Which re-opening would have the best Business Case?

[CockneySparrow]

Nothing = £150m+

Indeed, makes you wonder how a preserved railway manages to lay 8 miles of track for less, mind you the line speed will be lower but give them £1m and it will be respectable I am sure

 

[Kite159]

I would imagine at some-point the Scottish government will look into reopening the Edinburgh Suburban and Southside Junction Railway for passenger services with a couple of the old stations re-opening

 

[CockneySparrow]

I think the other issue with the Ivanhoe line is that the track would need to be re-laid between Burton and Leicester due to its poor condition. At the moment it resembles the kind of ride that you would find at a fun fair.

Track is respectable from Coalville towards Leicester, agreed past Mantle Lane the track needs to be re laid, two main issues are that the local council in Coalville don't want a railway as the people running the council will be out of pocket, secondly there is an issue at the junction Leicester end, believe a chord has been lifted and a industrial estate is pretty close to the original chord

 

[IanXC]

Some of you will already know which line I'd suggest, bit here's the information for the 7 categories for York-Beverley:

To have a good business case you need:
A: lots of passengers

Witness the sheer volume of traffic on the A1079, and the number of commercial bus services. The 2005 Carl Bro report prepared for the campaign noted "The estimated annual 2004 passenger figures are a total of 395,000 journeys per annum for one train per hour, 584,000 journeys per annum for two trains per hour and 622,000 journeys per annum for two trains per hour, with one extended to/from Leeds. A sensitivity analysis suggests that these figures may vary by up to 30%."

B: low cost of restoration

Probably the weak part, last costing was £320m.

C: low cost of operation

Stations probably would not justify being staffed, and there wouldn't be any particularly crazy bits of infrastructure.

The schemes that will deliver this usually have the following features:
1: Serve a town(s) of 10,000 population not currently connected by rail.

Pocklington 8300
Market Weighton 6400
Stamford Bridge 3500
(Haxby 8700)

2: Connect that town(s) with a major city that provides good employment opportunities (broadly the UK cities with 300,000+ populations but also some smaller places with very strong economies).

Links the above settlements to York (197,000) and Hull (256,000), plus Beverley (29,000) to York.

3: Utilise a disused line or broadly unobstructed disused alignment

Route is broadly available, with the exception of town centre sections which would in any case have too many level crossings.

4: Operate as an extension of an existing service to minimise stock requirement and terminal capacity usage.

Plenty of platform capacity at Hull, opportunity to extend current Hull-Beverley shorts through, infrastructure can support 4tph in this section (is 2 to York), low usage levels on route into York, plus unused bay platform already in with at York station.

 

[G_A_C_C_C]

re-build Holborn Viaduct station: it's the only place I can see to turn around the North bound class 700s when the Thameslink Core goes into meltdown and shuts down every rush hour.....

 

[30907]

(Haxby 8700)

I thought the Beverley line came in tthrough Huntington and New Earswick?

 

[Bald Rick]

re-build Holborn Viaduct station: it's the only place I can see to turn around the North bound class 700s when the Thameslink Core goes into meltdown and shuts down every rush hour.....

There's plenty of places, don't worry.

 

[tsr]

There's plenty of places, don't worry.

Yes, and the approaches to all of those will be queuing solid in less than a jiffy when trains need to be turned around (not forgetting existing rather than new infrastructure each side of the Core, conflicting movements, train crew hours, passenger confusion, Control fatigue and so on). Now, I wouldn't really go so far as to say that Holborn Viaduct would be a good place to turn around trains, as that would also be affected by all of the above, but the more locations the better. I appreciate the extensive modelling undertaken to see where turnarounds are best, but the railway has its own special breed of chaos, and with peak-hour passenger numbers, there are immense human factors at play.

Unfortunately, as the London Bridge project shows, separating conflicting moves and creating space for passengers and trains is hard enough, so the chances of a reinstatement of Holborn Viaduct station may indeed not be the best choice...

