Restoring Your Railway - Why cancel it, and should I sign a petition?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

This is one in what's likely to be a series of more explanatory articles, written in answer to a question from one of my environmental friends as to whether she should sign the petition mentionsed herein.  Please let me know of any major good of fact or stupidity of view. - Graham Ellis - 22nd August 2024 – graham@sn12.net – v0.9

“Restore Your Railways” cancelled – thoughts



Q: “Should I sign the Campaign for Better Transport petition”

Background

Looking back a few years, schemes and desires for enhanced railway infrastructure provision faced a high hurdle to even get off the ground. There was no funding available for that initial step - the asking of "is this a good idea?" and getting it to towards the "shovel ready" stage for when a major funding opportunity came up to implement a good scheme.

The "Restore Your Railways" program of the previous government filled this hole, and has allowed a large number of schemes to be tested, some of which have gone forward. The Campaign for Better Transport tells us that the fund has already oiled the gears so they could turn and allowed the reopening of two railway lines and seven new stations ... BUT ...

Current Status

The scheme was a Conservative one, with (as I recall) a cutoff date for completion about now, and encouraged quite a few applications that were far more about supporting the local MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament), who had to sign off on the application, and failed the test of whether they would be cost effective and result in a better railway if implemented; everyone thinks their scheme is best.

So the new government was / is faced with a scheme under which a number of quick wins had been taken, and had - if it had carried on - the danger of generating a great deal of disappointment in quite a number of constituencies which were previously held by a Conservative MP but are now Labour or Lib Dem.

Wielding the knife isn't about saving money in spite of what you are told - it's about fixing what could have been a festering wound or a ongoing wounds in marginal constituencies for many years.

I can understand Labour taking a decision to close the scheme.  It has a logic.

Intermission - concerns at RYR^▸ (Restoring Your Railway) and its termination

Cutting the scheme with business underway has lead to howls of anguish from schemes on the cusp.  Until they know whether they continue or fall, that concern is natural and there is quite a degree of input being made to clarify the very messy and unfortunate cutoff.

I am also concerned at the lack of reference in the Labour party's 26 page plan for rail that talks of reliability of the network - that bit is correct - but does not cover appropriate service level, nor anything in network enhancement. Indeed I see nothing that commits to retaining current frequencies and does not rule out line and station closures.  Historically, many lines were closed under Labour.

And the whole "Restore You Railway" name worried me - "Restore" has a historic feel and reference back to Beeching was not forward looking - it should be "Future" railway. For sure, experiences of the past count and provide evidence and infrastructure and undeveloped pathways for new railway lines but what we need is future not past, and a future world where we look at one UK^▸ (United Kingdom) network and not a network created by a mess of competing companies - Midland, Great Northern and Great Central all along the same valley. And we look to modern technology where a railway no longer needs to run along a route that is billiard table flat but can climb dip as, for example, HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) to the channel tunnel does.

And look at the second word "Your" - is that the previous government not including itself but rather looking to be at arms length?  For some, the communities need to be involved and wanting the public transport enhancement, but they also want and need the involvement of government.

Can I question "Railway"?  Sure I can. Railway - or metro or light rail or tramway, or underground or subway, please, and the term railway suggests heavy rail when there may be other solutions.

The Route forward

I am asked to sign a petition from the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT^‡(resolve)). ""We're calling on the Government to reconsider its decision and to implement a nationwide programme of rail re-openings to help grow the network and bring all communities within reach of the railway and the benefits that provides. ""

I read that very carefully, and I am much more encouraged to sign than I would be to sign a simple "Bring back RYR". This is a request to do better - looking to the future for the benefit of communities.  Having a route for schemes to be "triaged" prior to very expensive and detailed work, fitting into a national policy with local tuning, makes sense.  For all we know, the government might already be looking at this - or cynically they might look to bring it in later in the parliament as good news prior to the 2029 general election.If you want a name - "Our Future Rail".

We need a scheme that has national guidelines and works with and enables what's needed for the next decades. And that includes NPPF, local and neighbourhood plan considerations as well as operational rail stuff.  We need a scheme that tests ideas - initially "cheaply" (ha, ha) and allows elements to be fed back, updated and cycled "quickly" (ha, ha). If found justified to be fed into a program of such development with a professional implementation team doing one project after another, with skills carried over and setup and breakdown costs saved, and a tail of experts who have moved on to the next project callable back to snag the running job.

