Hi

I just wondered what people thought about campaign to open Railway Station Closed

I  think a Feasibility would have to be done  for station like Cullompton and Wellington Station.



Guy

 

The wording "reopening stations that Beeching closed" is a good headline, but worries me slightly - it's backward looking, and while there is huge merit in re-opening stations on some sites where they existed formerly, there is also scope at certain brand new sites.

Let's see ... in my own 'neck of the woods' ... let's look at an idealised TransWilts in - say - 10 years time:

Swindon (never closed)
West Swindon (new station near site of former Hay Lane, closed 1841)
Wootton Bassett (perhaps now Chippenham line to West of junction, for cost and capacity reasons)
Chippenham (never closed)
Melksham (Closed - 1966, reopened 1985)
Staverton and Holt (on site of former Staverton Halt, closed 1966)
Trowbridge (never closed)
White Horse Business Park (new station)
Westbury (never closed)
Dilton Marsh (never closed)
Warminster (never closed)
Wylye [A303 Parkway] (former station closed to passengers, 1955)
Wilton (on site of Wilton GWR, closed 1955 for passengers)
Salisbury (never closed)

So that is ...

7 Stations never closed
1 That was closed by Dr Beeching already reopened (but struggling due to dreadful service)
3 Stations to re-open that were closed prior to Dr Beeching
2 Stations that were closed by Dr Beeching to reopen
1 Brand New Station

That leaves 10 former station sites now to be re-opened - a small majority of them being Beeching closures.

When I stated to write this, I didn't know how the numbers were actually going to fall; perhaps this is a bit of unusual line with Warminster -> Salisbury being denuded of passenger stops in the 1950s.

Having written all of that - yes - there is huge merit in looking at the sites of former stations amongst other possible locations, and restoring a station and services if capacity and traffic allows (and what a good time to look at capacity, considering we're in RUS consultation!).  But remember too that when you pay the capital costs of restoring a station, you've also got to look at the operating costs of providing a decent service there - and perhaps it will take a generation to persuade people back to places they haven't been able to get a train from for 40 or 50 years.

To complete the post - former station sites not listed above - Dauntsey, Christian Malford, Lacock, Beanacre, Broughton Gifford, Holt, Heytesbury, Codford, Langford, Wishford

 
Surely if you live in Collumpton it takes only a few minutes to drive to Tiverton Parkway. Due to the lack of local services on that line the service would be awful.

 
Problem is, if you don't drive, then Cullompton has the number 1 bus which is useless to Tiverton Parkway, and takes days to get to Exeter.

Having said that, as DM has said, unless they are going to start stopping HSTs 4 miles short of TVP then I cannot ever see it happening.

 
I was think a New Passenger Service from Okehampton to Taunton.

Stopping at the re-opend or New station at Cullompton and Wellington

Okehmapton
Sampford Courtenay (request)
Yeoford
Crediton
Exeter St David
Cullompton
Tiverton Parkway
Wellington
Taunton

Maybe extend it to Bristol

 
There's a Cullompton (pop 8000) / Corsham (pop 12000) comparison here.   Both have quite frequent 125s going through, but there was (how shall I put it) extreme reluctance to stop those trains at Corsham, so I would expect the same issue with Cullompton.  The RUS shows options for a local Clifton Downs to Chippenham service that would pass through the site of a Corsham station, so there may be hope in years to come (I don't think new stations are in the RUS's terms, even though a new line that includes new stations - Portishead - is).

But - overall - the issue that you need a service that can be stopped keep coming back - it's no good having a station with no trains - we've got that in Melksham and we nearly had the problem at Ivybridge.  Dilton Marsh has some extreme measures in place to provide a train every 3 hours ... and without an extension of the Cardiff - Taunton to Okehampton (how about adding Norton Fitzwarren to the list?), a new station at Cullompton would be fighting for much more that a stop in the 06:00 Exeter to Bristol.

 
Yes I can see you point about stopping at Cullompton. The  only way would be to build a new station which is a a loop, I guess the same would have to be for Wellington.



If you build a new station at Norton Fitzwarren was built you would have to decide how to link it to the West Somerset Norton Fitzwarren Station on the traiangle.

 
From the Somerset County Gazette:

 
http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/4751320.Network_Rail_to_discuss_Wellington_station_plans/

 
Interesting story  thanks

 

This is a very good point. Referring to my bible R.A. Cooke's Atlas of the Great Westren Railway I see that in 1947 there were four tracks through Tauton from Cogload Junction to just beyond Norton Fitzwarren and the Junctions for Minrhead and Barnstable. There were then loops at Wellington, Samford Peveril Tiverton Junction (then a junctionfor Tiveton and Hemyock, Cullompton and Hele and Bradinch stations  plus 4 tracks through Exeter.

That's an aweful lot of lost infrastructure and thus reduced capacity. If new stations are built then they should be on loops because it woiuld enable and RB/RE and IC services to be run. Which is a stopper following the fast and being overtaken by other fasts at suitable points and connecting hopefully cross platform with a following fast for onward fast connections from previous small stations and vice versa from stations on fast services to small stations ahaed..

Thus you would have a Penzance Bristol all stations overtaken and connecting with onward fast at say Par Plymouth Newton Abbot Exeter Taunton. It could also be overtaken by other fasts if new stations had loops.

Thus if you wanted to go from say Hayle to Paddington it would be one change at Par or Plymouth. If you wanted to go from Hayle to Bridgewater it would be either stay on the same train or make two changes at Par/Plymouth and Taunton for a faster journey. But Penzance Bridgewater would be one change off the fast at Taunton.

Of course this would be considee expensive because of the cost of reinstated infrastructure and extra train sets to provide the service because you don't have one train trying to do two jobs i.e. IC to Plymouth adn all stations in Cornwall. it would be IC to penzance and another train set doing the all stations.

 
Maybe you could add a Loop at Exminster and try to develope that area of Exeter

I hope they put in a loop on the sherford station when they may build it also.

 
From This Is The West Country:

 
From the BBC:

 
From Mid Devon Gazette

MID Devon District Council is backing calls for a new railway station in Cullompton ^ half a century after the town's halt was closed.

The authority says it would welcome the development of platforms on allocated land at junction 28, roughly where the station was before it fell victim to cuts to the British rail network in the 1960s.

As buses linking Cullompton with Exeter and Taunton have reduced, optimism is growing that local train services could be sustained due to the town's steady increase in population.

A district council spokesman said: "Both district and county councillors representing the area have been voicing their concerns against any reduction to both main line and Tarka Line services.

"We also have land allocated for a railway station at junction 28 and would be pleased to see a development on that site.

"We are in an economic climate that is seeing the price of motoring escalate beyond the reach of many in rural communities. There are rising concerns over climate change and our over dependency on oil.

"For these reasons the council wants to maximise the availability of public transport that meets residents' needs."

Town and district councillors, as well Cullompton Traders' Association members, have been buoyed by comments from Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council's cabinet member for highways and transportation.

Cllr Nikki Woollatt, who represents Cullompton at town and district level, wrote to the authority to congratulate it on its plans for a station in Okehampton to improve the local infrastructure. She told the authority a new station would help boost ongoing regeneration as well as asking if Cullompton features in its economic development plans.

Cllr Hughes said: "While it is possible in layout terms to provide a station for Cullompton there is currently no train service which would call there.

"However, in responding to the Department for Transport's consultation on the new Great Western Rail Franchise to start in 2013, we made the case for an hourly stopping service between Exeter and Taunton.