 

[21C101]

I'm afraid it's not a myth. See the emerging Sussex Route strategy. Every peak path is taken. And as the good folk of Croydon will testify, all the trains are full. Routing the trains via the wilds of Sussex won't make them any less full. All the above does is shuffle the pack. But to pick up the points:

There are no London Bridge Tunbridge Wells Thameslink trains in any timetable spec for 2018 or beyond, and there is no capacity at Tunbridge Wells (or the line up to London Bridge) for additional peak trains. The existing Tunbridge Wells starters are full and standing arriving into London now.

The good folk of East Grinstead and stations to South Croydon will not be impressed at losing most if not all of their London Bridge services. These are 8/10/12 car now - and full at London Bridge.

The peak half hourly Uckfield services will be 230m long (10 x 23) within 2 years, maybe sooner. And full at London Bridge.

The plan was to run TL to Tun wells and it must have changed. Doesn't change things though

I'm sorry but it is a myth. To say that boat train route 1 is full up when there are no longer any boat trains and the fasts go via CTRL is absurd and defies credibility (other than temporarily during London Bridge rebuilding). There will be plenty of space post 2018 to run to Vic via Bromley south. Tun wells has no more room for terminators but that won't be an issue as trains will run through to Eridge.

The other services you refer to are full after east Croydon with people piling on there. Meanwhile Gatwick expresses run through without stopping.

Also although the fast lines are full, this is because they carry fasts to vic and lb. You could run reliefs from london bridge down the fast lines to norwood then the slows into 4,5 and 6 at East Croydon, then turn them round at sth Croydon or Purley.

Also you could release paths by running mid Sussex line peak trains via Dorking and Mitcham Junction, reinstating the through lines at Ewell East if need be.


As to e g losing peak London bridge services and not liking a replacement to Watford via Kenny. Tough, they can change at oxted. The trains need to go where the demand is is to Brighton via uckfield. Not virtually empty down a branch which the peak London bridges are south of Hurst Green

Just because it says so in an official document doesn't mean its right.

 

[IanXC]

I thought the Beverley line came in tthrough Huntington and New Earswick?

The original route did, however the need for a new alignment in this area gives the opportunity for it to join north of Haxby and so provide a service at the proposed station.

 

[W230]

What happened to the rumblings of Poulton-le-Fylde to Fleetwood ever re-opening? Or were there no rumblings!

 

[NotATrainspott]

I would imagine at some-point the Scottish government will look into reopening the Edinburgh Suburban and Southside Junction Railway for passenger services with a couple of the old stations re-opening

Doubt it. Various studies have all looked at the option, either through heavy rail or through tram-train, and all found that the (minimal) costs would more than outweigh the benefits. Unlike London there's no demand for an Overground just yet and the only realistic frequencies would be so low that you would be faster getting a train or tram into the centre and back out again, thus negating the whole point of the exercise.

 

[nw1]

The problem was that it was a slow single track line infested with level crossings. As early as 1950 it had only 8 trains a day with two extras from Guildford to Cranleigh. It would have needed extensive investment to modernise it and at the time the bus was probably almost as fast from Cranleigh as the train- as was the case in most places outside London in the 1960. It was only after the lines were lost that urban congestion came to the provinces slowing down interurban bus services and making them unreliable.

The other problem with the bus services is that they're rarely run to integrate with rail.

For instance to get to Cranleigh from the rail network you've got to walk 5-10 mins from Guildford station to the bus station - not terrible but a negative point if you're considering the public transport option.

Worse is the lack of through ticketing (except plusbus in urban areas) meaning a journey from Cranleigh to somewhere on the SWT network (or vice-versa) is disproportionately expensive. Same goes for other rail-less towns in the area such as Midhurst.

Making buses serve rail stations and (more importantly) introducing through ticketing would go a fair way to improving the situations The rest of the UK needs to learn from the Continent, or from London (which I only have limited experience of, but seems much cheaper and more integrated than elsewhere in the UK).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Rail passenger numbers have grown a lot since the 50's and 60's. For instance it wasn't that long ago that Fleet had two trains an hour, it now has three. Based on that it would increase Cranleigh to 12 to 15 trains a day (or one per hour over a 12 to 15 hour period - 0700-1900 to 0600-2100). However given the tidal nature of the flow I would expect that there would be a service or to up before any services back down to allow one or two services back down after the up services had finished.

