it's shadow just up from the signal box watching the trains up and down the main line Last time I was in Rugby it looked really strange not being there

 

[AlexS]

Not to mention there being a railway in the way between leicester and nottingham, and most of Nottingham being in the way through Nottingham!

 

[16CSVT2700]

There would need to be a massive diversion around Nottingham, all of the viaducts and Nottingham Victoria station were destroyed, the tunnels are still there but thats it.

 

[ungreat]

Aye,and the trams use Weekday Cross as well..I can't see it ever happening..even now,theres still some old scores to settle with old route rivalry,believe it or not,and the GC is still one of them..they ruffled some Midland feathers that must have a long bloodline!

 

[paul1609]

I reckon there is no useable route in to London now either!

 

[Metroland]

Well yep, quite so. The Met and Chiltern line is a hell of a lot busier than in the 60s. The centre roads would need to be re-opened at many of the stations and in one or two cases platforms moved to their original location.

As for Leicester and Nottingham, a diversion would have to be built around these areas too, there's no way it could be put back on the original route - or Chesterfield for that matter, where the GCR is now a dual carriageway around the town.

There is a possibility it could be connected up with the MML (which is four tracks in the area) to avoid some of the expense of building a brand new route, you would just need short spurs.

 

[ungreat]

If I remember correctly,wasn't the original reinstatement plan to use the old trackbed as far as Rugby,then link in with the WCML?

 

[Nick W]

I'm sure if you or the petition starter can come up with £100bn you could have a GCR back, or about 1/2 that for a brand new HSL?

 

[Metroland]

£100 bn? WTF?

The central railways case was £4bn, which included lots of new route.

10 miles have been restored by volunteers and hard work, using funds raised from members of the public.

£100bn is just guesswork, for 1/2 of that you could have a complete HSR network.

 

[paul1609]

Well yep, quite so. The Met and Chiltern line is a hell of a lot busier than in the 60s. The centre roads would need to be re-opened at many of the stations and in one or two cases platforms moved to their original location.

QUOTE]

I reckon you'd have to thin out Met Services from the Fast Line as well causing a reduction in frequency and then of course you have to find a London Terminal Marlebone is almost full.

 

[Metroland]

That would be the biggest problem yep, it's a shame all the goods yards were sold off at these stations to allow expansion, nothing like a quick buck!

 

[Bill EWS]

Most of the trackbed south of Leicester is perfectly reusable with some house and building buyouts it wouldn't be that difficult. In open country it is mostly a matter of rebuilding lost bridges and viaducts etc.

Even getting through Nottingham, particularly at Weekday Cross isn't impossible. The trams divert off the trackbed from the new viaduct into town and the viaduct section could share with the mainline and be re extended over the Midland. The new housing encroaching the track bed around New Basford should never have been allowed to such and extent and will cost to get back. As far as I know the filled in gully that was Carrington station hasn't been built upon to any real detriment and could be cleared out again.

As to the London terminus, the present Great Central group trying to reopen it are mainly interested in getting to the Channel Tunnel with freight terminals elsewhere. However there is still the choice of Paddington, Euston or St. Pancreas. Marylebone wouldn't be that useful even if it had the capacity. Euston slightly similar due to not being linked to the Circle line.

There is little or no need to use the ex joint Met/GCR line but either use Aylesbury to Princess Riceborough (Which may require doubling) and/or the old Grendon Underwood to Ashendon Jct and down to Old Oak on the Western mainline. With the Channel Tunnel Depot out of use the old link to North Pole Jct. could be restored and a route or routes found to reach the Channel Tunnel. Or possibly a route found to link the Ex GCR into the Channel Tunnel line prior to St. Pancreas and onto HS1. There are numerous possibilities.

Sorry guys but there is a lot of pointless talk here. The case for reopening the GCR from around Leicester and southwards has already been considered possible and costed.

There is much truth in the old bias between the MR, LMRS and LNER and the GCR and it is sad that this still holds true. I remember when I first joined the railways, older drivers used to say that "They didn't nationalise the railways, they Midlandised it" and that is so true. It even happened in the States with the old Grand Trunk Western (GTW), which the CGR Director Edward Watkins had much to do with.

When I first starting to go to the States I couldn't believe the similarities between the old GCR and you will find that in most cases it is the GTW line and stations that have been closed, even when they were more central to the town centre than the others. It obviously had little to do with convenience.

Whatever, that got off the possible GCR line reopening discussion a little but does tie in with it.

Cheers.

BillEWS.

 

[ungreat]

It won't happen though...although would be nice if it did

 

[Bill EWS]

Ah, ungreat, never say 'No'. Even if the present GCR Group don't manage to reopen the line, in today's present climate of thinking about and searching for possible new High Speed lines this excellent trackbed would be ideal.