"If this could be achieved at some time within the new franchise, then it would pave the way for a station to be added at Cullompton."

Stations in Stoke Canon, Silverton, Hele and Bradninch, Cullompton, Tiverton Junction, Sampford Peverell and Burlescombe closed after Dr Richard Beeching, as chairman of the British Transport Commission, drew up a report stating that British Rail was losing ^140m a year in 1963.

Neil Vaughan, chairman of the Cullompton Traders Association, said the rise in Cullompton's population due to the number of homes being built should be enough to sustain rail connections from Cullompton to Exeter and Taunton.

The population of the Cullompton area currently stands at 23,989, a figure Devon County Council did not expect would be reached until 2016.

Mr Vaughan's association is to meet the Cullompton Regeneration Advisory Group and Gordon Cleaver, Mid Devon District Council's economic development manager, this week.

He said: "I think we need to promote the links we already have but I do think the train station should be at the top of the list when it comes to transport and infrastructure.

"A train station will allow people from a tourism point of view to come to Cullompton to see what is here and it would also provide a fantastic saving in the carbon footprint currently attached to the number of cars that travel to Exeter and Taunton every day.

"If there was a local train service that went to Exeter, Cullompton, Tiverton, Wellington and Taunton on an hourly basis, it would provide a track of opportunity for those towns to attract people."

 
"Stations in Stoke Canon, Silverton, Hele and Bradninch, Cullompton, Tiverton Junction, Sampford Peverell and Burlescombe closed after Dr Richard Beeching, as chairman of the British Transport Commission, drew up a report stating that British Rail was losing ^140m a year in 1963."

Tivvy Junction remained open, right up - I believe - until Parkway was built. It was certainly open in the late 70's as I caught a train from there with my school.

However, the service was spasmodic at best, no doubt a classic case of BR attempting closure by stealth?

 

Furthermore wasn't Sampford Peverell re-opened as Tiverton Parkway?

 
You are right Umberleigh. Tiverton Junction closed on 11th May 1986, with Parkway opening the following day.

 
Another thing about most of those intermediate stations was that a lot were 4 track with platforms loops thus considerably increasing line capacity. Lets hope if they reopen and Cullumpton and Wellington they will be 4 track, but I can't see it myself we aren't that far sighted like the Victorians. It would also be considered too expensive!

 
Ah! But is Devon C.C.prepared to pay for its new Cullumpton station?

People will call for all sort of uneconomic improvements if they do not have to pay for it.

 
what is the signalling situation in the area?  The council  might be able to scrape together the cash for a car park, platform and a couple of "bus shelters",  Likewise FGW or the local house builders might be willing to contribute a bit but if new track or signalling is needed they probably can't afford it, unless there is a renewal in the area due anyway.

 
and which services would stop at these stations? there are very few local trains between Exeter and Taunton and the time penalty for stopping HST's and Voyagers would be quite high due to the high (100MPH) line speed, more units would need to be pulled out of a hat and would need to be 90MPH units to avoid slowing down everything else.

 
Let's get real here.There is no chance that FGW will make additional stops between Exeter and Taunton. Wellington is not that far from Taunton and if the bus setrvice to TVP from Cullumpton is no good then surely a more  relaistic solution is to get a  regular bus to run there??

 
The bus service from TVP to anywhere is pretty rubbish, tbh. Unless you want to get to Exeter, in which case there's an hourly service. Useful if your final destination is one of the intermediate villages. It means there are huge swathes of North Devon inaccessible by rail, but we already knew that.

 
Well if there was a fast Train Between Taunton and Exeter, a local service, which stopped at Wellington, Tiverton and Cullumpton.

Maybe this service could start from Okehampton to Exeter St David's and then to Taunton and return back to Okehampton via Exeter ST David.

Guy

 
From thisisthewestcountry:

 
"District council leader Cllr Peter Hare-Scott said: ^We^re experiencing an economic climate where motoring prices are rising beyond reach for some in rural communities. In addition, our dependency on oil and climate change concerns must be taken into account. It^s important that public transport is made available for the needs of our residents.^"

Whilst I agree entirely with the good councillor unfortunately for a long time to come the chances of getting a station for Cullumpton is remote, I am afraid it's going to have to be buses to TVP.

 
Are both lines threw cullompton bi-directional?

 


No is the short answer. Up and Down only and not Bi-Di

 
I would expect if they ever did they would have to create loops at the station concerned. Wellington, Tiverton and Cullompton.

Figure 1  Current train service level (trains per hour)
Main line services  Trains per hour
Bristol Temple Meads ^ London Paddington  2
Plymouth ^ London Paddington  1 (9 trains per day from Penzance)

www.networkrail.co.uk/RoutePlans/PDF/RouteK-WestofEngland.pdf

Guy

 
On it goes:

 
That's the same Taunton Deane Borough Council who, along with West Somerset District Council, have been trying to reopen the rail link between Taunton and Minehead. They, and their predecessors, have only been trying to achieve that since, oh, approximately 12:01am on the 3rd January 1971. Of course, WSDC can do little these days but talk about the line to Minehead. What with them having only about tuppence ha'penny in the bank.

Sticking block has often been their overlords, Somerset County Council. One minute they blow hot about rail enhancement projects, the next they blow cold. No mention of any input from SCC regarding Welly and Clumpton in the County Forget article.

 
It only takes one or two councillors to raise a bit of a rumour within  the local media.. The art is to get a bit of momentum going, at least in Zummerset. Cullompton is in Devon, which gives it a bit of an inbuilt advantage. Devon County Council seem much better organised with rail projects, having seen the benefits almost before rail became cool again.

Wellington's politicos are, I think, looking to Tavistock for inspiration, and looking to link housing development to the station - can't see anything further coming prior to 2019 though.

 

It's almost as if people resented having their trains taken away by Marples and Castle, and would like them back..!

I try to suppress it, but I can't stop thinking that you could reopen a lot of missing links for ^40,000,000,000 (or is it ^50,000,000,000? Oh and some trains too... ^60,000,000,000)

 

Now, now! No need for that. I didn't say they would actually achieve anything!

Being slightly more serious, I can't see any reason why it can't be done for the cost of platforms and signals. The line between Taunton and Exeter is a lot quieter than that passing through Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road, and trains stop at those stations. And I keep reading about the stock soon to be cascaded because of electrification.

 

But remember too the stock we keep reading about that has to be withdrawn in 2019 because it will no longer be legally fit for purpose.

I seem to recall seeing a DfT document showing rolling stock plans looking forward 30 years and predicting requirements, but alas I've also seen documentation than bases future plans and growth on conservative (low) estimates - said to be to avoid spending money on promoting things that will be underutilised, but in practise if the current trends continue it would mean a system running beyond the capacity it has for decades to come.

 
Porterbrook (who FGW lease their Pacer trains from) have a plan to make them compliant with the PRM TSI requirements. Only Angel Trains have said they are scrapping Pacers that they lease out to their customers in 2019.

Here's a link to Poterbrook's plan for compliance: http://www.porterbrook.com/downloads/brochures/14x%20Brochure.pdf

 
They'll only do it if they get a guarantee of use for the units over a period that covers the cost of the work.

 

TOCs are quick to blame shortage of rolling stock for overcrowding and not increasing services. They should, in thoery be overjoyed, and qqueuing for any spare units. Although I have said before that their profit is greater from a 125 full to bursting point with disgruntled passengers than it would be from two trains with everyone able to get a seat. That said, GWR made good use of the small number of extra units they were able to get a couple of years back.