Going rather off topic now, though, it's interesting that *peak* services on some lines in the area in the area have actually got less frequent since the 90s. The nearby Portsmouth Direct used to have 6 trains an hour during peak time, now it's only four plus one additional at 1818 - virtually the same frequency as off peak. Likewise the Alton line is half-hourly only during peak hours, used to be 20 mins in the mid-80s.

For whatever reason, there's more services at quiet off peak times but less during the peak on many lines!

 

[21C101]

Going rather off topic now, though, it's interesting that *peak* services on some lines in the area in the area have actually got less frequent since the 90s. The nearby Portsmouth Direct used to have 6 trains an hour during peak time, now it's only four plus one additional at 1818 - virtually the same frequency as off peak. Likewise the Alton line is half-hourly only during peak hours, used to be 20 mins in the mid-80s.

For whatever reason, there's more services at quiet off peak times but less during the peak on many lines!

Agreed. If you look at the SR 1950 timetable this becomes very apparent. Virtually all of the suburban lines in london have a sigificantly lower frequency in the peaks than they did in 1950.

For example (Table 41) the stopping line from Selhurst to Victoria has five trains an hour in the peak stopping at all stations.

In 1950 it had nine an hour (between 0659 and 0752 ex selhurst), none of cwhich called at Wandsworth Common and Battersea Park and three of which which ran fast from Streatham Common or Norbury to Victoria only or Clapham Junction and Victoria Only.

THey also have significantly longer journey times due to replacing nine door a side trains with clasp brakes that burn off leaves with two door a side disc brake trains which don't.

1950 journey time Selhurst to Victoria:

Fastest 20 minutes (calling Norbury, Thornton Heath, Clapham Junction and Victoria only, or Stns to Streatham Common and Victoria Only)

Slowest 21 minutes (the other 6 per hour) calling Stns to Balham then Clapham Jct and Victoria.

Max interval between trains to Victoria = 8 minutes

2014 journey time Selhurst to Victoria (between 07:00 and 08:00 dep selhurst):

Fastest 27 mins
Slowest 29 mins

Max interval between trains = 19 mins.


All the big BR resignallings of the '70s and '80s (Vic, London Bridge, WARS) stripped out capacity and flexibility.

Said time table in its entirety is online here: http://www.timetableworld.com/book_viewer.php?id=6&section_id=1765

Just look at the service intensities in the peaks and weep.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Not a reopening but a missing link ...

Bradford cross rail

But not a hope in **** when Bradford council can't the benefits and seem to be disinterested in rail services beyond Low Moor or Apperley Bridge. Bradford will miss out on HS2 and HS3 and links thereto without a murmur from local politicians.

 

[thealexweb]

Doubt it. Various studies have all looked at the option, either through heavy rail or through tram-train, and all found that the (minimal) costs would more than outweigh the benefits. Unlike London there's no demand for an Overground just yet and the only realistic frequencies would be so low that you would be faster getting a train or tram into the centre and back out again, thus negating the whole point of the exercise.

The last study that got done a few years back concluded that two of the three options presented had a better money return than either Edinburgh Trams or HS2.

Given that the southern loop is going to be electrified in the next few years, now is the time to relook at opening the loop to passenger services.

 

[Y961 XBU]

I would like to see the old St Helens Central - St Helens Junction line re-opened

Currently St Helens Town is growing again attracting more people meaning Passenger Numbers are going up. I think now would be the perfect time to re-open the Line and give people of St Helens more options of Travel, it should also help St Helens Town grow further with the better Transport Connection.

 

[21C101]

The last study that got done a few years back concluded that two of the three options presented had a better money return than either Edinburgh Trams or HS2.

Given that the southern loop is going to be electrified in the next few years, now is the time to relook at opening the loop to passenger services.

The key would be keeping the costs down as BR did with new stations across the north of England in the 80s. They were very basic and some were wooden construction. Cost I recall was as little as £200,000 for a new station. Something cheap and simple rather than something using an entire quarry full of concrete costing £20 million which would kill the scheme

The BR reopenings were discussed on an old thread here. http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16545

 

[Altnabreac]

The last study that got done a few years back concluded that two of the three options presented had a better money return than either Edinburgh Trams or HS2.

Given that the southern loop is going to be electrified in the next few years, now is the time to relook at opening the loop to passenger services.

