Skipton-Colne again... sorry!

[Tetchytyke]

There isnt enough demand from the Pendle Towns to Leeds to warrant a new line.

A drive along the A56 or the A6068 in a morning proves the opposite, I would say. The car park at Steeton and Silsden is now as large as it is precisely because it serves as a railhead for people from the Pendle Towns who work in Leeds.

The business case for Colne to Skipton- 11 miles along a trackbed which is almost completely extant- is a lot stronger than it is for several of the re-openings that have happened in Scotland, not least the Leven Railway.

I don't think it will happen any time soon for the same reason the trains via the Copy Pit remain painfully slow and overcrowded, but that's not to say that the latent demand isn't there.

 

[The Planner]

A drive along the A56 or the A6068 in a morning proves the opposite, I would say. The car park at Steeton and Silsden is now as large as it is precisely because it serves as a railhead for people from the Pendle Towns who work in Leeds.

The business case for Colne to Skipton- 11 miles along a trackbed which is almost completely extant- is a lot stronger than it is for several of the re-openings that have happened in Scotland, not least the Leven Railway.

I don't think it will happen any time soon for the same reason the trains via the Copy Pit remain painfully slow and overcrowded, but that's not to say that the latent demand isn't there.

"almost completely extant" is doing some heavy lifting there! just looking at GoogleMaps shows Vivary Way, Foulridge, Earby, Lancashire Cycleway, River Aire, A629 etc.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Probably, but then the point isn't to connect Colne and Skipton, it's to connect Colne and the other Pendle towns to Leeds, and improve the overall East Lancs - West Yorkshire service. Of course, if this can be achieved using the existing Copy Pit route at lower cost then reopening Skipton-Colne, then obviously that's what should be done.

Stations from Blackburn to Burnley Manchester Road that are already using an already existing service to Leeds via the Copy Pit Line. Whay you are trying to justify is the few stations east of Burnley to the end of a single line branch line at Colne having to have a direct service to Leeds at the cost involved of what has already been explained of the works required to reopen the line the Colne to Skipton line.

 

[Tetchytyke]

"almost completely extant" is doing some heavy lifting there! just looking at GoogleMaps shows Vivary Way, Foulridge, Earby, Lancashire Cycleway, River Aire, A629 etc.

I use OpenStreetMap as I find it more accurate, and that shows it is all still there and not built on, even through Earby:

Image shows a section of map at Earby showing the old trackbed marked as a footpath.

It is rather regrettable that they didn't put passive provision into the A629 Skipton bypass for reinstatement of the railway line though. Digging out the embankment and putting a bridge in on the A629 would be possible but would be expensive.

So would reinstating some of the other bridges, to be fair, especially the canal bridge at Foulbridge and the river bridge just outside Skipton.

 

[30907]

A drive along the A56 or the A6068 in a morning proves the opposite, I would say. The car park at Steeton and Silsden is now as large as it is precisely because it serves as a railhead for people from the Pendle Towns who work in Leeds.

Do you have a source for this?
I would have identified the new-builds in Sutton, Cowling and Gargrave as more obvious sources, as well as Craven generally (the WY/NY tariff boundary caused the original car park to fill up almost from day 1, as I discovered to my cost on occasion).

 

[Tetchytyke]

Do you have a source for this?

Mark One Eyeball? The A6068 is a car park in a morning in the eastbound direction.

And yes, it does also act as a railhead for Craven, partly because of the WY boundary and partly because of the lack of car parking at Skipton station.

 

[quantinghome]

Stations from Blackburn to Burnley Manchester Road that are already using an already existing service to Leeds via the Copy Pit Line. Whay you are trying to justify is the few stations east of Burnley to the end of a single line branch line at Colne having to have a direct service to Leeds at the cost involved of what has already been explained of the works required to reopen the line the Colne to Skipton line.

It's unfair to demand that you read the entire thread, but if you did you would see I'm not trying to justify anything. This is in the speculative discussion section for a reason. I'm basically wondering out loud whether the reopening is quite the basket case it's generally made out to be. On the basis of (i) previous reopenings and (ii) the gap between the current service and the service warranted by the population numbers and proximity of East Lancs and West Yorkshire, there might be a case. However, other cheaper options are available, namely increasing the frequency of the existing service. While this would still leave the Colne branch out in the cold, the additional benefit of directly connecting the branch to West Yorkshire is likely not enough to swing it in favour of reopening Skipton-Colne.

 

[30907]

Mark One Eyeball? The A6068 is a car park in a morning in the eastbound direction.

Fair enough, I'm never there at that time .