Part of the failure of the GCR (London Extension) was that it ran through very sparsely populated country much of the way, although it did serve numerous quite large towns on the way. With modern high speed running the sparsity would be an advantage as High Speed Trains require long runs between stops to be economically viable.

It probably won't happen in my lifetime, which is a shame, as I would love to see it , but I feel pretty sure that the line will come back sometime in the future.

Cheers.

BillEWS.

 

[Nick W]

£100 bn? WTF?

The central railways case was £4bn, which included lots of new route.

Fair enough, freight railways are always cheaper than usable passenger railways!

10 miles have been restored by volunteers and hard work, using funds raised from members of the public.

A great line on which I've been many time, which sadly may not ever break even thanks to recent price increases.

£100bn is just guesswork

£16bn for crossfail, £5bn for HSL1 and £8-10bn for the WCML should give good ideas for estimating:

• London Marylebone low level
• New tunnel London - Northwood
• New alignment to Aylesbury
• Existing route to Rugby South
• Rugby low-level and 3km worth of tunnel
• WCML spur ft. a flying junction (yes I'm aware of the lack of junctions on the original build)
• Existing route to Leicester South, including some demolition
• Narborough Spur
• 5km of tunnel and new low-level Leicester station
• Purchase of current preserved GCR
• New high level station over Loughborough
• 12km of tunnel through Nottingham including new low-level station and spur
• (New even lower-level Midland station and tunneled approaches to keep Central men happy.)
• Some compulsory purchase through Hucknall (but they deserve it), followed by widening of the Robin-Hood line and a nice cutting under the Robin-Hood line
• A nice new alignment, since the old alignment seems to have vanished, followed by a nice 3km Chesterfield tunnel and station.
• Dare I suggest the old road be used instead of rebuilding the GCR here?
• A nice 5km tunnel to serve Sheffield station as a low-level
• Rebuilding of the Woodhead Route including repair of the old tunnels, diversion of the electricity cables into the old tunnels.
• About 6km of tunnel into Manchester and another flying junction adding capacity, surfacing near Ardwick
• Widening of the exiting viaduct to add 2 extra tracks.
• Restoration of Manchester Mayfield to deal with extra trains.

for 1/2 of that you could have a complete HSR network.

For just 10 HSL1s you'd be hard pushed to get more than a single string route from London to South Scotland.

Clearly new High Speed lines are about adding capacity. The high speed bit is just a bonus. If speed was the only factor, the WCML and GWML would have been converted to around 160 mph long ago, and Virgin's 20 year ECML bid that involved some new 200mph high-speed line but no extra capacity for just £5bn would have been carried out.

The only way this can be done is to build new approaches to city centres. Unfortunately large scale demolition is not as acceptable for a new railway as for a new road. Therefore, it will involve mass-scale tunneling.

Consider a new London Terminus as an example of the difficulty. Every option will be pricey. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following:

• New platforms just west of the MML platforms at St Pancras.
• New platforms at Stratford, which while not in the City, has good connections.
• Run via Heathrow Airport and use heathrow express paths.
• Build Superlink and use generated capacity.
• Expensive tunneling, such as the DLR tunnel into Bank which alone cost more than the whole of the original DLR.
• Waterloo International, though may be facing the wrong way for most high speed lines.

 

[Metroland]

The preserved GCR has made a profit for several years now….as are the vast majority of the other 70 odd preserved railways.

The GCR trunk routes is about 200 miles, most of the alignment is still there and is still owned by BRB. No land purchase is required for the majority of the route which substantially lowers costs. The GCR was well built when it opened, and suffers few of the engineering problems older lines have, so I doubt it’s in that bad condition.

Even if it is ‘new’ route, £500 million per mile is in the land of the fabled banana for this sort of thing - especially as the French built a similar length TGV line for £3bn with massive tunnels and viaducts. What are they gold plated rails? Even the most expensive road scheme which takes 4 times more land than a railway is coming out at £100 million per mile through a crowded built up area in Glasgow. A freight railway ISN'T that much different to a passenger one, especially considering they wanted to piggy back trucks and use a substantially higher axle load and overall tonnage.

The vast majority of the route could be relaid for south of £4 million per mile. Part of the cost of Crossrail is the underground stations and urban access, which you just don't need for a normal tunnel. So the comparison is invalid.

You don’t need half of those tunnels, because you could connect spurs to the 4 track MML which gets around most of the ‘problem’ areas. Perhaps the London terminal is a problem - but remember St Pancras was rebuilt adding substantial new capacity for £800 million. You don't need a new tunnel out of London because Chiltern has many stations that have centre roads taken out and several paths could be freed. The GCR could also handle traffic out of Euston and from the Oxford direction after EW rail opens with some extra spurs.