There are 3 problems with reopening the south sub in increasing difficulty of solving them:

1 Freight services. To compete with buses at least a 4tph service would be required that would need to be carefully timetabled to aloe freight to continue to use the south sub.

2 Journey times. Because the route is indirect Journey times from Cameron Toll / Morningside struggle to be competitive with existing bus services.

3 Waverley capacity. The west approach at Waverley is basically full (especially on the south lines. Reopening the south sub is never going to justify paying for the Almond Chord to rebalance the western throat and if capacity is created that way it will be to use if for more services elsewhere e.g. High Speed Rail.

The only way you could imagine the south sub reopening would be to create a new terminus platform at the south side of Haymarket station to avoid using up track capacity in Waverley Western approaches.

 

[The Planner]

I would like to see the old St Helens Central - St Helens Junction line re-opened

Currently St Helens Town is growing again attracting more people meaning Passenger Numbers are going up. I think now would be the perfect time to re-open the Line and give people of St Helens more options of Travel, it should also help St Helens Town grow further with the better Transport Connection.

If there was a real desire to open that with a business case then it would have been done as part of Northern Hub. Unless St Helens resignalling gets binned then there is very little chance of it happening.

 

[Busaholic]

Yes, and the approaches to all of those will be queuing solid in less than a jiffy when trains need to be turned around (not forgetting existing rather than new infrastructure each side of the Core, conflicting movements, train crew hours, passenger confusion, Control fatigue and so on). Now, I wouldn't really go so far as to say that Holborn Viaduct would be a good place to turn around trains, as that would also be affected by all of the above, but the more locations the better. I appreciate the extensive modelling undertaken to see where turnarounds are best, but the railway has its own special breed of chaos, and with peak-hour passenger numbers, there are immense human factors at play.

Unfortunately, as the London Bridge project shows, separating conflicting moves and creating space for passengers and trains is hard enough, so the chances of a reinstatement of Holborn Viaduct station may indeed not be the best choice...

Holborn Viaduct being slightly off the line of route and thus not blocking other train movements seems a no-brainer. Would not necessarily have to re-open as a station: would a passenger link be possible to the northern entrance of St Pauls Thameslink be possible, to be opened as and when?

 

[Abpj17]

Holborn Viaduct being slightly off the line of route and thus not blocking other train movements seems a no-brainer. Would not necessarily have to re-open as a station: would a passenger link be possible to the northern entrance of St Pauls Thameslink be possible, to be opened as and when?

I'm only a mere passenger, but isn't Holborn Viaduct essentially the existing Northern Entrance to City Thameslink anyway?

There are the Snow Hill sidings which can be used for turnarounds from the south, but there is nowhere from the North as the trains melt down at Farringdon going south, or City X going north?

 

[Chrisgr31]

Except it doesn't, much. The Uckfield trains are already full at Croydon in the peak. There's no capacity for more trains north of Croydon after Thameslink.

Depending which peak Uckfield train one refers to and what ones definition of full is, they are full before East Croydon. My usual train from Crowborough is the the 7.20 as it became a challenge to find a seat on the 6.40. The one before that is so full I never catch it, catching the 5.29 if I need to be earlier than than the 6.40.

A friend who travels from Oxted has given up trying to catch the diesels as they are so full at Oxted, he catches the slower electrics where he gets a seat.

One thing you haven't mentioned is that whilst it may only be 8 miles from Uckfield to Lewes I would assume that the single line sections start to cause even more chaos if you start running south of Uckfield?

Personally I would prefer changes to the single line sections over any extension to Lewes. Strikes me that the single line sections mean that the diesels take up significant platform time at London Bridge, having a far longer turn round time than the electics.

I am really unsure there is much demand from the existing Uckfield line to go south. There are already relatively good bus links for that.

 

[steamybrian]

..........
Personally I would prefer changes to the single line sections over any extension to Lewes. Strikes me that the single line sections mean that the diesels take up significant platform time at London Bridge, having a far longer turn round time than the electics.

I am really unsure there is much demand from the existing Uckfield line to go south. There are already relatively good bus links for that.