 
Agree, but remember that we are looking forward to guaranteeing usage after 2019. By that time, the displacement of the vast majority of the Thameslink fleet, the Valleys' electrification, together with the current North West electrification (excluding Class 185's which are already accounted for) will release enough DMU's to cover the 144 odd Pacers in service. 

In addition, there's a clear steer that MML will now be complete by the end of CP5 (ie 2019), which will cascade a lot of DMU's at the top end of the fleet specification. Scottish central belt electrification similarly, not to mention trans-Pennine wiring and a few other smaller schemes* which will each release a handful. That should release enough to cater for the current suppressed demand that you allude to, together with some room for growth in the next 6 years.

So, if I were a shareholder being asked to sign up to a significant investment programme, I'd want a very good business case that a) there would be work for the units and b) the lease charge I could make covered the costs of making the units compliant. If the cost of leasing goes up too much then clearly they will look less attractive to operators, particularly given the loss of seating for the accessible toilet will give them a very low capacity

* I can think of Gospel Oak to Barking (8?), Rugeley branch, Glasgow suburban branches, Windmere now likely, plus any more that emerge in the next few years.

 

The business of an overcrowded train being more profitable, even though potential travellers are put off, has interested me for a while - looking at how the arithmetic works.  So I put a program together to try out a few things / figure and see what I got.

Potential passengers - 300
1 carriage ...  1.89 142 429.0 4.00
2 carriages ...  1.70 255 1110.0 2.00
3 carriages ...  1.22 275 675.0 1.33
4 carriages ...  0.95 285 120.0 1.00
5 carriages ...  0.78 291 -483.0 0.80
6 carriages ...  0.66 295 -1110.0 0.67

Figures on each line ...
... actual loading
... physical number of passsnegers carried
... profit made
... potential loading if everyone who wanted to travel did so

So there's 9 times more profit to be made running a 2 coach train full to bursting point than there is running a 4 coach train with a handful of spare seats, even though your 2 coach train has put off 30 people to the extent that they're not your customers at all, and have driven/ taken the bus etc.

If your potential customer pool has increased - let's say to 450 people, then it is worth adding an extra carriage.

Potential passengers - 450
1 carriages ...  1.89 142 429.0 6.00
2 carriages ...  1.90 285 1470.0 3.00
3 carriages ...  1.70 382 1959.0 2.00
4 carriages ...  1.35 405 1560.0 1.50
5 carriages ...  1.11 418 1041.0 1.20
6 carriages ...  0.95 427 474.0 1.00

Here are the inputs I used to my model:


And of course the results will change based on the numbers which are educated guesses on my part (any expert like to come up with real numbers for me?)

The next complication comes in the need to add in the cost of the return working ... if the potential passenger count on that is only a half peak direction working, the results are all the more stark.   With 300 on the outward leg and 150 on the return leg, a 2 coach train turns in a profit of 864, but a 4 coach train results in a loss of 1380. 

Then you have partial journeys and the effect of fare levels and frequencies on the numbers of potential passengers.  And then you need to conside the effect of promotional offers to get people using seats which would be running empty otherwise, and how to avoid those offers tempting people who would travel at full price to travel more cheaply ... I wouldn't want to run a TOC

For the more techical reader - my algorithms, coded in Python:

 
I don't understand any of the figures at all, but I do understand Graham's words and it seems to me that the point is as true as it's ever been: passenger railways don't (or rarely) make profits.  As was recently re-iterated in the Beeching Night programmes on BBC Parliament, only British governments seem to have the (to me) perverse ideology that railways must pay for themselves.  Most of Europe understands that the railways, like roads, are an integral public service which must be reasonably subsidised from general taxation.

The fact that a profit can only be made from squeezing people in like cattle shows what the basic attitude to people against profits is in this business. Governments are elected and I understand that asking for more money will not be an election winner these days in Britain, but we certainly get what we don't pay up for.

Local councillors ought not to build up false hopes: they know more than anyone how empty the coffers are and how their voters would react if asked for more money to make their railway aspirations come true.

 
Nice work there, Red Squirrel, although I wouldn't be surprised to find that train operating companies and DafT already have (and use) such numbers. I agree with trainer too. The drive for profit everywhere by Government, even at the cost of resentment, reminds me of the story of a former Chancellor at a funeral, who whispered to the man next to him "Put that thing on wheels, and you can make five men redundant".

Yes, I was aware of the cascading that will happen with electrification. I hope the end result is even more profound, with rolling electrification after the initial programme is complete. If that aim is taken as a discrete project, rather than having to go the "whole promise it three times cancel it twice" that rail projects always have, then so much the better.

When the bit through Wellington and Cullompton is electric, the should-we-shouldn't-we question will be informed by different economics. Having electric vehicles calling at stations with short distances between them is surely much more economic (or probably less uneconomic) than trying to do the same with DMUs. We've got a long way to go, though. But when you think that the high output electrification train is said to be capable of doing a mile in a 6-hour possession, Bristol to Penzance becomes a 6-month job. I hereby call upon the Transport Minister to take my idea on board, and for Network Rail to draw up a schedule covering the period from 1 January 2019 to end of task, somewhere around 2036, quicker if we leave Scotland to get on with their own bit.

 

Kind of you to credit me. but I think Graham should get at least some of the kudos... and I hope Graham will forgive me, but I'm afraid I would have done it in php.

 

And I would have done it in PHP too if I was giving a PHP course at the moment - but I haven't done one of those in 10 days     ... the week just gone was Python, C and C++ ...

On a serious note, it was fascinating to try the effect of changing the relative cost of a seat, takings per seat, and fixed costs (I've used a crude differentiator with nothing between the two extremes).  Also great fun playing with the potential passenger flexibility - at what point will some stop travelling because the train's too crowded, and what proportion will try and cram in no matter what.   Where the algorithms get to be really fun, and I'm sure that First and the DfT have modelling software, is where they're extended to cover full services (which changes such as more shorter or fewer longer trains), and time (where customer / potential customer reaction over short and long term change the results).

 
I'm a little shaky on Python these days, but can still do a passable Dead Parrot Sketch. THat apart, I tend to keep my Python hidden, except behind closed doors.

 
Something that would be harder to model would be the effect of overcrowding over time, though I think we know the answer: In the 'fifties, summer Saturday trains combined overcrowding with the worst rolling stock. Ten years later rail had almost completely lost the leisure market. Of course other factors - cheap package tours and better roads - played a part, but the fact that trains were slow and uncomfortable was surely a significant factor.

I find this a little worrying. The growth in demand for rail looks like it may be faltering; is the rail industry and the DfT being complacent in thinking that people will continue to put up with overcrowding, or is it just inflexible or lacking in imagination?