It’s just the usual load of badly researched negative crap we have come to love and expect from certain members of this forum. I don't claim to know the exact figure for re-opening, but £100bn is utter codswallop considering NR were talking about a complete new build HSL network across the country for £64bn.

 

[paul1609]

Out of interest which Chiltern Stations have still got room to put through roads in to?
I can think of Beaconsfield, West Ruislip, Bicester North and possibly Princes Risborough.

 

[Nick W]

The GCR trunk routes is about 200 miles, most of the alignment is still there and is still owned by BRB. No land purchase is required for the majority of the route which substantially lowers costs. The GCR was well built when it opened, and suffers few of the engineering problems older lines have, so I doubt it’s in that bad condition.

Good news, unfortunately a lot of the south section is in use.

Even if it is ‘new’ route, £500 million per mile is in the land of the fabled banana for this sort of thing - especially as the French built a similar length TGV line for £3bn with massive tunnels and viaducts.

Not bad, though with non high-speeed passenger numbers declining, they didn't need to do much more than resignalling in Paris.

What are they gold plated rails? Even the most expensive road scheme which takes 4 times more land than a railway is coming out at £100 million per mile through a crowded built up area in Glasgow.

Just as well most of the land was derelict or industrial.

A freight railway ISN'T that much different to a passenger one, especially considering they wanted to piggy back trucks and use a substantially higher axle load and overall tonnage.

But you don't have to build in residential areas.

The vast majority of the route could be relaid for south of £4 million per mile. Part of the cost of Crossrail is the underground stations and urban access, which you just don't need for a normal tunnel. So the comparison is invalid.

True but I highlighted the requirement for a fair few underground stations, probably at least 12 coaches long.

You don’t need half of those tunnels, because you could connect spurs to the 4 track MML which gets around most of the ‘problem’ areas.

Hardly building back the GCR, more like the £50bn option, which is obviously a pessimistic estimate.

Perhaps the London terminal is a problem - but remember St Pancras was rebuilt adding substantial new capacity for £800 million.

Not sure if there are any more stations that could be upgraded so easily, though a fair job was done at Liverpool Street. Needless to say I'm sure you could get 4 more platforms out of St Pancras.
[/quote]

You don't need a new tunnel out of London because Chiltern has many stations that have centre roads taken out and several paths could be freed. The GCR could also handle traffic out of Euston and from the Oxford direction after EW rail opens with some extra spurs.

Not really adding much capacity, and reliability will plummet.

It’s just the usual load of badly researched negative crap we have come to love and expect from certain members of this forum. I don't claim to know the exact figure for re-opening, but £100bn is utter codswallop considering NR were talking about a complete new build HSL network across the country for £64bn.

The same NR whose WCML upgrade cost £10bn and only offered a double figure mileage of new track on an existing alignment?

I also thought they were talking about starting with a few HSLs for the first 100 miles or so out of London, ie the problem areas, which will probably cost £5bn each based on HS1 prices. That should set them back £20bn out of their £64bn.

 

[Metroland]

Well if you care to look at Google earth, you've find most of the GCR is intact. There is the odd place south of Leicester where it's built over, but this tends to be limited to a couple of industrial units in one of two places, which could easily be re-located. There is one street of housing at Lutterworth, but space for a new alignment exists between there and the motorway M1.

The problem area is around Nottingham/Leicester, but spurs areas exist for the most part to the MML (so you could access Leicester and Nottingham) and a new alignment could be built around the whole area for relatively modest cost. Sheffield does not require tunnels, if you knew anything about the route, the line still exists through the city.

As for London terminals, there's several options - a new station at Wembley, running into Paddington (which will require less platforms after cross rail) Marylebone or under under London via the met. You need very little extra platform space for a 30 min HST service, or even a 15 min interval one (around 1-2 extra) and there's paths for that on the Chiltern now without any additional platforms. (There's at least 10 spare paths per hour with a similar sort of service you only need the through lines to allow high speed trains to pass - there is just 1 freight train per day. ) The line into Paddington is very underused, service by 1 passenger train per day and a handful of empty stocks. A small amount in single track, would could easily be doubled.

Most of the stations on the GWR/GC Joint had through lines, and there is areas that can be four tracked especially around Denham and North of High Wycombe. Other trains could start form Oxford or Milton Keynes to run north and would be a good way to get freight off the WCML to allow more pendolinos/commuter traffic.

There is still no evidence that any of your costs make too much sense I'm afraid especially as a new HSL has very little difference in construction methods than a new bypass and we'd need 35 miles at most at a rough cost of £1 billion.