The number of passengers using the Uckfield to Oxted line is rising rapidly helped no doubt by the cheaper pro rata fares compared with the nearby Hastings- Tunbridge Wells- London route. Many Tunbridge Wells commuters now find it cheaper to drive to Eridge, park there to make a considerable saving on their season ticket to London.
In my opinion the diesels have the same turn round time as EMUs.
Bus Links--There is a half hourly bus route no.29 from Tunbridge Wells to Brighton taking 1 hour 45 minutes compared with the former train journey of around one hour. The bus is often delayed by traffic congestion in Brighton and Lewes. Having travelled on the 29 bus several times it is frustrating for bus passengers from Tunbridge Wells to tour the residential roads of Crowborough, crawl through Uckfield High Street into the bus terminal, then Lewes bus station/town centre (the northbound journey does a 360 degrees tour of the one way system) and then the crawl into Brighton.
Reopening Uckfield to Lewes is top of my list of reopenings.

 

[yorksrob]

One thing you haven't mentioned is that whilst it may only be 8 miles from Uckfield to Lewes I would assume that the single line sections start to cause even more chaos if you start running south of Uckfield?

Personally I would prefer changes to the single line sections over any extension to Lewes. Strikes me that the single line sections mean that the diesels take up significant platform time at London Bridge, having a far longer turn round time than the electics.

I am really unsure there is much demand from the existing Uckfield line to go south. There are already relatively good bus links for that.

One of the curious things about these discussions is that the absence of a bus link is taken as a lack of demand and used as a justification not to construct a railway, whereas if a frequent bus service exists, it's said that there's no need to have a railway because the bus is there.

I'm inclined to think that Uckfield and Crowborough (and potentially Tunbridge Wells) would create a steady flow of passengers towards Lewes and Brighton throughout the day, much like Eastbourne, Hastings and Bexhill, as opposed to the more peak focused London traffic.

The line should be extended and the opportunity taken to upgrade the existing section at the same time.

 

[Busaholic]

I'm only a mere passenger, but isn't Holborn Viaduct essentially the existing Northern Entrance to City Thameslink anyway?

There are the Snow Hill sidings which can be used for turnarounds from the south, but there is nowhere from the North as the trains melt down at Farringdon going south, or City X going north?

It was a great shame when the remodelling at Farringdon cut off the link to Moorgate from the North: very shortsighted in my view with Thameslink 2000 (!) already planned. Can't believe some extra money and thought wasn't devoted to its turnback capabilities at least.

 

[edwin_m]

Presumably now the change of electrification is at City Thameslink, if a train doesn't work on DC it can reverse over the north end crossover and return northwards to Cricklewood or elsewhere? And can't one that doesn't make the change to AC return southwards and berth somewhere beyond Blackfriars (assuming it is too long for Snow Hill Sidings).

The site of Holborn Viaduct is built over, in an area with probably some of the highest land prices in the world. It's unlikely to come back especially if its role would only be as a backstop in the event of failures.

I believe the reason for extending Farringdon over the site of the Moorgate junction was because the other end of the platforms is on a very steep gradient - probably steep enough to be a risk of wheelchairs rolling away down the platform.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Subject to the Rotherham Parkgate trial being successful, I could see the possibility of Sheffield to Stocksbridge being reopened as a tram-train route... One of the several reasons a reopening of the whole route has never got off the ground is the difficulty in reaching Midland station from the stub of the Woodhead line. Tram-trains of course wouldn't have this problem, and could join the existing tram network either at Wadsley Bridge/Hillsborough or somewhere closer to the city centre near the site of Victoria. Of course if the freight to Stocksbridge drops off completely a regular tram route would be just as likely.

 

[swt_passenger]

I believe the reason for extending Farringdon over the site of the Moorgate junction was because the other end of the platforms is on a very steep gradient - probably steep enough to be a risk of wheelchairs rolling away down the platform.

Not only far too steep, I think that end of the overall site just wasn't wide enough for longer platforms either.

 

[6Gman]

Track is respectable from Coalville towards Leicester, agreed past Mantle Lane the track needs to be re laid, two main issues are that the local council in Coalville don't want a railway as the people running the council will be out of pocket, secondly there is an issue at the junction Leicester end, believe a chord has been lifted and a industrial estate is pretty close to the original chord

Can you explain this intriguing remark?