 
Getting back a little closer to the original thread, I too have done some sums:

Cost of re-instating 30 miles of Waverley Route, Edinburgh - Tweedbank: ^300,000,000 = ^10,000,000/mile

Let's imagine it were possible to re-allocate the cost of HS2 (say ^50,000,000,000) to re-opening local lines. A reasonably equitable split would give the South-West about ^10,000,000,000 of this. Even if we put aside half this sum to upgrade existing lines and reopen closed stations on them, there would still be enough left over to re-open FIVE HUNDRED MILES of closed lines. By my crude reckoning:

Padstow	65 miles	^650,000,000
Bude	30 miles	^300,000,000
Ilfracombe	12 miles	^120,000,000
Bristol-Frome (B&NS)	25 miles	^250,000,000
Bath-Bournemouth (S&D)	105 miles*	^1,050,000,000
Yatton-Witham (Cheddar Valley)	30 miles	^300,000,000
Bristol-Mangotsfield-Yate (Midland)	20 miles*	^200,000,000
Mangotsfield-Bath (Midland)	30 miles*	^300,000,000
Cheltenham-Kingham	25 miles	^250,000,000
Kemble-Cirencester	5 miles	^50,000,000
Kemble-Tetbury	8 miles	^80,000,000
Bradford-Patney	20 miles	^200,000,000
Total	375 miles	^3,750,000,000

* Assumes 40 miles of double track, rest single
** Assumes double track

I've got to the end of my shopping list, and my wish list, and I seem to have rather a lot of change. Anyone else got a pet scheme, or shall we give it to the consultants?

 
Don't forget the rolling stock.

 

Blimey, good point! Would one-and-a-quarter billion be enough to buy some of that?

Actually I'm starting to think my ^5,000,000,000 for re-opening Collumpton and Wellington may have been a bit generous; perhaps we could use some of that for Gloucester-Ledbury, Chepstow-Monmouth-Ross-Hereford, Pontypool-Monmouth... oh, and I've still got change.

 
Creech St Michael - Chard
Curry Rivel Junction - Yeovil
Bridgwater - Shepton Mallet via Glastonbury and Wells (linking up with Bath - Bournemouth)
Norton Fitzwarren - Dulverton

 
I think I still have some change. Why stop at Dulverton?

 
Surely you must have some change for Meldon to Tavistock (once it has re-opened)!

 

Barnstaple is already served, and the old route into Barnstaple has largely disappeared under road building from South Molton onward.

 
You'll need to think bigger if we're going to get through all this dosh. We can build beside the A361.

 


And you need to think forward to what will be used and make sense as a complete new network rather than re-instating sections that competed with each other.  I look at posts here and see four routes into Radstock, and wonder if they'll all be sustainable - even with rail traffic [prediction] being 5 to 10 times the level it was at the time of Beeching.   And I look to modern technology where sharper gradients are practical, and some things can be engineered now that would simply not have been possible.  You probably would end up using a lot of old infrastructure in places.  And you will end up enhancing lots of infrastucture at exisiting stations / junctions.

Picking up some ideas that won't all happen in the CP4, CP5, CP6 or CP7 ...

- Bodmin Road to Bodmin, Wadebridge and Padstow. Sorry - not via Camelford, although branch to Launceston from Tavistock, perhaps. From the implied Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton, and with new works at Lydford junction.

- Extra stations at Grove, Shrivenham, Royal Wootton Bassett, Corsham, Box,  Batheaston, Saltford, near Brislington  and St Anne's. (and that's going to require an overtaking loop for the fast London - Bristol via Chippenham service to get in front of the all stations service - at Swindon, perhaps, turning platform 4 into an island with platform 5 in front of it, or perhaps at Chippenham?

- Calne to Bristol local service via Chippenham, Melksham, Bradford-on-Avon, Bath, and Mangotsfield (approx 10 local stations served along the way; rebuild Calne branch, Bradford North curve and Midland from near Bath via Mangotsfield; new junction to the west of Bath to connect into this Bristol suburban line. Sorry - not re-opening Green Park in Bath.

- 15 car scheme on key routes. Every 30 minutes is fine for many services, but we need to get more people through and have the capacity for local trains. So use 5 car electrics as standard, and run up to 3 on key Paddington - Reading - Didcot - Swindon - Chippenham - Bath - Bristol Temple Meads services.

 

I agree. If you look at the way old infrastructure and assets have been re-used in London, it is clear that by inserting what are often fairly short links it is possible to considerably improve on what was there. However there are sound reasons to use the old alignments as a starting point:

• They connect to the existing network at their end points;
• They tend to pass through the towns we wish to serve;
• They follow the topography;
• We can use surviving tunnels, bridges and so on.

As a local example, the Bath-Midford section of the S&D would probably be replaced by the old GW route from Dundas, with a new incline to get you up to the S&D at Midford.

However I didn't mean to go much beyond broad brushstrokes; my point was that for a share of the cost of HS2 we could re-open just about every viable missing link and local station in this region; by extrapolation that probably applies to the whole country.

Food for thought.

I was 109% sure that HS2 is a Good Idea, now I'm down to 108%.

 

Unfortunately this is not about what makes good sense from an 'investment in rail infrastructure' point of view, this is all about appealing to the North of England, and some of the more traditional Labour dominated marginal constituencies in the bigger Northern cities - and this approach from each of the main parties.

In the main, the west of england is not known for it's support of many Labour candidates, and indeed we do not host many key marginal constituencies which can be won over by the mere act of strategically dangling a ^ 40 Bn golden carrot in the right towns and cities.  The odds of the South West politically swinging anywhere is so slim, that successive governments have never felt the need to spend money here.  Take for example the recent move of so much of the BBC to Salford at vast expense.  I can't believe that that was no more than the then Labour government with yet another sack of golden carrots.

Unfortunately, with both of the main parties blinkered in their desire to build HS2, they are unable to see the vast possibilities and regeneration that could result from the sort of considered local investment mentioned in recent posts.

 
Ah, that definition of 'good sense'... I am now down to 37% sure that HS2 is a good idea.

 
Kernow Otter is quite correct Decisions on transport infrastructure by politicians are determined by politics not by the best value investment. It is often about spending money in areas with higher unemployment levels where the investment could possibly create work and jobs for the unemployed. It has not been so noticeable in the last 30 years plus because there has been so little investment in rail but it has been particularly noticeable on road investment.

And - why do the politicians talk about spending on investment when so much is on dealing with past deferred maintenance. Such spending is just trying to restore past standards such as the money recently announced supposed to be used on filling the millions of potholes - badly needed but not investment.

 

I think you are forgetting a few little facts about the geography of this island. 

The North of England has just a few more people living there than the west. Fewer people live in Devon and Cornwall than in Merseyside, which is the smallest of the metropolitan areas of the North. 

The three regions that make up the North of England have a combined population of 15 million.   Scotland is also another 5 million. The South West has only 2.5 million!   

This is not some sop to the Labour councils of the North it is a serious attempt to provide for growth in transport between the 17 million people in London and the South East and the 20 million people in Scotland and the North of England.   

The lines to the South West are not yet predicted to reach full capacity in that sort of time frame and even if they were a new line is not the obvious choice yet.  The distances to the North of England are also longer - yeas I know how far it is to Plymouth and Penzance, but the populations there just do not warrant that sort of expenditure.  Improvement of existing lines will do.

So why should the South East be interested in economic growth in the North of England? Because the overheating economy of the South East is destabilising our economy by creating unsustainable house demand. This is currently leading to unsustainable house prices which partly caused the banks to crash and will require massive house building to fix.  If the people of the Chilterns and the rest of the South East do not want their beautiful countryside completely covered in houses then they have to accept a new railway.

Why not go alongside the M40 you ask? - because that would affect far more people - except they are not the super rich who can bank-roll a publicity campaign. Why not follow the existing West Coast Main Line?  Because that would involve going through the middle of many towns and would shut the line for most weekends.  It wasn't popular last time and it carries far more traffic now. Alternatively we could just build another motorway and forget about railways - but then we are stuck when the oil runs out. Remember how we managed in 2001 with a few days fuel strikes.