 

[Tetchytyke]

Stations from Blackburn to Burnley Manchester Road that are already using an already existing service to Leeds via the Copy Pit Line.

...or they're driving, because the Copy Pit line is both painfully slow and painfully overcrowded. It's under 40 miles from Burnley to Leeds yet the train takes well over an hour.

 

[yoyothehobo]

There is no such thing as an Extant track bed these days. Not really. Anything that hasnt had regular maintenance for 60 years will need a substantial rebuild, as well as in this case demolishing the centre of several towns it would go through. In fact it is probably easier to build new, than where there is existing earthworks.

...or they're driving, because the Copy Pit line is both painfully slow and painfully overcrowded. It's under 40 miles from Burnley to Leeds yet the train takes well over an hour.

So we duplicate it with another line which would take well over an hour... (the direct service between Burnley and Leeds takes an hour and 5 minutes..., hardly well over an hour)

 

[Killingworth]

A drive along the A56 or the A6068 in a morning proves the opposite, I would say. The car park at Steeton and Silsden is now as large as it is precisely because it serves as a railhead for people from the Pendle Towns who work in Leeds.

Looking at my OS maps I can't tell where all those car driving commuters are coming from but they won't all be coming from the Colne direction to fill Steeton and Silsden's 143 space car park.

Even if they were all coming from Colne I can't imagine many opting to give up a flexible car journey to Steeton & Silsden to join regular services into Leeds and Bradford. Not for an infrequent service going up to Skipton to come back down again even if it were a through train. Surely only the most masochistic rail enthusiasts would do it if it needed a change?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Looking at my OS maps I can't tell where all those car driving commuters are coming from but they won't all be coming from the Colne direction to fill Steeton and Silsden's 143 space car park.

Steeton has 250 parking spaces, they've just built a multi-storey car park at the station to increase capacity. I think they'll need to extend it again within a year or two.

It has a wide catchment area which definitely includes the Pendle Towns, I know people who drive there from places as far away as Clitheroe. Some of the attraction is because it's the first station in West Yorkshire and therefore has PTE-level fares, but it's also a very convenient railhead and more attractive than the slow and overcrowded train via Copy Pit.

 

[yoyothehobo]

Steeton has 250 parking spaces, they've just built a multi-storey car park at the station to increase capacity. I think they'll need to extend it again within a year or two.

It has a wide catchment area which definitely includes the Pendle Towns, I know people who drive there from places as far away as Clitheroe. Some of the attraction is because it's the first station in West Yorkshire and therefore has PTE-level fares, but it's also a very convenient railhead and more attractive than the slow and overcrowded train via Copy Pit.

Well Burnley has no parking spaces, is only 10 minutes closer driving time and has a less frequent service to Leeds which takes an hour, as opposed to a frequent train that takes 30 minutes.

Earby is 27 minutes drive from Clitheroe and would have at best 1 train per hour and be more expensive than from Steeton and Silsden. I would envisage that those few railheading will still choose Steeton and Silsden.

I would rather the money that could theoretically be spent on this be spend on future resilience, repairs, upgrades and electrification which would many orders of magnitude more beneficial. This is why SKipton-Colne is a basket case. It would be a spectacularly poor use of money.

 

[YorksLad12]

A drive along the A56 or the A6068 in a morning proves the opposite, I would say. The car park at Steeton and Silsden is now as large as it is precisely because it serves as a railhead for people from the Pendle Towns who work in Leeds.

The car park at Steeton & Silsden keeps getting extended because it's the first station in West Yorkshire. It works out a lot cheaper to drive there and get a train than from, for example, Cononley, the first station over the border and with exactly the same service.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The car park at Steeton & Silsden keeps getting extended because it's the first station in West Yorkshire. It works out a lot cheaper to drive there and get a train than from, for example, Cononley, the first station over the border and with exactly the same service.

People who have to drive some distance to the railway station anyway may well just drive to Steeton & Silsden and use that as a railhead. As I've also agreed, it's the first station in West Yorkshire and has PTE-level fares as a result. It's also right next to the Aire Valley expressway, unlike Cononley, which is down a narrow country lane and has no car park of note.

You don't get many people who are close to an existing railway station driving to Steeton though. The fares may be higher but with it comes the convenience of being able to walk home.

My point is that the significant number of people who drive the A6068 and A56 every morning shows that there is significant demand from Pendle to Leeds. Other posters on this thread have tried to claim that this commuter flow is negligible; my point is that is far from negligible.

It's certainly not a "basket case", as some people try to claim.

Whether it's enough of a market to justify the cost of re-opening Colne to Skipton, well, that's why we're in the speculative forum. Maybe the investment to allow 2tph Preston-Burnley-Leeds and 2tph Blackburn-Burnley-Todmorden-Manchester would be a better spend of money.

