Given the recent news about the estimated ^1b+ cost of the breach to business, would that not positively impact on the cost benefit for the re-instatement project? And if not - why not?

But hopefully they will not come up against a council who refused to accept either the transport or cost arguments for the rail re-instatement of Cambridge - St.Ives, simply because the then government told them they could have money for a guided busway and nowt else. History is proving the points made at the time to be valid

Hence my point on the Okehampton re-instatement thread that many schemes are influenced a political support element

Some more background that may help those who are not convinced by the guided bus hype.The text below was provided by our group CAST.IRON - the people who opposed the Cambridge busway - to the local media in response to a recent question about busways:

We still do not believe there is any tangible evidence of the ^success^ of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway scheme in terms of it being a proven, better alternative than coordinated train and bus services appropriate to any given area. The constant stream of passenger number statistics doesn^t tell us anything because it doesn^t analyse journeys not made on the guided sections. The statistics cover Peterborough to Trumpington but between Cambridge station and Milton road, and north of St Ives, the buses are the same as any other.
 
In short, we don^t accept that the guideway is what is driving the passenger numbers; and we believe much wider benefits would have come with reinstatement of the railway.
 
The problem with the Cambridgeshire scheme is that it obliterated a viable rail route on an alignment that makes geographical sense as a railway, not as a bus route; for buses to derive benefits from the segregation of the guideway they have to travel well over a mile along congested streets in the wrong direction. Meanwhile a route that could be part of the local, regional, national and international rail network is lost.
 
The minimum journey time from Cambridge station to St Ives on the busway is 42 minutes subject to congestion in Cambridge. The same route by railway would have been less than 20 minutes.
 
CAST.IRON does not have a particular view on the viability of guided busways elsewhere although we did do some detailed work on the construction side of things and showed that the volume and mass of material required (for the guideways) is many times greater than for a railway with a much lower potential for maximum passengers carried. This is one of the reasons why there have been such serious construction and maintenance problems on the Cambridgeshire scheme.
 
We believe guided busways generally offer poor value for money compared with integrated rail and bus schemes. Unfortunately for Cambridgeshire, the only money on the table was for an exclusive busway.

==

Note that last comment about money - there was a lot of government ringfencing going on to get what they wanted - a substantial busway

More background info at www.castiron.org.uk

1. which is cheapest to build: road (which would be bus-only), rail or guided busway?

The Cambridge busway did indeed cost getting on for ^200m to build, and an alarming list of recently found defects might add up to another ^150m to the bill. That's for a 12 mile route that is guided where it doesn't need to be (in open country) and unguided where it should be (into the city centre).

Ultra Light Rail is a possibility and there is track that can be laid at an estimated ^350k per route kilometre. ULR suffers from lack of examples - the Parry system at Stourbridge does not seem to count, and there are new stye units in development that bridge the perception gap more effectively between tram and train. ULR badly needs a test case to prove its worth.

2. which would be easier to convert to a railway at a later date, road or guided busway?

Having a guided busway does mean that the trackbed is preserved - as would asphalt I guess - but the busway comes with the added environmental aspect of concrete, I think Cambridge has 100,000 tonnes of it in 12 miles.

3. are there any advantages of a guided busway over a dedicated, bus-only, road?

I don't know the route you are talking about, but I would have thought for a rural operation, the answer is none. A busway does allow for rapid passing, but it has scant operational flexibility (each busway is a groove that you can only get off of at designated points where the speed has to be reduced at about 10mph). It also has a nasty habit of attracting vehicles trying to drive on it

I think the key point is what will attract more traffic - bus or train (whether it is ULR or heavy rail), and the answer to that is surely train?

I've followed this for a while, and the other thread on the board about Tavistock. Having been involved in trying to fight what has become the Cambridge Guided Bus debacle I have developed a theory - which does seem to be holding up - that the key motivator for new schemes is political and once that decision is taken, the justification - ie cost benefit - is worked on accordingly. Not necessarily the other way round.

For a long time they said that Okehampton did not stack up, but when the Dawlish breach happened, there was a huge political backlash. Of course, we are now counting down to a general election too, so the ante has been increased.

Maybe I am totally wide of the mark here, but I have just sensed how the waters have been getting progressively warmer, and the Transport secretary's visit to the Dartmoor Railway last year said a lot.

And I sincerely hope it does happen, especially for the former Southern Region locations to the north of Okehampton, but more importantly to increase the resilience of the area to future weather events

Am I being way too simplistic here, but if the overcrowding is confined to certain journeys, might not a loco hauled set - top and tailed for reliability security - work, and indeed provide an added reason for people to use the line?