I've not talked volume.  I've not talked GRIP^▸ (Guide to Railway Investment Projects) or STAG^▸ (Severn Tunnel Action Group).  And I don't know what the government has in mind to replace RYR.  In my view, it needs something to avoid the current system simply stagnating.  And reading the Campaign for Better Transport's request for signatures carefully, yes, I can add mine.  But adding a signature is just one drip in a flood of requests that need to be made as we shape our future railway.  Read the Labour papers carefully, and they fit a model that provides a more reliable service of less frequent and slower trains than we have at present, on a reduced network.  We need a better railway, but that model is not my description of it!

From a Wiltshire perspective

A new scheme with a level playing field makes sense.  We have lost out by comparison to other counties over a very long period indeed - our last brand new station was in 1937 - that's Dilton Marsh.  Melksham station was re-opened in 1985 after being closed for 19 years. 

From memory, aspirations over the years, with various degrees of seriousness, have included and perhaps still do: Box; Bradford North to West curve; Corsham; Devizes Gateway; Gablecross; Holt; Hullavington; Petersfinger; Porton; Royal Wootton Bassett; Staverton Junction; Thingley / West Chippenham; Tramway from Salisbury Station to City Centre; White Horse Business Park; Wilton; Wylye Parkway.

And schemes short of new stations and section of line might include: Accessibility between platforms at Trowbridge; Double track through Tisbury or loop into stations there; Electrification schemes for virtually every line in the county; Loop or double track via Melksham; Platforms 1 and 5 at Salisbury; Signalling interval on Avon Valley; Signalling interval on Wylye Valley

[Chris from Nailsea]

I can understand Labour taking a decision to close the scheme.

Barbara Castle

Worse than Dr Richard Beeching, in terms of what she destroyed of what he left in our railways.

 

[grahame]

I can understand Labour taking a decision to close the scheme.

Barbara Castle

Worse than Dr Richard Beeching, in terms of what she destroyed of what he left in our railways.

 

And without starting any screams of doom, we need to have a watching case.  In our area currently with services operated by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), most of the lines have done significantly well over the past 2 decades - but of course it depends on how high a government sets the bar if it were to look to reduce services that fall below a certain level.  I think the last major closures in our area was  (?) Bridport and I don't know what passenger numbers were like at the time.    There's a handful of lines elsewhere in GB^▸ (Great Britain) which I would wonder at, and am choosing not to list here.

[grahame]

Barbara Castle

Worse than Dr Richard Beeching, in terms of what she destroyed of what he left in our railways.

 

Worth quoting to remind our younger readers of what can happen ...

She presided over the closure of approximately 2,050 miles of railways as she enacted her part of the Beeching cuts—a betrayal of pre-election commitments by the Labour party to halt the proposals. Nevertheless, she refused closure of several lines, one example being the Looe Valley Line in Cornwall, and introduced the first Government rail subsidies for socially necessary but unprofitable railways in the Transport Act 1968.

... and bear in mind that I don't think there was a pre-election pledge not to close any railways; the talk was of a reliable service. Whether it serves 2,000, 2500 or 3,000 stations was not defined.

[Electric train]

As a professional railway Engineer of nearly half a centaury I always had concerns over the much RYR^▸ (Restoring Your Railway) scheme.  The idea that branch lines could / would be reopened reversing Beeching was, in my mind, a non starter there would never be the passenger numbers to cover the costs and often route of the permanent way would be a maintenance nightmare, likewise the reopening of some out of the way station again would there be the return in revenue?

The building of a new line or the addition of new stations to serve potential passengers I am all in favour of but it has to be for the right commercial reasons, it has to have the support of local funding and not be reliant of central funding, there is a place for central funding to aid in the faecality and strategic planning stages, but the initiative has to be driven by the local need

[grahame]

From New Civil Engineer

£43M spent by DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) on Restoring Your Railway projects that hang in the balance

The Department for Transport (DfT) spent £43M on Restoring Your Railway projects that face an uncertain future following chancellor Rachel Reeves’ cancellation of the programme, NCE can reveal.

The Restoring Your Railways scheme was intended to bring abandoned railways back into service, many of which were taken out of service during the infamous Reshaping of British Railways report written by Richard Beeching in 1963. This report identified 2,363 stations and 8,000 km of railway line for closure.

At the end of July, Reeves confirmed that UK^▸ (United Kingdom) infrastructure projects including the Restoring Your Railways programme “will not move forward” as the government looks to fill a £22bn hole it had discovered in its audit of public finances. During her speech, she stated the Restoring Your Railway programme cancellation would save £85M of public funding.

When the programme was cancelled, it was stated that projects that were currently being delivered would be completed while all others would become part of transport secretary Louise Haigh’s review to assess each DfT project individually.

Haigh is currently presiding over 44 of the 51 Restoring Your Railway projects as part of her review.

Local authorities are continuing to progress the schemes and are confident the money will not be wasted as they will utilise different funding methods to complete them.