Park and ride tram in Salisbury

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I've come across suggestions of a proposal for trams to share existing railway tracks from Wilton to Salisbury, and beyond to the Park at Ride on the Southampton line.  Does anyone know anything about this proposal / comments as to the senses / practicallity / othewise  of the idea?

[rogerw]

It's the idea of a local politician who realised that three of the park and ride sites have railway lines next to them.  Apart from the cost of rolling stock and signalling/track alterations which would run into millions I suppose it might be practical.  After all the T & W Metro runs with "big trains" to Sunderland safely.  However as the current P & R buses carry a lot of fresh air and are shortly to be integrated with local bus services to save money, I think the idea is probably a financial not starter.

[Oxonhutch]

The rails stay doggedly away from the town centre where the P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) traffic will be heading so it would need to take to the streets between the existing station and the old terminus (Milford), now an industrial estate, on the Southampton line. Can't see that as viable through a medieval city centre.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Apart from the cost of rolling stock and signalling/track alterations which would run into millions I suppose it might be practical.

Thanks for that absolute masterpiece of understatement, rogerw. 

[steves]

The press report which I saw presented this as a proposal for a monorail, presumably to be constructed alongside/between/above/below the existing railway tracks.   It also said that the councillors believed that the "rail platform stops" would not be expensive, and that the monorail trains could run "within the existing main line services from Waterloo".   Some sixth sense tells me that they haven't yet consulted Network Rail on this.

[paul7575]

The press report which I saw presented this as a proposal for a monorail, presumably to be constructed alongside/between/above/below the existing railway tracks...

Perhaps this has been developed by someone of a certain age who thought 'The Jetsons' was a documentary, or that Thunderbirds are real?

Paul

[trainer]

The press report which I saw presented this as a proposal for a monorail, presumably to be constructed alongside/between/above/below the existing railway tracks. 

I think the thought of turning quaint Salisbury into a British Wuppertal is faintly amusing. I sometimes wonder if some politicians have such lucid dreams that they are not sure when they have woken up.

Images of reality here:

http://www.die-bergischen-drei.de/historisch-mobil/schwebebahn.html

[TonyK]

Perhaps this has been developed by someone of a certain age who thought 'The Jetsons' was a documentary, or that Thunderbirds are real?

Paul

Thunderbirds are go!

Prague and Budapest are two places I have been where trams fit into an old city, although in both cases they are rather antique in their own right. Bordeaux managed alright, albeit with added cost for the underground power feed in the city centre. The Sheffield tram-train experiment starts "soon", and could inform ideas like this. It makes much more sense than MetroBust in Bristol, but would need a powerful business case.