That is why I am 100% for HS2 even though I do not often travel its route.

Sorry Mods I am off topic, but you can dream all you like about a few reopened branch lines, but they need to join serious population centres. 

 
That's a bit too sweeping: surely decisions a never made entirely for one kind or reason. Prejudice an political motives may bias, or swing, a decision but hardly be the sole reason.

I did also wonder about that use of "invest", especially its repeated use in the "Beeching Night" programmes. However, if you think of capital investment as converting money into a physical asset, such as "railway", then not maintaining it means spending this asset instead of other money. That's disinvestment, of a kind. Replacing the lost amount of "railway substance" is then investment. In theory. I don't think it's what we mean by the term, though.

If the usual meaning of investment is something like "spending money to buy something in the expectation that its use will provide repayment over a period of time", that might explain the trouble with these infrastructure investments. They do not lead to a payback in money, or not enough of it. They have to be justified by benefits that are elsewhere, non-financial, intangible, immeasureable, undetectable, hypothetical, or whatever. These represent part of the income stream, to be added to the real income before being divided among running costs, maintenance, repayment, profit, etc. Now turning those benefits into money and giving them to (e.g.) a railway gets to be called subsidy, which may be unfair.

In the 1970s (when these "externalities" were not really accepted) subsidy was taboo, but investment was OK. So any money BR asked for had to be called "investment", but was only available if projected incomes could be tweaked enough.

 
One thing that can be difficult to avoid when discussing this kind of topic is to assume that it would be easier to re-open certain routes because they are covered by a cycle/walking path. This is often not quite the case.

Take the Bath-Bristol via Mangotsfield route for example, which forms the latter day Bristol-Bath Railway Path, a route that I have traversed on several occasions. This is indeed relatively wide and potentially rail-viable from Newbridge (west of Bath) through Kelston/Saltford, Bitton, Oldland Common, Warmley right up to Siston. Indeed, the Avon Valley Railway have actually restored part of the route between Avon Riverside and Oldland Common, running through their HQ at Bitton station.

However, once you get to Siston, your problems begin. In 1999, South Gloucestershire Council began building part of the Ring Road on the former trackbed. They did divert the path, but as anyone who has used that section will testify, its new twists, turns, gradients and bridges are completely unsuitable for railway restoration.

That said, if there really was an iron will on the part of the powers that be to restore the route through here, then modern engineering technology could probably find a solution. Unfortunately, once you are across the Ring Road, you immediately hit another problem. Whilst the section of trackbed from the Ring Road through to Mangotsfield Station is still there and in use as part of the path, it has been severely squeezed by modern housing encroachment. Indeed, I would go so far as to say you would have to knock some of it down to restore a viable railway through here again, which probably rules it out for the short to medium term.

Once you get to Mangotsfield (a disused station gem ^ in my opinion well worth a visit) the trackbed opens out significantly to become rail-viable again through Staple Hill tunnel and on to Fishponds. However, the closer you get to the centre of Bristol from thereon, the more patchy things become. Wide expanse one minute, quite narrow the next. One of the biggest obstacles on this part of the route is the Clay Bottom housing estate which was built on the trackbed. Whilst the path does its best to snake through and around the housing, rail-viable it most certainly aint. Again, the only option for rail reinstatement would be to knock some of it down.

It^s not just the non rail-viable sections such as Mangotsfield and Clay Bottom that are problematic. When plans were mooted to partly convert more viable sections for BRT, it caused one of the biggest coalitions of campaigners and public to come together to oppose them. While I^m sure that a section of this coalition would switch sides if the plans were rail-based rather than BRT, it is very likely that public opinion would still be overwhelmingly against any change of use for the path.

I should point out at this stage (as anyone who knows me will testify) that I am generally hugely in favour of rail expansion. I^ve always felt that it was a great shame that when railway station openings/re-openings such as Melksham, Ivybridge, Worle, Yate and Cam & Dursley became cool again during the period between the mid-1980s and the early 1990^s, we didn^t capitalise on that by looking more into route re-openings such as this one, when there were more people around who remembered the railway being there and the benefits it could bring, and less development on the route to overcome as well.

The problem is that now two generations have grown up not remembering the route as a railway, and have grown fond of it as a cycle/walking path that provides a green and traffic-free route into the centre of their congested city.  While most are happy to learn about and commemorate its railway past, when it comes to resurrection there is just no appetite for it, and the perceived damage to or loss of the treasured amenity they feel it would involve.

Of course, by the 1990s one of these generations had already grown up not knowing the route as a railway, and residents in general along the route had grown used to the benefits of not having a railway close by. The Avon Valley Railway discovered this to their cost when they completed their northern extension from Bitton to Oldland Common, but were prevented for years from opening it due to legal action from local residents, who ironically lived further away from the trackbed than those in Mangotsfield or Clay Bottom do today.

The AVR did eventually open their Oldland extension, later adding a platform and run-round loop there in 1999, and followed this up in 2004 with a southern extension towards Bath which terminates at Avon Riverside, the current extent of operations. Having learnt from their previous experience, they also launched a consultation with residents and interested parties on whether to proceed with a further extension north towards Warmley, in the hope that a few years of successful operations may have softened the views of the locals towards the railway.

However, with a firm and clear ^No Way Jose!^ (or words to that effect) ringing in their ears, they quickly re-focused their plans southwards towards a proposed Bath Riverside station, probably close to the point grahame envisages a new junction to the west of Bath.

You would have thought that they would have been on safe ground with this one. The segregation of path and railway procedure with Sustrans is well-established south of Bitton, and the only settlement of note along the route is the Bird In Hand pub, who are pro-rail, advertising on the AVR and selling Saltford Station Campaign mugs behind the bar. They would most likely welcome the railway passing their doorstep, particularly if a halt were built capitalising on the picturesque location and bringing mutual business to both pub and railway.

So far though, it is not to be. In recent years the AVR has been the target of a graffiti-based ^Stop The Rail Expansion^ campaign, with messages scrawled on railway infrastructure, rolling stock and the path itself. Subjects range from Thomas causing global warming to the fence separating path and railway not being pleasing to the eye. Perhaps unsurprisingly, further line expansion is on hold for the foreseeable future, with the AVR concentrating on developing facilities at their Bitton base instead.

It also strikes me that this is the kind of conversation that the new S&D folks, much maligned in the past for alleged pie-in-the-sky ideas, have on a regular basis. Their defence is that they see things in the sense of the very long-term, a time when the political, financial, economic and social implications of knocking down in-the-way buildings, reinstating structures such as bridges/embankments, diverting utilities and everything else involved in achieving their aims is outweighed by the political, financial, economic and social implications of what they see as an inevitable energy crisis.

As an aside, even they don^t think reinstating to Bath Green Park is viable, instead endorsing a very similar route to Red Squirrel^s GW from Dundas/Midford incline.

 
I'll take the blame for steering this off topic!

You make some good points ellendune. But what you call 'few reopened branch lines' is actually enough track mileage to completely reverse the Marples/Castle axe throughout the whole country. 4065 route miles of track were closed between the publication of 'The Reshaping of British Railways' and 1974; using the cost of the Borders Railway as a guide (^10,000,000/mile) we could reopen every mile of that and still have a billion or two left over to buy trains.

