Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the passenger network

[whole diary]

[johnneyw]

Can I declare and interest? Kid brother now lives in the house we inherited in Salcombe so I am a tad biased but I think the line could work one day and there are higher priorities.

Now, on a Reversing Beeching theme, cop this from what the Dutch have done..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/14/utrecht-restores-historic-canal-made-into-motorway-in-1970s?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR1N2oU9ENY6ihPkpUPOOSAJ6u4axdvI4OCm_bXssOlhhELCG8G7Mi35BXk

[stuving]

On the other hand, in Japan, things are heading in a different direction ... (from the Japan Times)

... But packed trains are mainly limited to urban centers.

Like Kamioka and Takachiho, many railways connecting graying rural communities have been terminated as increased car ownership and migration to cities leads to dwindling passengers.

According to the transport ministry, 71 out of 96 regional railway operators ? which excludes shinkansen and other routes run by the previously state-owned Japan Railways Group ? logged current account deficits as of April last year.

Nationally, 39 train lines covering 771 kilometers shut down between 2000 and 2017. While new rail routes have been built, the total number of stations in Japan has dipped to 9,474 in 2016 from 9,514 in 2001.

Symbolic of the struggles facing rural train lines may be the March 31 closure of the Sanko Line, West Japan Railways Co.?s 88-year-old route linking Shimane and Hiroshima prefectures.

The closure of the 108-km line marked the first time a route measuring over 100 km closed in Honshu since the split and privatization of the Japanese National Railways in 1987...

[johnneyw]

Heathfield _ Newton Abbot only likely to open as a heritage line. There is a very vociferous group promoting the line. Heathfield is just an industrial estate with a few houses. The major new housebuilding sites in Newton Abbott is going on in the North West of the town nowhere near the railway.

I think local MP^▸ (Member of Parliament)'s have been asked to come up with suggestions. Torbay MP has promoted Paignton to Goodrington, the limit of his constituency,  and Edginswell Station.

The Totnes MP has come up with Goodrington to Churston and the Primrose line to Kingsbridge but the only people who might use it are the wealthy of Kingsbridge and Salcombe, second only to Sandbanks in Poole.

Heathfield is no metropolis although there is apparently track bed to just South of Bovey Tracy which is in the process of significantly expanding with new housing soon which might change the game. From what I have heard from the group behind the initiative, heritage rail is secondary to a public transport service.

[WSW Frome]

Heathfield or Bovey Tracey are surely very low priorities. The route heads in the wrong direction for the majority travel demand. This I assume is to Exeter and beyond.

This is similar very blue-sky thinking such as being applied to the Radstock to Frome route as a means to access Bath, Bristol and beyond.

I am very surprised Heathfield has made it on to any short list, just as many feel about the Isle of Wight former line(s).

[JackAtReopen]

Interesting to see that Graham's map of Shepton Mallet shows East Somerset Railway above the alignment west of Mendip Vale station. There's almost nothing on the web about the Restoring Your Railway Fund proposal To introduce a passenger service to Shepton Mallet in Somerset, other than the promoter is Mendip District Council, the sponsoring MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) is James Heappey, and there are unconfirmed rumours of a proposed station at Cannards Grave. But who would such a station serve? Let's say you live in Wells or Glastonbury and need to travel to London. You drive to Cannards Grave ... and keep going along the A371 for another 10 minutes to reach Castle Cary, where there are direct trains to Paddington and no need to change at Westbury, where I imagine the Shepton trains would terminate, and where you can get a coffee from the Butty Box. Or is this scheme designed to address a Caste Cary car park capacity issue?

[grahame]

But ... where do people want to go to from Shepton Mallet - now and it the future?  At present, "destination London" does not have the same overwhelming weight in considerations that it used to have and I'm not sure for the future that London will be the "all roads must lead to Rome" priority.   From Shepton Mallet, key regional destinations are perhaps Bath and Bristol - and trains that head out to the east when they final destination is north north west start with something of a disadvantage.      Factor in that you'll have 3 local trains an hour arriving in Westbury from the north east (two from Bristol and one from Swindon) and just two continuing (one to Yeovil and one to Southampton) and perhaps you have an extension to either Radstock or via Mendip Vale.

