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With the Bristol and Bath Railway Path/Guided Bus proposal and the plan to rebuild the Bodmin-Wadebridge railway alongside the Camel Trail in the news recently, along with a higher profile for reopening schemes such as Portishead and Tavistock, the question of what to do with disused rail lines/trackbed has been given added prominence.

There are 7 options related to this for you to vote on :

Bristol and Bath Railway Path (link below.)
http://www.bristolbathrailwaypath.org.uk/home.shtml

Cambridgeshire Guided Busway (link below.)
http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/guided/what/

HoldFast Rubber Highway (link below.)
http://www.rubberhighways.com/

Ultra Light Rail (link below.)
http://www.ultralightrail.com/HTML_Files/INTRODUC.HTM

Bodmin & Wadebridge RailTrail (link below.)
http://www.bodminandwadebridgerailway.co.uk/railtrail/

Portishead Line Reopening to passenger traffic (link below.)
http://www.portisheadrailwaygroup.org/html/our_case.html

Tavistock Line Reopening (link below.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7235082.stm

Tavistock without a doubt, a town that is being strangled by traffic with a poor road to Plymouth!

Agree with Vacman, also to improve the Plymouth-Tavistock road would destory some of the beauty of Dartmoor, so expect massive over cost on road building when the tree hugging lobby set up camp to protect the moors.

Both Portishead & Tavistock are "must happen" projects for the national network and the railtrail is culturally important as the route between Bodmin & Wadebridge is the oldest passenger-carrying railway in the South West. 

Portishead, by far.

Tavvy!

I think they both need to happen but Tavvy just has the edge as it is one of those lines that just simply should never have closed, just like the Great Central and the Woodhead.

I walked along the Bristol-Bath railway path on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm pretty sure there's no way it could be convered back to rail use and also a cycle path. I'll go for Portishead as that's the only solution to fix Portishead's traffic problems. More buses will just get stuck in the existing traffic, but people WILL use a fast rail service to Bristol.

I'd be inclined to agree with you on that, but its current status still counts as a "Use Of Disused Rail Lines/Trackbed", which is why its included as a poll option.

Well, I wouldn't disagree with you, Andy and vacman - although I voted for Portishead (because it's my local issue in North Somerset), the Tavistock line would be my next choice.

Unfortunately, Lee didn't offer us a further option of, 'any two of the above'!   ;)

Fair enough, Nick, a difficult choice to make.

Unfortunately, the system doesnt really allow for "any two of the above." I could have given forum members more than one vote, but that would have risked distorting the result.

At the end of the first week, it would be fair to say that the voting is close.

I will keep the poll running until next weekend.

Just a reminder that I will be closing this poll at "end of play" tomorrow.

I can't vote as I think both Portishead and Tavistock are whorthy,

As for the St Ives guided bus way, wasn't there a guided bus way in Leeds? How many buses now use it?

Also one of the things I dislike about Sustrans is that they seem to have got it built into their deals that the cycle way must be maintained if the railway is to be restored. That nearly scuppered the Welsh Highland getting into Caernavon. It was only that the line from Dinas was standard gauge and WHR narrow gauge that it fitted.

The quote below relates to Leeds :

Voting extended by 24 hours - closing time shown at top of topic.

Voting has now closed, and the result was a dead-heat between Portishead and Tavistock line re-openings (44% of the vote each.)

Interesting also to note that 3 of the options registered no votes at all.

Even more interesting is that it was the two rail options for which people voted.

As I said i think both are equally worthy which is why I didn't vote, we could of course afford both if the government didn't spend so much money on useless overseas adventures.

One option you didn't give was trams on heavy rail. This would work for Portishead and Severn Beach. Trams use heavy rail complete with freight trains and come off into the centre of Bristol at a convinient point to commence street running. This not a complete takeover of the heavy rail lne as in Manchester Wolverhampton Nottinghm and Croydon. Heavy rail trains  still run run on the same lines as the trams.

It works in Kassel. As well as dual voltage trams Kassel have ED trams that traverse an unelectrified branch to Wolfhagen. So at Willhemlhohe Hbf you have everything type of train from ICE downwards  plus freight and trams using the lines through the station.

Conversley in Zwickau Heavy Rails DMUS of the Vogtland Bahn tranverse the street tramway (tram metre gauge so three rails) to a station in the centre.

It can be done. But "they" seem to think it's unsafe.

 

Fair point, and I believe that Tom Harris is on record as saying that the Government is studying tram-trains.

I'm glad to see that both Portishead & Tavistock did well. Both schemes are equally important in terms of need but I voted for Tavistock because I think it would have the larger impact politically, as it would mean relaying 6 miles of route abandoned in the 1960s, and would be financed by the private sector.