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Author Topic: Train lines closed in 1960s under Dr Beeching report could be reopened  (Read 25670 times)
TonyK
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« Reply #45 on: March 03, 2017, 16:57:05 »

Yes, in Post-Brexit world we are opening and building huge railway lines - including the following

Slough to Heathrow Airport
Cambridge to Bedford via Sandy and Reading via Oxford
Crossrail
Crossrail 2 North London to South West London and Surry/Berkshire via Clapham Junction
Bakerloo Line to Hayes, Kent from Elephant and Castle
Thameslink 2000 now called Thameslink Project London St Pancras to Cambridge via a new tunnel which was live in 2015
and has not been opened until now and Finsbury Park
DLR (Docklands Light Railway) Extension to Plumstead and Thamesmead
Barking to Barking Riverside
Electrification between Gospel Oak and Barking in London
London Northern Line Extension to Battersea Power Station
The rerouting of the Metropolitan Line to Watford Junction in Watford
HS2 (The next High Speed line(s))
HS3 Crossrail across the North of England

New old line that could open again is

Creigiau to Cardiff Central via Pentyrch, Llantrisant, Talbot Green and Cardiff Queen Street

Welcome indeed! Liking the list - but no HS4?
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« Reply #46 on: May 12, 2018, 06:51:21 »

From The Daily Mail

Quote
Train lines closed under the controversial 'Dr Beeching' cuts are set to be re-opened and serviced by 'no-frills' trains.

It is understood a £4milion trial will be launched within the next two years using cheap, low-speed trains built from 'lightweight' materials.

The new technology could see some of 5,000 miles of disused track opened again after it was originally closed in Dr Richard Beeching's review in the 1960s, when he was chairman of British Railways.

I have started a list:

[snip]
Robertsbridge to Bodiam
[snip]

... Can you spot the one or two sillies I have put in there to make reading it a bit of fun?

Robertsbridge to Bodiam was one of those odd ones I posted - a difficult line to see as a part of the daily network. Yet as a heritage line - could it make sense?

From The Daily Mail again

Quote
For some, there is no finer sight than a locomotive in full steam chugging majestically through the glorious English countryside.

But in one idyllic corner of East Sussex, that prospect has got the locals, well, rather steamed up.

They are trying to prevent a heritage railway line being extended by two miles from Bodiam to Robertsbridge amid accusations of bullying and environmental vandalism.

To make it clear ... the Kent and East Sussex railway is looking to restore its historic link along the old trackbed that was in use until 1961.

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Red Squirrel
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« Reply #47 on: May 12, 2018, 18:57:14 »

I may be getting confused here: am I right in thinking that one of the objectors is Amber Grob, formerly Minister for Undrinkable Coffee?
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« Reply #48 on: May 12, 2018, 19:31:36 »

I may be getting confused here: am I right in thinking that one of the objectors is Amber Grob, formerly Minister for Undrinkable Coffee?

I think that's Parracombe on the Lynton and Barnstaple - though of course people who find themselves in this situation may look to other who have "been there" for advise and support. 
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« Reply #49 on: May 13, 2018, 10:37:32 »

Robertsbridge to Bodiam - discussion continues at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19800.0 - please follow up there!
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TonyK
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« Reply #50 on: June 03, 2018, 20:10:49 »

I may be getting confused here: am I right in thinking that one of the objectors is Amber Grob, formerly Minister for Undrinkable Coffee?

That's Louise Grob, who lives in the house where Laura Dune was written by Frank Herbert as the fourth part of the trilogy.
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Red Squirrel
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« Reply #51 on: June 03, 2018, 22:42:55 »

Laura Dune? Didn't she play Lula in Wild at Heart?

This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top!
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« Reply #52 on: June 05, 2018, 15:53:31 »

Laura Dune? Didn't she play Lula in Wild at Heart?

This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top!

Literature wasn't my strong suit at school, and I don't watch that sort of film, thank you.  Grin
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« Reply #53 on: June 05, 2018, 16:43:27 »

I may be getting confused here: am I right in thinking that one of the objectors is Amber Grob, formerly Minister for Undrinkable Coffee?

That's Louise Grob, who lives in the house where Laura Dune was written by Frank Herbert as the fourth part of the trilogy.

Now, now ... you're being naughty. In 2005, the Daily Telegraph wrote

Quote
When 1950s Royal Court playwright Ronald Duncan was looking for somewhere to live with his wife and mistress away from prying eyes, he settled on the secret community and coastline of north Devon.

Unusual family relationships were then a feature of these closed combes and valleys, where few words were exchanged between neighbours and visitors were rarely welcome.

As was chillingly potrayed in the film Straw Dogs, the defensive attitude to outsiders was accepted and understood.
A settled insularity hung over Exmoor, as solitary as a stag and as enclosed as the mists that still descend here at a moment's notice.

All that has changed in the past 20 years, with the advent of the North Devon link road that slices off the M5 at Tiverton, taking cars directly to Exmoor and Barnstaple.

The explosion in the popularity of surfing brings young people to Croyde, Puttesborough and Ilfracombe.

Within striking distance of both the coast and the moor is Court Place Farm, home for the past 15 years of art dealer David Grob and his wife, Louise, the beguiling face of the Gold Blend coffee advertisements in the 1990s.

Although their work takes them to London and America, it is in the small moorland village of Parracombe that they have made their home with their children - 12-year-old William, Ella, seven, and Arthur, three.

Court Place Farm is set in a hamlet called Churchtown, whose name is taken from the 12th-century St Petrock's church. There are no longer regular services there, but it is open and the owners of Court Place Farm have the right to use it. In a roundabout way - almost out of a scene from a Ronald Duncan play - the Grobs were married there three years ago, followed up the aisle with its box pews by their three children and fox terrier. It was the first wedding in the church for a century.

Many of their friends followed them to north Devon - among them artist Damien Hirst and his wife, designer Maia Norman, Simon and Alice Browne (he was the chef at the deeply fashionable London Green Street Club in the 1990s) and literary agent Sarah Lutyens.

"We feel we were almost pioneer arrivals here," says David Grob, 50, as we sit in the walled winter garden of Court Place Farm, "although Louise's mother had a house in the village, so we were not complete strangers."

When they found what was to become their home, it was really two farm-worker's cottages with a thatched roof and a bigger house in which relations of Lorna Doone writer RD Blackmore had lived.

A carved inscription outside marks the residency of John and Elizabeth Blackmore in 1787, and they are buried in the churchyard.

The old Lynton railway used to run outside and its cutting may still be seen in the folds of lush, rolling grass beyond the lawns. This may also have meant that the farm had railway connections and enthusiasts have dropped in at the house over the years.

Their place was being offered for sale at £1.2 million at the time ... more recent activities suggest that no sale was made at that point, as Ms Grob continued to take very much of a local interest.

We're a bit off topic here ... not a Beeching closure.  General Manager Herbert Walker of the Southern Railway met the deputation who came up to London to protest the closure.  The story is that the deputation drove to London and that may have lost them their case.   To this day, Southern do not run any trains to Lynton; they seem to be struggling a bit on the Brighton line, so perhaps it's best left to a local operation.
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