Turning railways into roads - The beginning of the end?

[whole diary]

[Lee]

Remember this? :

Half a century after Kingskerswell bypass - linking Torbay to Newton Abbot - was first planned, Devon County Council and Torbay Council have put forward a funding scheme bid (link below.)
http://thisisdevon.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=143632&command=displayContent&sourceNode=142719&contentPK=19388152&folderPk=91672&pNodeId=201778

The project was submitted for approval to the Department for Transport this week, with a revised cost expected to be as high as ^129.9 million.

One alternative that was put forward involved using the Holdfast method to allow cars and trains to share the railway corridor linking Torbay to Newton Abbot. Here are some quotes from a Times article on this :

^Unlike ordinary roads, there is no problem with potholes because a damaged panel can easily be replaced. Rather than have an endless debate about whether we should be investing in road or rail, we can allow trains and cars to use the same corridor.^

"Holdfast, which has installed its rubber panels at hundreds of level crossings, has held discussions with tram companies about converting lines for dual use. ^There are many lines which would be too lightly used to justify restoring rail services but which would be commercially viable if cars could use them too,^ he added.

The cost of reopening a line could be covered by charging drivers a toll to use it.

Holdfast has calculated that the cost of installing rubber panels on the seven-mile line between Newton Abbot and Torquay in Devon could be recouped within four years by charging cars ^1 each.

Holdfast has drawn up a list of dozens of potential lines and believes the strongest candidates for rubber highways are in Dagenham, East London, Croydon, Cheltenham and several routes around Bristol.

Iain Coucher, deputy chief executive of Network Rail, which owns Britain^s 20,000 miles of track, said: ^It is an interesting idea and we are looking at it.^ "

Well...

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Rubber mats laid on railway at Stromeferry

The first batch of rubber mats have been laid alongside tracks at Stromeferry in Wester Ross to allow road traffic onto the railway.

Highland Council is having the material called HoldFast installed to ease travel in the area.

A stretch of the A890 has been shut since December following landslides.

Traffic will be allowed onto the nearby railway when there are no trains passing through and until the risk of further slides is reduced.

The A890 helps to connect Lochcarron to Plockton, and its high school, and eventually with Kyle, on the opposite site of Loch Carron.

The road runs across the top of the sea loch to link up with the A896, the main road to Lochcarron.

To make the journey by road at the moment involves drivers having to take a 140-mile (225km) diversion, instead of the usual 18 miles (29km) from Lochcarron to Plockton.

The small car ferry has been running between North and South Strome since January, while a seal-watching boat has been ferrying schoolchildren.

No good will come from setting this precedent me hearties, I warns ye...

[phile]

Will sime idiotic road users behave like they do a level crossings.    No brainer.

[eightf48544]

The trouble is that in the North of Scotland it actually seems like a good idea supposing they can work out how to some idiot driver playing chicken with the train. You know how the locals love racing you to passing places on single track roads.

One of the problems I can see is how do get two lanes of traffic on a single line railway or is the length short enough to be one way working? Then you could have traffic lights to control cars and the train would put both sets to red and get an indication they were both red (like AHB indication). Pluss CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele Vision) monitoring or even a signalman to control the section.

There are acouple of bridges in NZ where car and rail share!

[SandTEngineer]

........absolute rubbish.  The railway comes to the rescue again http://www.signalbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4020

[grahame]

Picture at http://www.flickr.com/photos/highlandcouncil/6874187696/lightbox/ shows the length - about 100 metres.  It could equate it to a long level crossing (such as Red Cow / Exeter) with both entrance and exit on the same side - and certainly ample for single, alternate way working for road traffic. But I understand Lee's concern at the possible replacement of rail services by road services - of this being used as a possible precedent /proving case.

[onthecushions]

This isn't exactly new. City tramways did it quite safely for years and still do in favoured towns. Clearances, braking distances and sight lines need to be checked as do top speeds which probably means special rail vehicles.

Otherwise it's only Diesel LRT.

OTC

[vacman]

Lets not forget that the Kyle line doesnt have the most intesive service in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) either!