I'm not saying that we could or even should spend the money this way; I'm just trying to put the cost of the project into perspective. I like the idea of high-speed rail; it doesn't seem likely to me that we're the only developed country that doesn't need it. But goodness me it's expensive!


Actually that's why I picked the Borders Railway for my wet-finger-in-the-air price - they have had to knock down houses, divert a cycle path on the alignment and negotiate a major road; exactly the kind of obstacles you describe.

 
OK so I exaggerated by saying a few reopened branch lines, but few would take significant inter-urban traffic.

If you have been to the borders you will see that for all the problems near Edinburgh and in Galashiels, most of the route is through some of the wildest country in the UK.  So I am not sure you cost would be enough for many of the routes you suggest.

 
In fairness, RedSquirrel, I think that some of your cost estimations for reopening local lines are wildly optimistic. Take your ^120m for Ilfracombe, for example. A few years ago, reopening the Bideford line was costed at ^80m. That involves, comparatively, very little work, with only the Barnstaple Western Bypass and the old Instow level crossing being significant obstacles.

The Ilfracombe line would also have to cross the bypass. It would then have to cross the Taw on a new bridge. Even by that point, basing this cost estimate on the Western Bypass (2 miles of new road with a large bridge and three junctions cost ^42m in 2007), you're probably looking at ^50m before you've even got a mile of new track. Then you get to Braunton, where development on the old trackbed means that you'd probably have to demolish around 20 properties, relocate the village's only car park and provide a major flood relief scheme, I'm not even going to try and cost that lot up, but I suggest that your ^120m is long gone by the time you get through the village. Then there's the remaining 6 miles to build, which would include having to relocate the PALL Ilfracombe factory which isn't going to be cheap. And there's road crossings, bearing in mind that new level crossings are not allowed - new bridges are going to be extremely difficult to provide, especially at Chivenor, Velator Way and Caen Street in Braunton where there simply isn't room for new road bridges - the only way you would get a railway through that lot would be to elevate it for some 2 miles. And I'm pretty sure that proposing an elevated railway right through the middle of Braunton wouldn't go down too well. Oh, then there's stations, signalling, relocating the Tarka Trail....I don't really need to say more.

 

OK so I exaggerated by saying a few reopened branch lines, but few would take significant inter-urban traffic.

[/quote]

While I totally accept that there are disproportionate numbers of people concentrated in our urban centres, and that our economy has evolved post industrial revolution to an urban/ suburban centred model, it is the complete disparity of it all that is most annoying. 

The urban centres are forever getting the massive investment schemes, (Cross Rail, Olympics, HS1, HS2, Jubilee line, Cross Rail 2, Heathrow express, Electrification, West Coast Mainline remodelling, IEP - need more ?), where as even a tiny proportion of that money wisely spent in the rural provinces has the potential to make significant and positive changes to rural life - look at the Falmouth Branch passing loop for example.

The central government spend should be far more regionally spent.

 

I had a stooge around up there last year, before they started work. It is indeed wild and beautiful country.

Actually I think the Borders Railway is quite a good barometer for a reopening project, which is one reason why I am following it with interest. In places the going is fairly straightforward, but they have had their fair share of physical (and political) problems and they're not done yet. 10% of the route is on a new alignment; they have to get under the Edinburgh City Bypass (which means diverting it); houses have been demolished at Galashiels and Gorebridge, an new viaduct is required over Hardengreen Roundabout; 42 new bridges are required and 95 need to be refurbished, and 7 new stations will be built. I'm sure there are lines that would cost more to reopen, but I have no reason to think the Borders Railway will be cheaper than average.

 
There's a huge elephant behind you (most of you) - it's the technical respect in which Beeching was incontrovertibly right. Minor lines (I think the wish list has avoided true branch lines, but many others were never valuable as through routes) were built to carry goods. Passengers were never a significant source of income; too few and they can walk a few miles while bricks can't. Local distribution of both people and goods is better done by road (that's been true since just after the first world war, subject to a bit of time to ramp up production and reliability of trucks and buses). No railway can ever go to enough end destinations for either. Buses and taxis can.

I'm sure a very good bus service could be provided in perpetuity for the capital cost of some of these reinstatements. The key question is which ones are worth doing as railways because that provides something better, for the same money, than a good bus service. Of course there is a subsidiary: can we actually overcome the economic prejudices that have hampered integrated transport and in particular buses as the "last mile or ten" of a rail system.

 

I'm doing what I can to redress the balance. I spent the first 17 years of what has been an interesting life in Lancashire, before working my way down to Cornwall and France, and have lived in Bristol for nearly 37 years, now splitting my time between there and Devon. My three "children" were all born in Bristol, one still lives here. I have, therefore, a boot in both camps, maybe even all three or quatre.

Lancashire of my childhood illustrates the problem with rail. It was once king, but lost out to the more flexible bus and the private car. Routes closed, and those that remained were run on a shoestring. The Oldham loop line, on which I took my first ever train journey, was by the end falling apart, and would have been horrendously expensive to bring up to scratch as a heavy rail line. I followed the conversion to Metro keenly - the nay-sayers were many during construction, but shut up completely on the day the first tram ran from Mumps. The town centre remains in turmoil as the route is extended through it, but there are already signs of a general improvement in the town centre. The whole project will have taken five years to complete, but its effect will be for a hundred years or more.

The Oldham Evening Chronicle from the day I was born, close to Easter in the late 17th century, lists special trains to Fleetwood, as well as the attractions to be found on the piers of Blackpool. These included the "Blacked-up Nigger Minstrels" and "G H Elliott - the Chocolate Coloured Coon", the like of which you will never see again. Fleetwood fell prey to Dr Beeching's axe, and is now one of the biggest towns in Britain without a mainline connection. During my teens, when I lived between Blackpool and Flootweed, I used to booze occasionally at the North Euston hotel (once with P J Proby, although I didn't realise it was him at the time), a magnificent building that was once the end of the line for passengers heading for Scotland from London, who would change to a steam ship for the rest of the journey to Glasgow until the WCML was built. I went to school in Blackpool and, disastrously, in Fleetwood for my truncated sixth form often by tram, which outside of summer is the quickest and most direct way. The Blackpool tram system also suffered from under-investment, but was always more than just a tourist attraction, and the pride taken in the refurbished tramway and its new Flexity trams is palpable, Plans are afoot to bring the tramway from the seafront to Blackpool North station, with a bid being scheduled for 2015. Whilst that probably means that Fleetwood will not see mainline train services for a very long time, if ever, it is a wonderful idea. In a masterpiece of planning, there are points already outside North Pier, where I saw at various times because of complimentary tickets for showing posters in my parents' version of Fawlty Towers, such as Morecambe and Wise, Mike and Bernie Winters, Freddie and the Dreamers, an unknown Paul Daniels, and Frank Carson. I was at school with Frank's son Tony, and also knew his daughter Majella, although never in the biblical sense. I met Frank a few times - lovely man, despite a few demons.

The reason for this reverie is not just to show that nostalgia isn't what it used to be, but to show why the Wellington and Cullompton reopening is such a complicated issue, despite the apparent simplicity, and why it would work. My country abode is in Bishops Nympton, about midway between Tiverton and Barnstaple, and close to South Molton. There was a Bishops Nympton and Molland station before Beeching, and you can still see the remnants by the Black Cock Inn (Warning - do not Google this term with children nearby!!) All along the former line, there are nothing like as many people as there between Blackpool and Fleetwood, or Manchester Victoria and Oldham Mumps, or Bordeaux and Libourne for that matter. The A361 was built over much of the trackbed, making reinstatement impossible without huge engineering. And, as ellendunne says, fewer people live in Devon and Cornwall than in the dark Satanic Mills oop yonder. But I am sure there is capacity on the line for a stopping service to call at Wellington and Cullompton. There may be a percieved lack of passengers, but who knows what would happen if the stations were reopened. Investment follows good transport.

