Really?
Diverting to Victoria Road would have solved the viaduct problem, certainly, but I recall Town as being pretty well sited.
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Were the 1950s 4 wheel railbuses a total failure?
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Diverting to Victoria Road would have solved the viaduct problem, certainly, but I recall Town as being pretty well sited.
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nanstallon
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What I meant by saying 'wrong side of the river' was that Town station was on the Ilfracombe side of the bridge over the Taw, and therefore could not continue to be served by rail without maintaining rebuilding that bridge. I agree that it was well sited.
Understood now, thanks.
Interesting discussions here regarding the South West.
I just don't understand why Bodmin Road to Padstow was closed when the other routes survived. Bodmin Gen, Wadebridge and Padstow were all well situated for their communities and they're reasonably sized settlements by Cornish branch standards.
I just don't understand why Bodmin Road to Padstow was closed when the other routes survived. Bodmin Gen, Wadebridge and Padstow were all well situated for their communities and they're reasonably sized settlements by Cornish branch standards.
I should imagine that it is because (a) some of the other routes survived purely because of problematic road links (St.Ives, Looe), which did not apply in the early 60s to Bodmin, Wadebridge and Padstow, or that (b) the other routes served larger places (Falmouth, Newquay), or a combination of both.
In the early 60s Padstow was not the up market holiday hotspot that it later became, and is now, and Wadebridge was a small market town not unlike the many hundreds whose stations were closed elsewhere on the network round about the same time. Bodmin was pretty well served by Bodmin Road station on the main line.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
At least on the Western, the presumption seems to have been that a local line/station would only be kept if a bus couldn't do the job. So you see things like Gunnislake keeping its service but Tavistock losing it, and the tiny settlement of Avoncliff retaining its halt while the much larger community of Limpley Stoke lost its station (immediately alongside the main road). However, even on those branches retained only for such "social" reasons, the minimum sensible train size was larger than a railbus.
What might have made a difference, but nobody has tried in the UK or anywhere else as far as I know, would be to use railbuses to increase the frequency without proportionately increasing operating costs. This would have required investment in extra passing loops, and taking on the unions to introduce driver-only operation and probably also tramway methods of signalling.
I suspect that the opportunity was missed with the railbuses that were built - they should have been capable of one-man-operation. However, at the time this was unthinkable. Unstaffed stations were difficult enough - and that in the mind of Management, let alone the unions. But it is easy to criticise with the benefit of hindsight.
I guess the most likely conditions for the adoption of your proposal would have been if any branch lines had been spun off into local or regional concerns but this again was unthinkable at the time and not much closer now! Titfield Thunderbolt with a bus on rails?
alf
On Moderation
I visited Hungary 4 years running until it left the EU.
Most branch lines & secondary routes were worked by 4 wheel rail buses similar to the Czech one illustrated on post 49.
Quite a novelty to start with, but very tiring on jointed track.
They often stopped at road level crossings in rural areas to collect or drop passengers giving them a virtual to the door service.
Not just a low cost station, a zero cost station.
I thought that too
D6130
Established Member
I wasn't aware that Hungary had left the EU....although I suspect that Premier Viktor Orban would dearly love to do so.
Except he also knows how much Hungary depends on EU payments.
I suspect that the only situation where single rail bus operation of a branch line passenger service has any chance of being viable is a) when it is one person operated and b) where the vast majority of infrastructure costs can be set against freight traffic, leaving the absolute minimum costs for the passenger service to cover (basic platform with single lamp and one name board- nothing else. Not exactly conducive to attracting any but those with no alternative!)