You've got stock and locos at Okehampton, with a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) owning that line. Maybe it would give an additional revenue Stream to BARS providing a Thunderbird service from a well located base?

I am sure there are many reasons why not, but equally, sometimes I wonder if the easy options get drowned in the procedural 'this is the way we do it' thinking.

I apologise if I am using too rose coloured glasses on this one, and would be interested in your thoughts

Mark

PS I know I am not local to you guys, but when I was involved in trying to stop the Cambridge-St.Ives line being turned into a guided busway, one source of stock we looked at was Class 31s top and tailed with four coaches, and they seemed to offer to a realistic option at the time.

Third: How long before we can seriously get down to working how we lay railway tracks on top of the concrete
Fourth: How long before any politicians have the decency to confess that this was truly a bad idea and they wish they had have listened to the anoraks.

I too saw the bits of this that made the press. I had two concurrent thoughts -

1. That those airlines who had more or less given up trying to compete on UK^▸ (United Kingdom) domestic routes because the trains have been so successful may just think again. The good old government cavalry is charging in again.

2. The government's track record in getting major transport decisions right is laughable. I don't have an opinion as to whether nationalised railways are the right or wrong thing, but endless government interference is in itself as expensive as it is intrusive.

What I have believed for many years is that trains are the only really effective way of moving large numbers of people, and they are the mode of public transport that most people will happily engage with. This ridiculous notion of no walk on fares at peak time is ludicrous - especially given how much we all contribute to the railways through our taxes.

Let's hope this is a classic government spin exercise - initial findings so over the top that peoples' jaws drop, then magically they come up with a half way house that is more acceptable. Cynical? Remember, I have been fighting the Cambridge Guided Busway for about 5 years, another triumph of government edict over common sense

Sorry for the delayed reply - here is the source - http://www.huntspost.co.uk/news/latest-news/cambs_guided_busway_still_unlikely_before_october_1_830085

Latest update for opening date - October 2011.

And as one of my colleagues in CAST.IRON has just commented - the ^200m budget boost to regional railways is the equivalent to one 20 mile guided busway.

There's good value for you

Hey ho

Mark

Thanks for the recent input. There is a degree of progress in our proposal for a new station at Milton Road, designed both to protect the trackbed that has been taken up further along for the guided bus, and also to serve locations like Cambridge Science Park. As and when there is more that I can tell you, I will do so.

But sadly, the guided bus project itself seems to be lurching from one crisis to another - here's the latest

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/Growing-fears-that-guided-buses-wont-run-until-2011.htm

Of course it is nice to be able to snipe at the council's failures, but when you know how much money has gone into this, at a time when we are supposed to be strapped as a nation...

And bizarrely, they seem to be determined to press on with other busways.

Hello all,

I thought you might be interested in CAST.IRON's proposal for an alternative station to serve the north of Cambridge. See http://www.castiron.org.uk/MiltonRoad/

There are existing plans for a much larger station nearby at Chesterton Junction, costed at around ^21m. Our idea is designed to be much cheaper, and we believe will deliver a similar level of benefits.

It also protects the trackbed of the former St.Ives branch, until the start of the Cambridge Guided Busway (built over the former trackbed to the west of our station). Draw your own conclusions as to why we think that is a strategically good idea!

As usual Cambridgeshire County Council have immediately tried to pour cold water on our suggestions - http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/3m-railway-station-plan-unveiled-by-campaigners.htm

Let's hope this time they think a little more than they did when they were desperate to open the world's longest guided busway, which hasn't and nobody really knows when it will

All the best

Mark Ranger
CAST.IRON

Well, here's an update, relating to the true cost of the busway, now at a cool ^161 million. But, say the council, they will get all of the overspend back from the contractors in 4-5 years time.

Oh yes, of course they will.

Now perhaps some people in authority will start to listen to the 'amateurs' who told them that the busway was not the answer

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=485047

Mark

Hi all,

I hope you don't mind me putting a plug on here for an ultra light railway project I have been working on for some time now. There is an introductory web site at www.bsulr.org.uk

If you have any questions, would like to be involved, or have a spare ^25,000 you'd love to spend on an initial feasibility study, my email details are on the web site!

Thanks for the web space

Best regards

Mark Ranger

Just to update you all, the opening of the so called Busway, known to all but its most fervent admirers (better known as the county council) as the Misguided Busway has been put back to the New Year, although the reasons for this delay are bizarre. It has been very difficult to get to the truth throughout this scheme, the delays have been put down to inadequate driver training time, unfinished build elements and contractual rows between the council and BAM Nuttalls. I suspect the truth is a mixture of all three.

The current build cost is an estimated ^150 million....

We are trying to keep our web site more or less up to speed - www.castiron.org.uk

Cheers

Mark Ranger