The other "player" at Shepton Mallet - Lee's comments earlier - is for a service to Bath via Masbury, Binegar, Chilcompton, Midsomer Norton, Radstock, Foxcote, Wellow, Midford and Limpley Stoke.  Not what the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) bid is about, much more expensive, much longer term - but much more providing the destinations that people may want in the future, and sharing the cost with those other intermediate communities too - some of which could become new towns; a really nice place to live, together with frequent rail travel into the cities of WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about).

I seem to be moving ... from factual data on current plans to elements of design and speculation on a specific case, which is the very sort of thing I suggested we cover in the relevant thread.   Never mind - I can split and join stuff up if it becomes sensible to do that.

[JackAtReopen]

Graham, I think we can file Shepton Mallet - Bath via the S&D^▸ (Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway) route as a no-hoper. Too many obstacles, notably Radstock and Wellow. But for heritage enthusiasts, I can see the extension from Midsomer Norton South through the tunnel to Chilcompton happening. I was in Chilcompton a few weeks back (Redan Inn highly recommended) and delighted to find myself standing on the Chilcompton down platform (delicious diagram here: https://www.mnrjournal.co.uk/article.cfm?id=114287&headline=Residents%20invited%20to%20hear%20Chilcompton%20station%20rebuild%20plans&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2018).

[Lee]

Graham, I think we can file Shepton Mallet - Bath via the S&D^▸ (Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway) route as a no-hoper. Too many obstacles, notably Radstock and Wellow. But for heritage enthusiasts, I can see the extension from Midsomer Norton South through the tunnel to Chilcompton happening. I was in Chilcompton a few weeks back (Redan Inn highly recommended) and delighted to find myself standing on the Chilcompton down platform (delicious diagram here: https://www.mnrjournal.co.uk/article.cfm?id=114287&headline=Residents%20invited%20to%20hear%20Chilcompton%20station%20rebuild%20plans&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2018).

If you read my original posts on the subject, solutions for both Wellow and Radstock are offered - see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=20967.msg257150#msg257150

Ive got a lot of respect for what you are doing Jack, so much so that I am actively looking inro your Maple Grove conundrum for you. However, Im afraid I do resent the automatic "no-hoper" tag, given the amount of research I and others have put into this.

[grahame]

One of the most difficult issues for Jack to address in where to draw the line as he looks further out into the future, and into the realm of schemes for which cases have not yet been made, not validated by the rail industry,  depend on other things changing ahead of them being implemented, etc, etc.

In my youth, the idea of re-opening the Welsh Highland line would have been labelled a no-hoper, and I can think of other schemes and suggestions for which the answer was "that will never happen" - close to home, and shorter term, that view was expressd about servives calling at Melksham.  Looking back 50 to 60 years, places were regarded so much as no-hopers that the lines were closed and trackbeds disposed of - yet half a century later trains once again run to Alloa, Ebbw Vale, Mansfield and other places.

Jack's call ... but the least contentious place to draw the line would be to include schemes if there is an online case started / made such that failing to include it would result in a cry of "oy - what about this/us".  I wonder about some sort of classification system but that's so subjective.  A listing of significant support and goals achieved for each scheme in a common format might not go amiss. Looking to draw a tighter line quickly brings up differeces of opinion - and with Jack looking to document and not to judge, something to be avoided.

[Lee]

It's not about whether a Shepton-Bath scheme should appear on Jack's website - I wouldn't expect it to at this stage, for the reasons grahame gave in his post.

What I would argue is that Jack has made a judgement that the scheme is a "no-hoper" based on viability grounds with particular reference to getting through Radstock and Wellow. I strongly disagree with that view, because I have personally spent the time visiting both places and working out potential solutions, which I detailed quite a while ago in the posts I pointed to.

Jack may choose to accept my point of view, or he may choose to disagree with it, both of which are his right. I hope though, that I can at least shift him from "no-hoper" to "keep an open mind".

[Robin Summerhill]

Wherever reopenings have been proposed I like to bear in mind three things. Firstly, that everything is possible from an engineering point of view. Secondly, that a reopened railway does not need to religiously follow the exact route of the original.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it must be worth doing. It will resolve an unresolved problem; there are no cheaper/ more effective ways of doing it; and there is sufficient market demand and therefore revenue income to provide a return on capital employed.

Any S&D^▸ (Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway) reopening proposal can overcome the first two hurdles. I am not at all sure that it can overcome the third.