 

There is no elephant.

I don't blame Beeching for the cuts, because he didn't make any - he just wrote a report. Within the parameters he was set, there is little that can be faulted in his report. Within the paremeters he was set, he was incontrovertably right to recommend the closure of my local line; the line I use every time I go anywhere by train, and without which I would hardly ever travel by train.

If Beeching's report had been implemented in full, there would be no branch lines or local stations outside London now (and very few so-called 'cross-country' routes). The presumption was to replace local rail services with buses as soon as this was viable. The branch lines that have survived are in areas where the roads were bad in the sixties and seventies. So why haven't they closed, now that the roads have improved?

Because buses can never match the quality of rail.

I am not saying that all the lines closed in the Marples/Castle era should be re-opened; I do however think that the presumption should be that, within reason, all towns and suburbs with a population over a thousand should have a rail link. 'Last ten miles by bus' just isn't good enough.

 
We need to differentiate between the question of whether a station or a line should have been closed, or whether once closed, it should be reopened. They are very different questions.

The cost of keeping something open is much less then re-opening it some 40 or 50 years later. 

 

I think it really depends on your definition of "local" in the context of local distribution. Many of us would agree that the Severn Beach line has a local passenger service, so I will use that as an example.

The passenger rail service on the Severn Beach line was listed for withdrawal and the stations along it were listed for closure in The Reshaping of British Railways, but survived through the rationalisation and general neglect of later years, including the partial bustitution of the Avonmouth-Severn Beach section, ironically a direct result of the need for a unit to serve the newly opened Filton Abbey Wood station.

Withdrawal, this time of the service beyond Clifton Down to Avonmouth & Severn Beach was again recommended in the report that helped shape the specification of the current GW franchise, but again the service lived to fight another day.

However, a few years ago, Bristol and South Gloucestershire councils were persuaded by local campaigners to subsidise the service, which led to step-change improvements in frequency, a 7 day a week service, much improved station facilities and information systems, along with better quality trains with more capacity.

This has in turn led to phenomenal increases in passenger numbers, which means that the councils now pay a significantly reduced level of subsidy, while retaining all of the above benefits.

Having travelled on the improved services a fair bit, I have often heard people say how much faster and more convenient the train service is compared to the bus alternatives, which probably does provide an answer in itself regarding which mode of transport is the better provider in this instance.

It certainly strikes me as an excellent example of how to spend local taxpayers money wisely, and I doubt I am alone in that analysis.

 

And in most cases, cheaper too. For example:

Shirehampton to City Centre, by bus ^3.90 return
Shirehampton to Temple Meads, by train ^3.00 return

A weekly season ticket on the bus valid from Shirehampton ^18.50
A weekly season ticket on the train ^9.00

Admittedly, the bus season is 'go anywhere' on First Buses in Bristol Zones 1&2, but I'm not sure that double the price of the train represents good value. Especially if you are only doing an out and return commute. I've chatted to one regular commuter at Shirehampton, who despite having the 40/41 buses stopping adjacent to her place of work, takes the train to Temple Meads and walks. Her annual season on the Severn Beach Line is ^360, versus ^800 for a bus annual season.

 
The average bus journey in the UK is 6 miles, the average train journey is 20 miles.  I'm on holiday / not got my source with me, but you get the picture. Buses are indeed great for the local feed, but how local is "local".  As an example, I'm looking at Corsham to London - Corsham was one of the places I mentioned for a new wayside station earlier in this thread.   Between Batheaston Junction and Royal Wootton Bassett Junction, with two express trains an hour, a more local service could be accommodated without the need for huge expenditure such as 4 tracks.  From Royal Wootton Bassett Junction to Didcot, extra stations will need major major track investment with 6 or 7 expresses per hour to accommodate as well!

Anyway ... here's the start of the forthcoming (28th July onwards) timetable for the 231 bus route, which becomes the only frequent bus linking Bath via Corsham to Chippenham;   232 services have become 231s.   The half hourly (5 and 35 from Bath) of the 08:05 and 08:35 continue all through the day, same intermediate timings.



Now - journey from Corsham to London. 

Timing ...

* Get the 08:52 bus, that's 09:16 at Chippenham station. Train leaves at 09:25, into London at 10:40.  End to end journey - 108 minutes.

* If that train called at Corsham (that would be around 09:15), journey time would be reduced to 85 minutes.  If a local train called at Corsham and a Wootton Basset stations before transferring passenger at Swindon to the London Express, I would estimate a 95 minute journey.

Loading ...

Corsham is a town of some 12000 people - about half the size of Melksham, vwey roughtly the same size as Westbury.  You're looking at between 200,000 and 250,000 passenger journeys per year based on other Wiltshire stations such as Warminster and Trowbridge (excluding the likes of Chippenham which is a railhead sponge, and Melksham which has insufficient service at present to make a valid comparison)

Many train journeys will be to Bath, Bristol and Swindon and the local or express service will do equally well.   Studies show a 40% drop in traffic if a service is not direct, and that would apply only to the London traffic / localish train - let's estimate a drop of around 20,000 journeys a year

The bus service, 41 minutes to Bath as opposed to 10 by train is unattractive for that local journey. And for all the other major destinations, you have a slow bus journey, connection time, and then a train - and we've found that over 75% of potential traffic gets lost in such transfers, and that's actually a very conservative figure indeed bearing in mind it comes from rail replacement bus service loadings where you have the benefits of through ticketing, and fastER bus journeys (not all round the houses) and guaranteed connections to the trains.

Observing bus journeys between towns in Wiltshire, around two thirds get on close to one town centre, then off close to another town centre.  And must be very frustrated by the sightseeing tours (231) of Rudloe and Cepen Park

All this evidence points to the sense of (re)opening selected stations on existing lines where the capacity is there and will be there for the next 15 to 20 years.   For the truely local / in town / nearby villages, totally agreed that the bus is best.  But even for some of them, the opening of selected intermediate stations makes a big difference. Rudloe to Swindon would be 15 minutes faster via Corsham station than via Chippenham - 45 minutes versus an hour.

P.S. If you attract all these extra people onto the Corsham to Bath train, you'll also help Bath with its traffic problem on the A4 approach.  Some of the extras will be new travellers, others will be transferring from their cars, typically one person per 4 seat vehicle queueing all the way in!

 

Don't forget the Faresaver X31 route, which also runs half-hourly during weekday daytimes linking Bath via Corsham to Chippenham. This takes the alternative (232) route through Corsham, and also goes via Chippenham railway station. See quote below for more details:


The Faresaver X31 timetable can be found here.


Indeed, and a further way of doing this which would tie in with that idea is the park and rail station scheme currently under consideration at Bathampton, near the junction there. See article here.