But there is a market and it isn't being met by the current service provision via Copy Pit.

 

[Killingworth]

The car park at Steeton & Silsden keeps getting extended because it's the first station in West Yorkshire. It works out a lot cheaper to drive there and get a train than from, for example, Cononley, the first station over the border and with exactly the same service.

These anomalies exist across the nation for a variety of reasons making many comparisons of travel costs and timings difficult for occasional users and long term planners.

I believe a few travelling to Manchester from Sheffield each day pay the full £25 day rate at the station Q park (season tickets are available that would reduce that). Other local car parks are available but still quite expensive.

Increasing numbers of commuters now use the next station along the line where the same commuting hours trains call 6 or7 minutes later and parking is free (usually full Monday-Thursday) both in the car park and on nearby roads. It's a bit of an issue for those using and living on those local roads.

Back to Skipton and Colne those same issues will apply there too. The cost of extra parking provision is considerable. Don't overlook the number of drop off passengers either. That's certainly an issue in Sheffield, as it is at airports. (We see long stay parkers gone away for a week or more from Manchester Airport but I'm digressing too far!)

 

[yoyothehobo]

My point is that the significant number of people who drive the A6068 and A56 every morning shows that there is significant demand from Pendle to Leeds. Other posters on this thread have tried to claim that this commuter flow is negligible; my point is that is far from negligible.

Citation Needed

All this shows is that there is an East-West demand, and considering the M65 just dumps itself in the middle of Colne there are two routes to go. A56 or A6068. The A56 has many people travelling to the A1M, it is a fairly well used cross country route from the NE to mid lancashire. To summarise that because a road is busy in the morning that 2 places 30 miles apart as the crow flies has some massive untapped demand is a massive leap of logic.

There will be some people who go all the way to Leeds, but if you are driving from Colne to Leeds to commute you must love Colne as that is a journey that will take you the best part of 2 hours.

90,000 people live in Pendle.
Perhaps 50% are in employment (i dont know the exact number but lets guess at this)
Thats 45,000
Maybe 50% will work within 5 miles of where they live
Thats 22,500
Maybe 75% work to the west (Preston, Burnley, Blackburn, Manchester)
That approx 5,500 remaining who might work in Leeds/Bradford
But at the moment people are working maybe 3 days a week in the office.
Thats 3,300.
A good modal shift would be to get 10-20% of people making the journey on the train.
Thats 330-660 people.
Thats 1-2 trains, each way, per day

It is negligible, considering the costs that would be involved.

 

[Bald Rick]

The business case for Colne to Skipton- 11 miles along a trackbed which is almost completely extant- is a lot stronger than it is for several of the re-openings that have happened in Scotland, not least the Leven Railway.

It really, really isn‘t.

 

[Tetchytyke]

All this shows is that there is an East-West demand, and considering the M65 just dumps itself in the middle of Colne there are two routes to go. A56 or A6068. The A56 has many people travelling to the A1M, it is a fairly well used cross country route from the NE to mid lancashire. To summarise that because a road is busy in the morning that 2 places 30 miles apart as the crow flies has some massive untapped demand is a massive leap of logic.

You're right, it's all just a massive coincidence that the A6068 is a car park in a morning and that the traffic jams mysteriously end right by Steeton & Silsden car park, a car park which has just had to be doubled in size because otherwise you couldn't get a space after 7.30am.

All these people are obviously going somewhere else. Maybe they're all spies commuting to Menwith Hill. Maybe they're all masochists who just can't get enough of sitting in a traffic jam at Broughton roundabout. Or maybe they're all driving every day on that famously significant Padiham to Pelaw traffic flow (NB anyone who decides to drive from East Lancs to the north east via the A56/A59 and the A1M is insane in my humble opinion)

Or maybe, just maybe, it's because it is 11 miles from Colne to Steeton and there is actually quite a fair bit of demand for people travelling to work in the country's fourth largest city by GDP. Demand that isn't met by what is, quite frankly, a crap train service via Copy Pit.

 

[YorksLad12]

You're right, it's all just a massive coincidence that the A6068 is a car park in a morning and that the traffic jams mysteriously end right by Steeton & Silsden car park, a car park which has just had to be doubled in size because otherwise you couldn't get a space after 7.30am.