There is already a quite comprehensive bus service between Norton Radstock and Bath, from which most of any future railway income would have to come from as this is by far the largest centre of population between Bath and Shepton Mallet, Those buses will still run because they have more stops in more areas of Norton Radstock than the railway could hope to have. They also serve the village of Peasdown St John, much expanded since the S&D closed and stations at Wellow and Shoscombe would be no substitute for it. The bus also serves the southern suburbs of Bath where the railway runs in a couple of holes where it is either not possible to provide stations, or at points such as Lyncombe Vale which, given the local topography, would be unlikely to be well-used. Similar statements could be made regarding future stations at Limpley Stoke and Bathampton; in the former case there would be little traffic and in the latter potentially providing a service to a proposed Park & Ride that could be provided by various other services.

So it can probably be safely said that a reinstated railway would cream off some of the existing bus traffic, but clearly not all of it. So where is the required additional revenue to come from to make it worth going to the expense of building a railway? Perhaps with some traffic growth, but you would need a devil of a lot of it from a total population of c.25000.

On another forum recently I watched a discussion develop over the Bodmin to Padstow reopening proposal. One of the most vociferous supporters (who, incidentally, lives in New Zealand so the likelihood of him contributing to the lines income was minimal) seemed to base his entire argument on the statement ?reopen the railway and the passengers will come.? I am sure that there were many who took that view during the Railway Mania and history tells us what happened to them...

Finally and in relation to Jack?s database that reawakened this discussion, I am not a railway modeller but I understand there is in those circles something called Rule 1. That is ?it is my model layout and I?ll run what I like on it.?

The same rule could apply to databases.

[Richard Fairhurst]

In the Other Place, a poster coined "five golden rules of a successful rail reopening" which bear repeating here:

• Population of 10,000+
• 60 minutes (75 at a push) journey time of a major employment centre.
• Extant or mainly unobstructed trackbed
• Ability to extend an existing service so more terminal capacity is not required.
• Regeneration Potential of a deprived area

Not every scheme has to score 5/5, of course, but it's not a bad checklist.

[Reading General]

Witney, Witney, Witney, Witney, erm........

[grahame]

In the Other Place, a poster coined "five golden rules of a successful rail reopening" which bear repeating here:

• Population of 10,000+
• 60 minutes (75 at a push) journey time of a major employment centre.
• Extant or mainly unobstructed trackbed
• Ability to extend an existing service so more terminal capacity is not required.
• Regeneration Potential of a deprived area

Not every scheme has to score 5/5, of course, but it's not a bad checklist.

Let's try some out:

1. 10,000 residents at end of line.  A further 10,000 at each of the two main intermediate stops
2. Around 40 minutes to a major employment city from the line end, and 55 minutes to a second city
3. Mainly unobstructed; there are a couple of places where workrounds will be needed, but seem practical
4. There is a new hourly service between places mentioned in (2) planned. This scheme is an alternative extension.
5. Not exactly a deprived area, but certainly held back significantly by limited public transport.

1. 12,000 residents at end of line, swollen by holidaymakers to approaching 24,000 for much of the year
2. 55 minutes to the county town at the start of the line.
3. Tracks in place. Unused this year; could do with some TLC^▸ (three letter code ).  Summer daytime heritage operation.
4. Yes - an hourly regional service could easily extend and would have significant through regional traffic
5. One of the poorest and least connected places in the county.

1. 3,000 residents at line end, intermediate towns with 8,000 and 13,000; swells in summer with holidaymakers
2. 20 to 25 minutes on new section. But a further 40 minutes into a major city
3. There are shared use issued and a some obstructions out towards the 3,000 residents place
4. There is signiciant scope for an improved local service all the way to major city, where the station has capacity
5. The towns certainly suffer from the lack of swift public transport.

[AMLAG]

Well the Govt's objective to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)/NR^» (Network Rail - home page) for a regular Okehampton to Exeter rail service, clearly fits the second of the three lists by Grahame and the railhead of Okehampton actually has a larger catchment area and population than that served by Galashiels/Tweedbank on the hugely successful Borders Railway.

I know several people who can't wait to use Okehampton Stn instead of long car journeys  from West Devon and North Cornwall to Exeter St D or Tiverton Parkway, where in normal times, parking is getting more difficult and costly.