It would certainly also be more acceptable to those in both the local area including neighbouring villages such as Batheaston & Bathford and also those further afield who were so passionately against the proposed bus-based Park and ride scheme at Bathampton Meadows, which was shelved in 2011:

 http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/Bathampton-Meadows-safe-park-ride-pledges-council/story-17515448-detail/story.html#axzz2XyEJl9wH

http://www.wellho.net/mouth/2857_Park-and-Ride-at-Batheaston-will-it-solve-Wiltshires-Ills-.html

http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/Promise-stopping-trains-Oldfield-Park-Keynsham/story-18653169-detail/story.html#axzz2XyEJl9wH

 
Back on topic -


http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/story-19524631-detail/story.html

 
It's like anything though, isn't it - if the oft-used phrase "third party funding" were magicked up to put towards Cullompton station, it would be a heck of a lot shorter than that.

I once met a leading Network Rail figure at a meeting in Bristol, and remarked that I had been studying their route plans. His response - "You must be the only person who does then" (his words I hasten to add - I know a number of CoffeeShop members do).

One of the most interesting aspects of doing so is noticing how a project can go from absolutely nowhere to the top of the list seemingly overnight, if the money suddenly appears from behind the sofa - Bristol City Council's decision to fund the Clifton Down turnback is an example that particularly sticks in my mind.

 
Just spotted this on the BBC news website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-23389343

 
Interesting, as the mix of feasibility study and timetable modelling suggested in collaboration with Network Rail is exactly the same kind of work that has been carried on the TransWilts over the last few years.

On the upside, this has helped unlock the door to both LSTF funding and inclusion in the priced option section of the GW franchise renewal documentation, leading to a greatly increased chance of the introduction/restoration of an appropriate TransWilts rail service.

On the downside:

1) Despite all this the TransWilts still has no confirmed agreed date for the introduction/restoration of an appropriate rail service.

2) Although the TransWilts studies do take into account the possibility of new stations along the route at (say) Wootton Bassett, the scheme is in no way dependent on the opening/reopening of such stations. In contrast, the Cullompton/Wellington proposals are (obviously) entirely dependent on the opening/reopening of such stations, which does make things rather less straightforward.

Finally, one lesson that has been firmly learnt on the TransWilts is the absolute need to keep as many of the interested parties united and on board as possible, and I do feel that some of the recent quotes I've heard on the Collompton/Wellington issue suggest that may not be entirely the case there.

 
From the Mid Devon Gazette:

 
Good grief, there seems to be an element of forward planning going on!

"Proposed new development" means s106 money. Infrastructure costs here would presumably be a platform loop on the north-bound side and reinstatement of the platforms, plus access and car park works, which would come out of different jam jars at the council treasury. There would surely also be government and / or EU development funds. All that is needed for the moment is to set a firm of consultants to work on the study of likely patronage. They could use Atkins, who found no case for a tram link into Bristol City Centre, but found that Bust Rabid Transit would rid the city of almost all private traffic. Tell them that you want a positive result this time, and I'm sure they'll happily provide the necessary evidence.

Crediton car park, somewhere I know fairly well, is probably empty for two reasons. Firstly, the trains for Exeter at peak hours are often packed by the time they reach Crediton. Secondly, a lot of people live within walking and cycling distance of the station. In the first case, the car asserts its pull, with its comfy chair, radio, and refreshment facilities (polo mints), leading to a drive to work. In the second, the car stays home.

The older I get, the more cynical I become, but this Cullompton idea could be a goer.

 
I'd put my mortgage on this story being linked in some way to this story from a couple of days ago. Seems like just too much of a coincidence for them not to be.

 
Without doubt DavidBrown! Willand is closer to Tivvy Parkway, but 1500 (average) homes on each site is a bigger development than it sounds at first hearing. Nice to see they are thinking transport first.

 

There and I thought they kept their money in Cocoa tins. Jam jars would be a health and safety hazard if you dropped them!

 
Tins are also a safety hazard, with sharp edges. 

Many local councils also experienced problems when their investments in Iceland were ... err, frozen, a few years ago. 

 
From the Somerset County Gazette:

 
An update, in the form of a video news report, from the BBC:

 

Just in time for the local elections?

 

If so, then in many ways it's the perfect time to get it aired in public. Surely there must be a few members of the campaign switched-on enough to realise that we are at the start of planning/lobbying for CP6 investment, not to mention that there's shortly to be enough DMU stock available to extend Cardiff/Taunton's through to Exeter. And of course the more traffic the line sees, the better the business case for extending electrification from Bristol to Exeter, which would improve the business case for the Berks & Hants, and even the WoE.

As for the old duffer who says he wouldn't use it, I'd wager once he and his wife had used it a few times for a day out they'd be converts.

 

There are neither Borough nor County elections in Taunton Deane or Somerset in 2016.

Taunton Deane Borough Council is up again in 2019. Somerset County Council is 2017.

 

Looks like I'm a cynic, then.

 
I was wondering if a way of trying to get the line re-open from Okehampton to Exeter as a Regular service  as like stage 1 of trying to get the whole line from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton.

1) Okehampton to Exeter St David
2) Okehampton to Axminster
3) Okehampton to Exeter and up to Taunton  to stop at Collumpton, Tiverton and Wellington and back to Exeter and Okehampton

Maybe a Rail service from Okehampton to Axminster with a two hour service at the start.

 

I may be missing something, but I'm not sure how much of a step toward a through service would be made by stepping up the summer Sunday service to a year round one.  Extension from Bere Alston to Tavistock, on the other hand, will / would narrow the gap considerably to about 16 miles.

At the "Border Railway" rate of about 10 million per mile, the final gap is around 160 million to plug - although some quotes have suggested 500 million to 700 million; that probably comes down to whether you're looking at a single line with passing places allowing a service at relatively slow speed every hour, calling at all intermediate stations, or a double tracked main line all the way from Exeter to Plymouth.  In the 'cheap' case, I suggest you're looking at a service with a 158 or equivalent for both Okehampton and Tavistock, replaced by a 10 car IEP at times of diversion of passengers for Plymouth via the route.  The pressure then to speed up the train / provide more will be enormous, and I suspect that were it implemented there would be a strong later chance of the planners being accused of only doing half a job, and there being pressure to achieve 3 hours London to Plymouth vis Okehampton.

 
I was only suggestion start the rail service from Okehampton to Exeter as a regular service because the track it currently there and it be a good way of building a new rail service for people

 
There is a group already started looking at ways of funding a daily service between Exeter and Okehampton in some guise. Many organisations are in the group including GWR, BARS (the current leasholder), Tarka Rail Association, Devon & Cornwall Rail partnership and others. Their first meeting was at the end of last year and they have met again since.
Hopefully a way forward can be found

 
Wonder just what the likely demand is? What's the population of Okehampton?

 
Population is same size currently as Crediton. It has growth planned of 900 houses over the next 10 years increasing its population by 25%
WebTag has been shown to not predict passenger numbers well. Look at the Borders Railway, Airdrie-Bathgate and Ebbw Vale in Wales. These all carried many more people than WebTag predicted by a large margin.

Over 14 days last year the line on four trains had over 3,000 journeys!

Two surveys were carried out in 2012 and 2015 at Okehampton Station, so not complete, asking where people were travelling to. This year permission has been gained to do a survey on the Sunday Rover services

 

I know that the Sunday service has been extremely well patronised, but, doing a survey on what is currently essentially a tourist service would not give an answer as to whether Okehampton residents who work/shop in Exeter would use the railway to commute to work or to go shopping during the week? Would it not be far more useful to leaflet drop residents?

 
Indeed, also a daily service would allow tourists to spread themselves across the week & thus reduce the current Sunday numbers too