All these people are obviously going somewhere else. Maybe they're all spies commuting to Menwith Hill. Maybe they're all masochists who just can't get enough of sitting in a traffic jam at Broughton roundabout. Or maybe they're all driving every day on that famously significant Padiham to Pelaw traffic flow (NB anyone who decides to drive from East Lancs to the north east via the A56/A59 and the A1M is insane in my humble opinion)

Or maybe, just maybe, it's because it is 11 miles from Colne to Steeton and there is actually quite a fair bit of demand for people travelling to work in the country's fourth largest city by GDP. Demand that isn't met by what is, quite frankly, a crap train service via Copy Pit.

There's an easy way to test this hypothesis. You (Northern, more likely) just need to stop people as they walk out of the car park and ask them for their destination station and the first part of their home post code. If you get lots - and I mean over 52% - of BB8, BB9 or BB18 post codes, and they're all going to Leeds, you're sorted for evidence to include in the next stage of your business case.

[I'm also slightly confused by you A6068 comment; Google says that stops miles away from Steeton and Silsden. Are you saying the traffic continues down the B6265 (in which case fair enough, I'm just trying to understand the geography)?]

 

[yoyothehobo]

You're right, it's all just a massive coincidence that the A6068 is a car park in a morning and that the traffic jams mysteriously end right by Steeton & Silsden car park, a car park which has just had to be doubled in size because otherwise you couldn't get a space after 7.30am.

All these people are obviously going somewhere else. Maybe they're all spies commuting to Menwith Hill. Maybe they're all masochists who just can't get enough of sitting in a traffic jam at Broughton roundabout. Or maybe they're all driving every day on that famously significant Padiham to Pelaw traffic flow (NB anyone who decides to drive from East Lancs to the north east via the A56/A59 and the A1M is insane in my humble opinion)

Or maybe, just maybe, it's because it is 11 miles from Colne to Steeton and there is actually quite a fair bit of demand for people travelling to work in the country's fourth largest city by GDP. Demand that isn't met by what is, quite frankly, a crap train service via Copy Pit.

So why will they travel 2 miles for an equally crap train service? They travel 11 miles because there is parking, its cheaper and there is a frequent (essentially turn up and go) service. The best you could get for Colne - Skipton has been pointed out many times is 1 tph if you are not forcing a change at Skipton.

To put it bluntly, if it had never been there, you wouldnt think about building it.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm also slightly confused by you A6068 comment; Google says that stops miles away from Steeton and Silsden. Are you saying the traffic continues down the B6265 (in which case fair enough, I'm just trying to understand the geography)?

The A6068 is the main road from Pendle to Keighley, the A6068 road joins the A629 at Crosshills at the western end of the Aire Valley expressway. The car park for Steeton and Silsden is right by the expressway a couple of miles further down.

So why will they travel 2 miles for an equally crap train service? They travel 11 miles because there is parking, its cheaper and there is a frequent (essentially turn up and go) service. The best you could get for Colne - Skipton has been pointed out many times is 1 tph if you are not forcing a change at Skipton.

The service at Steeton is better but 2tph to Leeds and 1tph to Bradford is certainly not a 'turn up and go' service.

From Colne/Nelson/Brierfield you wouldn't take the train if you were heading east because the connections into the Blackpool-Leeds train are appalling- you have to go all the way to Accrington and change and, amusingly, the train to Leeds leaves there just before the train from Colne arrives.

It's not really any better from the north side of Burnley, especially as parking at Manchester Road station is non-existent.

People up-thread may have decreed that "the best you could hope for is 1tph", but I'm not quite sure how they've worked that one out. Even if Skipton-Colne-Burnley was singled with a loop at Colne you'd get 2tph through there at a 60mph line speed.

It was previously claimed that the Aire Valley was a 'bottleneck' but 4tph Skipton-Shipley and 4tph Shipley-Leeds is hardly full to bursting.

To put it bluntly, if it had never been there, you wouldnt think about building it.

I'm old enough to remember that they said the same thing when the Copy Pit route was re-opened to passenger traffic in 1986. Remember that BR argued that Copy Pit should be closed after the tanker traffic to Great Harwood ended- it only survived, and we only have a passenger service now, because the Provincial Building Society in Bradford paid for it.

 

[Allwinter_Kit]

I would say that Skipton - Colne falls into the "if it was still open we definitely wouldn't close it" bucket, but I don't know if re-opening it is quite justified.

Parking the freight issue (Drax, etc. for however long that goes) wouldn't the easier option to link a lot of that area to Leeds be instead to extend Clitheroe to Hellifield on the regular (rather than the weekend sporadic Dalesrail service) and improve links from Hellifield (using one of the many extant bay platforms) to Leeds - even by extending Aire Valley services from Skipton to there?

I mean yes we would need new wires / new bi-modes (as would the OP suggestion) but the track is all there and used by passenger trains already - it's just maybe a refreshed and relaid platform at Hellifield needed and a few more km of electrification.

