Great Western Coffee Shop

On the BBC News Wiltshire site:

A ^30m plan to re-establish a railway station at a Wiltshire town is to be presented to the government.

The proposal for Marlborough is backed by the town's Chamber of Commerce and Devizes MP Claire Perry, and has been drafted by a community group.

Transition Marlborough said a rail link to the town should be restored as the nearest station is 14 miles away.

Passenger rail services to and from Marlborough were withdrawn in 1961 as part of the Beeching Act.

Transition Marlborough's Graham Francis said many people who have moved to the town in the last 30 years commute to London.

He said: "The opportunity to put that line back where it was in the sixties is something that should be seriously considered."

The proposed new branch line, off the main London to Westbury line at Savernake, would stretch for five miles and see a new station opposite the Marlborough Business Park.

MP Claire Perry said she supported the scheme and would be contacting Rail Minister Stephen Hammond to discuss the proposal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-27062674 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-27062674)

If that BBC date is correct this is yet another incorrect attribution of a closure to Beeching.  He wrote his main report published in '63, and another in '65. 

PS Marlborough is not mentioned in the lists of stations in the first Beeching report, presumably because it had already closed...

I don't think it is ever normally referred to as the Beeching Act either...   ???

Paul

This has raised its head before: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=4691.0

Personally I welcome ideas like this (I think it is rather stretching things to call it a 'plan') because they show how much pent-up demand there is for rail. And maybe it would be cheaper to buy every denizen of Marlborough a Land Rover and a tank full of fuel, but would it be better?

My first question is to ask how many currently commute to their nearest railhead from Marlborough?....

Suspect the main users (in terms of numbers) would be schoolkids...

A lot of Marlburians (or can you only call them that if they have been to the College?) drive to Bedwyn and park. This has caused a number of local issues and has cropped up in previous threads. I'd imagine a few use Swindon as well.

Just build a parkway station on the B&H and enhance the service.
Could also build a Deizves parkway.

The overall service on the B&H is a mess and needs sorting.
Trains to the SW should be non stop, but there should be a mix of semi fast and stopping services over the route.

Marlborough to Bedwyn is 6 or 7 miles.  They don't help their case with such errors as people will wonder what else is stretching the truth.

Another "pie in the sky" reopening to add to the many other proposed reopenings made without mention of finance to pay for the reopening and, probably more importantly, the finance to pay for the continuing running expenses.

Will it pass the GRIP 1 phase for railway investment, even tougher at GRIP 2.  Look how long it took Eastwest Rail to build their case, bigger project I know it is scalable

An update to this story from The Gazette and Herald (http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/towns/marlboroughheadlines/16170695.Station_plan_is_derailed_by_red_tape/)


The easiest stations to (re-)open, all other things being equal, are going to be those which are on an existing passenger railway and a suitable train is going through the site that could call.  Second are going to be stations on existing passenger lines where there's a question mark over which trains could actually be persuaded to stop there.   Third comes re-openings on lines where there's existing freight traffic but the line's not up to daily passenger standards.   Fourth come lines that have been mothballed, fifth come lines that have been ripped up, sixth come lines that have been ripped up, land disposed of, bridges removed, embankments pulled down and cuttingsfilled in. Bottom of the list - grade seven - are lines where there have never been lines before.

Wiltshire has managed to complete two openings in the last 100 years - Dilton Marsh in 1937, grade 1, and Melksham in 1985, grade 2.    Regrettably, Marlborough, Calne, Amesbury, Malmesbury and Devizes (town rather than Parkway) and all in grade 5 or 6. Not so much "bottom of the council list" I fear, but rather on a different list. The cost of a grade 5 or 6 re-opening would be several orders of magnitude greater than the cost of a grade 1 or grade 2 - and we struggle hard enough, good heavens, for each of those. 

The good news for the Marlboroughites is that pound for pound, they'll probably have to fight less hard than we do for stations on existing lines.  The bad news is that they'll need a hundred times more pounds than would be needed to open a station at - say - Hullavington (Malmesbury Road) and ten times more than would be needed for Ludgershall.

I've always reckoned Hullavington would be a good site for a station; there's Hullavington village itself and Stanton St Quintin, the RAF base and of course it would be "Malmesbury Parkway".


Of course it would not. No one in Marlborough would drive anything less than a Range Rover.  :D

Or "Dyson Parkway"...

As information for those not in the know or local to Wiltshire. Dyson are building a new R & D facility on Hullavington airfield. Hence Dyson Parkway

They trains that stop at Malmesbury Parkway presumably wouldn't hoover up all the passengers, but could leave a vacuum and GWR could take them to the cleaners.  :) :) :)

The station buildings would have to be built to withstand extreme weather, such as cyclones.  :D

Hullavington suggestion was not such a joke ... hope it didn't come across as such. Not one of the top 5, but probably in the top 10 possibles.

With regards to Hullavington/Malmesbury, you’ve got the issue of there not really being any suitable trains passing through the location which could feasibly stop. You’d need some fast EMUs to keep out of the way of the 4tph that will be using that stretch non stop pretty soon.

Apologies for not keeping in the topic of Marlborough, that area isn’t my strong point.

Agreed that Hullavington would be a "type 2" new provision ...

1. Existing passenger line and train
2. Existing passenger line ; new or changed train
3. Existing freight line
4. Re-opening mothballed line
5. Re-opening ripped up line
6. Rebuilding line that has been lost into countryside / built over
7. New line

Don't worry too much about going off topic; conversations drift and if it drifts far enough the topic can be split off.

There are two passing loops, one in each direction, immediately to the west of the A429 at Hullavington. I don't know whether they would be long enough for a local passenger train to use while a faster train overtakes?
https://goo.gl/maps/2sFEDnDM5m72

From the  Gazette and Herald (https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/17489473.when-marlborough-had-not-one-but-two-railway-stations-and-two-railway-lines/) - "When Marlborough had not one but two railway stations and two railway lines".  An interesting picture from one station to the other, both long gone.