The WCML consisted of major remodelling in several locations, basically rebuilding and resignalling 600 miles of railway and £2billion worth of new trains. It's actually not bad value considering the M6 widening is going to cost £60 million per mile, the equivalent of a new lane between Birmingham and Preston or the new runway at Heathrow.

 

[Donny Dave]

I'm intruiged as to where the £100 billion is going to come from in the first place ....

So a few questions.

1. How will everything be financed?
2. What will the benefit to cost ratio be?
3. Other than London - Leicester/Nottingham/Sheffield/Manchester, what other markets does the GCR intend to serve?
4. Would upgrading and electrifying the MML and ordering new stock be a cheaper option in the long run?

 

[Metroland]

Well £100 billion is a stupid dumb figure, and the person who came up with that is clueless.

1. How will everything be financed?

Public/Private I should think

2. What will the benefit to cost ratio be?

No idea, subject to a study which NR is carrying out. The freight railway had a positive ratio. http://www.central-railway.co.uk/

3. Other than London - Leicester/Nottingham/Sheffield/Manchester, what other markets does the GCR intend to serve?

High Wycombe-Leicester, Oxford/Reading – Leicester and Nottingham direct, Rugby-Leicester/Nottingham/Sheffield and relieving other lines to run extra trains. GCR is pretty straight so upwards of 155mph is possible and would be cheaper than a brand new HSL.

4. Would upgrading and electrifying the MML and ordering new stock be a cheaper option in the long run?

It is being upgraded, but the main problem is its capacity constrained south of Bedford as are most lines approaching London with the exception of the Chiltern. The GCR could also take double deck trains and piggy back trucks.

 

[Nick W]

I apologise. It appears me and Rob are looking at two different proposals. Mine being to rebuild the GCR with the interchange and spurs that the original build lacked (it's downfall), while Rob wishes to build a new freight line that adds little capacity, the only gain being joining up the Chiltern line, which apparently has spare paths and the ex 4-track northern section of the MML.

At the end of the day, I was aiming to point out the rebuilding the GCR is too expensive for its limited benefits for the nation's interest. A new high speed line could make use of the trackbed in places.

You need very little extra platform space for a 30 min HST service, or even a 15 min interval one (around 1-2 extra) and there's paths for that on the Chiltern now without any additional platforms

Consider how many fast trains go into and out of Euston, then consider that passenger numbers will double in the next two decades. Do you really think they'll do with a single 4tph high speed route?

 

[Metroland]

-No I support a multi-use route in the interim to getting HSL, which, should they ever be built need a much longer time frame and would be more expensive. At a future date, should funds allow, a new tunnelled route could be built into London.

-The MML is still 4 track on that section, in the longer term a new line could be built between S Leicester and North Nottingham.

- 4 trains per hour? It could handle many more than that, especially north of Princes Risborough. As I pointed out freight could come off the WCML and other passenger services could start at Oxford, Swindon or Reading.

- You can't say the costs are too expensive for the benefits, because your arbitrary figure of £100 billion is plucked out of thin air and nor have we got any further reports on external benefits for freight and passengers, especially in the era of high oil prices and environmental concerns. I can't say it's cost effective for sure, but I broadly support it in principal.

- The downfall of the GCR was WCML electrification and the M1. Routes that are now bursting at the seams.

 

[paul1609]

To be honest I would query whether any of the Inter City main Lines are anywhere near capacity. Even WCML is still only using low capacity 9 car EMUs on major flows like London to Birmingham. In Journey times these are no further way than destinations like Brighton, Southampton and Portsmouth which all have a high frequency 12 car services on much more modest infrastructure.

 

[bunnahabhain]

I've been reading this thread with interest...well, something like that anyway. The ballpark £100billion figure is a bit over the top (especially the "features" of such a line suggested), let me put it into perspective how the costing of relaying part of the GCML.

£10million to relay 3/4 of a mile is estimated, this includes a new viaduct, replacing an embankment, and a bridge over a four track main line. Now, that seems quite expensive compared to a lot of other projects especially since the line hasn't been substantially built upon, the main cost coming not from a new bridge or viaduct, but from actually reinstating the embankment.


The GCR PLC recorded it's second trading profit this year (the second in a row) of £12,000, the GCRN has recorded a profit each year, I believe, however the figures are massively supported by the commercial freight flows to the British Gypsum factory at East Leake. The only chance of any section of the GCML being relayed in the near future are Links 1, 2 and 3 of the Greater Great Central.

http://www.bridgingthegap.org.uk - There ya go, info on Link 1.

 

[Bill EWS]

Many thanks for that Jamie. I enjoyed catching up with the latest progress. I hadn't looked into the web site for a while. Things are looking good and it was a real treat to see that work going on at the old bridge over the canal and gives great hope for what's to come in the near future.

Cheers.

BillEWS.