You also open up Gargrave or Hellifield as a nearer railhead for East Lancs commuters as opposed to Steeton, and offer the opportunity for North Yorks council to stick some transport-oriented development into these towns to meet their housing targets, whixh is easier with an extended half hourly electric metro service to Leeds (and a simple change to Manchester at Hellifield) than the existing once every hour or so service to Leeds and nothing else.

If that's a success then that could demonstrate the advantages of a more direct opening, and bringing Colne and Nelson into the Aire Valley network?

I'm not against it - but it seems very pricey in an environment where rail investment is not being prioritised, let alone investment in (what would effectively be) new rail projects. This seems like the compromise to demonstrate proof of concept before we go and spend what other posters have priced at £400m or so, fully accepting that it isn't the perfect solution.

But if there grows a large market for connections at Hellifield between trains from the west and east... well, then there is evidence we need to maybe look at that £400m price tag and maybe say it's worth it!

 

[YorksLad12]

To put it bluntly, if it had never been there, you wouldnt think about building it.

To be fair, just because it was there doesn't mean it should be discounted. But I don't think it should be reinstated just because it was there once. There's a game to be played; build a case, show how the new line encourages economic growth, reduces congestion, improves air quality, how it would interact with the existing railway, that sort of thing.

Off-topic, but a case in point: Friends of Askern Station want services from Knottingley extending to Doncaster via a reinstated station, but have forgotten that there are no platforms on that route at Knottingley... so the cost goes up £30m to build it, and make the platform/station fully accessible.

 

[quantinghome]

To put it bluntly, if it had never been there, you wouldnt think about building it.

It would connect significant populations and as the lowest altitude crossing of the Pennines it has significant advantages over other routes as it doesn't need any tunnels. So I think it would always have been a contender, and indeed it was built around the same time as most of the other transpennine routes. But Copy Pit exists, and upgrading that would probably be a cheaper way of improving the service between West Yorks and East Lancs.

 

[Falcon1200]

The existing demand from Burnley westwards to Leeds can be covered by the existing Copy Pit line and subsequent improvements (ie lengthening trains, eventual electrification) and this also has the benefit of going through much more populated areas such as Halifax, Bradford etc...

And if there is sufficient demand for a faster service via Copy Pit re-instating the Bowling/Laisterdyke link would enable some trains to avoid the reversal in Bradford and thus save time.

 

[Bald Rick]

It was previously claimed that the Aire Valley was a 'bottleneck' but 4tph Skipton-Shipley and 4tph Shipley-Leeds is hardly full to bursting.

The West end of Leeds is the bottleneck.

People up-thread may have decreed that "the best you could hope for is 1tph", but I'm not quite sure how they've worked that one out. Even if Skipton-Colne-Burnley was singled with a loop at Colne you'd get 2tph through there at a 60mph line speed.

That would be ‘courageous’ in terms of reliability.

 

[Tetchytyke]

That would be ‘courageous’ in terms of reliability.

It would, in reality it wouldn’t be single all the way from Rose Grove to Colne nor from Colne to Skipton. Passing loops at Earby and Nelson at least should be easy enough to install; they’ve even had the good sense to leave the space at Nelson when they built the bus station.

But Copy Pit exists, and upgrading that would probably be a cheaper way of improving the service between West Yorks and East Lancs.

That’s the real truth of the matter, getting 2tph over Copy Pit to both Manchester and Leeds is a much more realistic aim.

Mad now to think that passenger services were withdrawn from the Copy Pit route before the Colne-Skipton route.

 

[quantinghome]

People up-thread may have decreed that "the best you could hope for is 1tph", but I'm not quite sure how they've worked that one out. Even if Skipton-Colne-Burnley was singled with a loop at Colne you'd get 2tph through there at a 60mph line speed.

No, you'd need to have most of it double track to run 2tph.

It was previously claimed that the Aire Valley was a 'bottleneck' but 4tph Skipton-Shipley and 4tph Shipley-Leeds is hardly full to bursting.

There are about 10 trains per hour from Leeds to Apperley Junction in the peak. And that's before Bradford FS gets its regular LNER services later this year. Extending the existing Leeds-Skipton services would be the only viable option to serve Pendle and the rest of East Lancs on this route.

Like I said at the start of this thread, rose-tinted assumptions don't help the cause of reopening.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There are about 10 trains per hour from Leeds to Apperley Junction in the peak.

It’s not as much as that: 2 to each of Bradford, Ilkley, and Skipton, together with an LNER and the hourly trains beyond Skipton.

And beyond Shipley it’s down to 4tph each way.