randyrippley
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Only "railbus" I can think of that worked is the Manx Electric Railway - which used narrow gauge trams on a long thin route where the original alternative was gravel top roads. But even that is now mainly tourist oriented
The only railbus services I ever used were on the branches from Kemble to Tetbury and Cirencester. This would have been in 1964 on a school Latin trip! (Actually a visit to the Roman museum in Cirencester) having reached Tetbury from Bristol by bus. The Tetbury branch was a bit of a basket case, having been built relatively late in the railway age (1889); the Cirencester branch, which went back to broad gauge days and served a bigger town, was much busier, some services being overcrowded. New basic halts were built on both branches to encourage traffic but the plan to provide through trains to Swindon was abandoned as the railbuses would not operate track circuits on the main line.
alf
On Moderation
Well there was some reason we UK pensioners were not entitled to completely free bus,tram,metro & rail travel in Hungary after our fourth annual visit just before the onset of Covid.
On reflection we stopped visiting Hungary & its amazing rail network because the UK left the EU, not because Hungary bailed out.
The same free travel for over EU 60’s also applied to Slovakian trains.
They use the same 4 wheeled rail buses as Hungary. Like across the border they ride well on welded track & badly on old jointed track... Like our pacers.
Years ago the South Africans claimed they had designed a perfect suspension for two axle passenger coaches. Sunk without trace.
341o2
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Also in part because while the rail network was shrinking there were increasing numbers of visitors to the West Country, most of whom were coming by car. Anyone else remember the Exeter bypass?
John Luxton
Established Member
Interesting - Western National - just before being split up did try an express coach service Ifracombe - Barnstaple - Exeter X77 which basically competed with the railway. If I recall the timetable correctly it used one coach which ran Ilfracombe - Barnstaple - Exeter
then Exeter Barnstaple - where it lay over for a while as seen in my photo - then Barnstaple - Exeter before returning via Barnstaple to Ilfracombe. Not sure how long it ran for as my bus wanderings around the West Country ended that year as I passed my driving test! Your suggestion with a run to Tiverton Parkway seems a like a revisit of the idea.
The rail network was shrinking because the locals had abandoned it for buses in the 1930s, and the holidaymakers were increasingly travelling by car, or going abroad.
The Exeter by-pass was a serious problem about six weekends a year! By the mid 60s running buses in the West Country was not a very profitable business either, which led to some pretty severe cuts in 1971.
I am not sure how diesel railbuses, even one man operated, could have saved many of the lines that closed - the infrastructure was fairly 'high maintenance' compared to road transport, and the passengers to be conveyed generally few (outside of a very short season) . I expect some local authorities took the opportunity to improve the local road network after lines shut, by removing bottlenecks at bridges, using parts of trackbed etc.
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gg1
Established Member
Lyme Regis was much the same, according to http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/lyme_regis/, 3/4 of a mile from the sea front but 250ft above sea level.
John Luxton
Established Member
The funicular was (and is) to Lynmouth not Lynton!
John Luxton
Established Member
Stratton is the neighbouring settlement to Bude.
nanstallon
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Interesting - Western National - just before being split up did try an express coach service Ifracombe - Barnstaple - Exeter X77 which basically competed with the railway. If I recall the timetable correctly it used one coach which ran Ilfracombe - Barnstaple - Exeter
then Exeter Barnstaple - where it lay over for a while as seen in my photo - then Barnstaple - Exeter before returning via Barnstaple to Ilfracombe. Not sure how long it ran for as my bus wanderings around the West Country ended that year as I passed my driving test! Your suggestion with a run to Tiverton Parkway seems a like a revisit of the idea.
I rode on this bus service on a Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1982, from Barnstaple to Exeter. I was the only one on it. Perhaps people didn't know about it.
leytongabriel
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They should have installed a second funicular from the middle of Lynton up to the station. After all, it was the same guy, he surely should have seen it...
John Luxton
Established Member
Yes a very good point - but I think people expected to use waggonettes to access the station or just walk.
I don't think they anticipated the threat posed by the motor bus just a few years down away. Our Victorian ancestors put up with long distance work commutes on foot and walking long distances to access railway stations but once the bus came along so many lines had their stations in the wrong place and people became lazy!
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